Happy New Year! Cooking with Mom – Chicken Provencal

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. We finished off 2016 in Edinburgh, Scotland spending Christmas with Cheryl’s sister Shelly and her husband Ross. On the way back we stopped off to see my family in the beautiful Mid-Hudson Valley of New York which is where we rang in 2017. As a bonus, I got to cook New Year’s Eve dinner with my mom which I really enjoyed doing.

Now, there are probably thousands of chicken Provencal recipes out there and I feel it’s one of those dishes which is a ‘grandmother’s recipe’ dish. Simply put, it’s roasted chicken with the flavors and seasonings of Provence. I don’t know if my mom chose it because we were just there but it was a nice way to end the year.

One thing about this dish was there was no browning of the chicken. This kind of took me by surprise but since you’re roasting/baking the chicken you don’t really need to brown it. I guess I just do a lot more braising where you need to get that sear on the meat first. It had just slipped my mind that um yeah, you can just roast chicken pieces too and they’ll cook wonderfully and brown up nicely. Maybe I need to do some more of this over the winter… Ah, always learning something from mom! I’m going from memory on this so make any and all necessary adjustments as you like.

When I got to my Dad’s house, there was no snow…

The next day we had this.

And snow at my mom’s too.

Chicken Provencal

• 4 chicken thighs
• 4 chicken legs
• 6 cloves garlic
• 6 large shallots, halved
• Flour for dredging
• Herbs de provence
• Salt
• Pepper
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 lemon sliced into 8 wedges
• ½ C vermouth

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in flour then generously rub/season with the herbs de Provence. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large oven-ready pan on the stove over medium high heat. Add the chicken pieces skin side up. Arrange the shallots, garlic, and lemon wedges throughout the pieces of chicken, tucking then in between. Pour the vermouth over the chicken and place pan in oven. Roast for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, baste the chicken and return to the oven for another 25-30 minutes.

Remove and serve.