Oops...Chicken Again...But Yummy and Different

So...as I've stated before, I'm a huge fan of Melissa D'Arabian.  I just love that she won Next Food Network TV Star as an "at home cook" - someone who didn't really have culinary experience besides being a mom who cooks.  Also, her recipes are budget friendly, using common ingredients.  This way when you are encountering something like a STILL BROKEN fridge, you can thaw out a protein and make a meal with what is on hand in the fridge.

Let me start out by saying, for those of you in the Johns Creek/Cumming area, Super H Mart is an awesome place to shop for chicken, steak, fish, seafood, fruits and vegetables.  The prices are ridiculously low and I have never encountered any issues.  I will say that if you are buying fish or seafood, I would recommend that you cook right away b/c the fridge shelf life is short.  I had some chicken thighs from there that I had frozen (6 thighs for $4.80!!) so I defrosted them and did some research on the internet looking for a recipe.  I knew along the lines of what I wanted - sort of a braised French type dish, and her "Roasted Garlic Clove Chicken" recipe was perfect, with some slight modifications.

Here is the link to Melissa's recipe, and then I have shown the changes below.

My Ingredients:

6 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
5 tsp of minced garlic
olive oil
butter
2 tsp herbs de provence (I did not have this; I looked up the ingredients for it, and I had 5 out of the 7 spices needed.  So I mixed together 1 tsp each of basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme and rosemary.  I was missing fennel and savory, but it didn't seem to matter tastewise)
1 tsp flour
chicken stock
lemon juice
white wine
balsamic vinegar
bread (to dip in the yummy sauce)
spinach

Rinse and pat the chicken dry.  Liberally season with salt and pepper and allow to temper on a cutting board while you prepare the garlic.  In a large ovenproof saute pan, cook the garlic in olive oil and butter (I used about 1 tsp of each).  Let it get nice and golden brown, appx 10 minutes.  

Remove the garlic from the pan.  Increase the heat to medium high and brown the thighs skin side down until the skin is golden and crispy - 5 - 10 minutes.  Turn the chicken over and sprinkle with the herbs.

Add the garlic back to the pan and place the hot pan in the oven.  Bake the chicken until cooked through, 25 minutes or so.  After that, I returned the pan to the stove, and took the chicken out.  I added in some chicken stock, lemon juice, white wine, balsamic vinegar, and flour.  I let that simmer for a bit, then added the chicken back in, making sure that the skin was above the liquid so that it did not lose its crispiness. 

When I was ready to serve, I put the chicken onto a platter, spooned some sauce over it, and put the rest of the sauce in a small bowl.  I also used the pan that still had some of the remnants of the sauce and cooked a bunch of spinach in that.

My sides were multigrain angel hair pasta and cut green beans, with the bread warmed and sliced for dipping.

This would be a great meal for company b/c everything could be done in advance and warming while you are serving appetizers to your guests.  It will definitely be on my rotation list for tried and true recipes!