Company Chicken

I could not come up with a more original title than Company Chicken, simply because that expressed exactly what this dish is. It is homey, festive, and nourishing and I have now made iterations of it for three different groups of guests, all of whom have enjoyed it heartily and gone away well-fed and happy.

The chicken you use will make all the different and I do need to plug my absolute favorite here: if you can get your hands on LaBelle Patrimoine pasture-raised, Heritage, slow-grown, air-chilled bone-In, skin-on chicken thighs, buy them. They are more expensive than the average chicken thigh, but they taste amazing and we should all be paying attention to what we put in our mouths.

You can use whatever vegetables you have available or which catch your fancy at the market, and you can spice the chicken with whatever spices you want. This dish is infinitely adaptable. The most important thing here is a sturdy pan that can go straight from stovetop to oven.

This recipe serves four, rather than my usual one, but can be repurposed into other dishes if you have leftovers. I ate the chicken cold for lunch the next day with mayo, and the served the remaining vegetables and all of the delicious pan juices over polenta.

4-6 (depending on the size) bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

6 cups of chopped seasonal vegetables (in the version illustrated here, I had just come back from my local farmers' market, and used quartered Jimmy Nardello peppers, Delicata squash half rings, halved Hakurei turnips and their chopped greens, whole peeled garlic cloves, and a red onion, peeled and chopped into half moons)

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tsps Za'atar or thyme or oregano or whatever you feel like using

2 tsps sweet paprika

1 tsp ground pepper

Salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 375.

Pat the chicken dry and rub it with the spices.

Place your pan over low heat, along with a tablespoon of the olive oil. Place the chicken, skin side down in the pan. Cook over low for seven minutes. (I usually take these seven minutes to chop my vegetables and set the table.)

Remove the chicken from the pan. Add the remaining olive oil to the pan and add the vegetables, except for whatever green you are using. Salt well, and put the chicken - this time skin side up - on the top of the vegetables.

Place the pan in the oven and cook for 25 minutes. Stir in the greens and cook for an additional 5 minutes before serving.

The chicken will be both crispy and tender, and the vegetables will have soaked up all the olive oil and pan juices, and started to caramelize around the edges. I highly recommend this dish for when it starts to get cold.