The Enduring Appeal of Roasted Chicken Provençal

I've had to eat low-salt, low-fat since my 2012 angioplasty, so would have to modify this with white meat and no salt. I found a great low-sakt chicken revipe that starts with salt-free broth:

http://nosaltnofatnosugar.com/2015/02/04/clean-eating-crock-pot-chicken-...

Baste halfway through, as Sam says, and all your crispy skin dreams will come true. It did for me!

Apparently there are a bunch of very tough customers who cook, too. I agree that there should somewhat of an attitude reduction and more of an effort to be a little helpful.
My contribution is simply when I noticed the little fellows not tanning up in the second roasting session, I hit the broiler for the last 10 minutes or so. browned 'em up like little George Hamiltons.
Also, I threw in a couple of halved breasts and the whole thing turned out real good for 7 people with little attention to the actual cooking. Oh another addition: quartered lengthwise 8 plum tomatoes and roasted them for two hours - nice color and taste w/salt, pepper and a bit of oil.

Yes, the chicken was kind of slimy from the flour, plus the vermouth and shallots, etc made it impossible for the chicken to do anything but really steam. i caught it right before it was too late and fried it in a cast iron skillet but that process was annoying. The dish is worth making because the lemon and other ingerdients are such a nice pairing- just brown the chicken first....

"The chicken was seasoned with spices meant to evoke the flavors of southern France: rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, lavender, marjoram, chervil, sage."

These are herbs, not spices.

The 2nd paragraph begins like this:
"The chicken was seasoned with spices meant to evoke the flavors of southern France: rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, lavender, marjoram, chervil, sage."
Spices? I think the French think of these as herbs and "spices" are items like cloves, cardamon, pepper, cinnamon, turmeric. That said, "poulet provencal" is a great casual dish, and which can easily be made by practically anyone. What is missing though (I lived in Provence for a couple years) is oilive oil, a couple cloves of crushed garlic, a hand full of chopped black olives and dry white wine is used instead of vermouth. Before serving some fresh basil leaves which you tear with your fingers are sprinkled over the whole lot. These are key ingredients found in Procence dishes. Wine pairing was not mentioned but a rosé from Provence or a Bergerac red match perfectly with this dish. "Bon appetit!"

I find the title of this dish rather droll; when we spent a week in Arles last May we could find only one restaurant that had a chicken dish on the menu (since we seldom eat red meat, we looked at a good many menus). Fish and lamb are much in evidence, but not chicken or pork. Omnipresent was the dreadful "Cote de Taureau"; bull steak (bullfighting is an immensely popular seasonal spectator sport in Arles, and evidence of bullfighting culture is everywhere) that's as tough as shoe leather and unseasoned to boot-- after three futile attempts to chew the meat I conceded defeat, sent it back, and had lamb instead. And this was in a restaurant reputed to be one of the finest in Arles! The absence of chicken on Arles menus is a great mystery. Delicious rotisserie chickens are a mainstay of the town's huge street market, but are certainly not to be found in its restaurants. Perhaps things in Avignon or Aix are different, but our stay in Arles-- a lovely town otherwise, I hasten to say-- would certainly have been materially improved by access to dishes such as this one.

I, too, had the problem of the skin not browning at 400 degrees. With flour on it, and no caramelization, the skin was doughy. The interior of the chicken thighs was delicious and perfect.
I believe there must have once been another step and that is to fry the chicken lightly before putting it in the pan. That step would have improved the dish nicely. But my husband doesn't eat chicken skin so he didn't even notice that it wasn't brown.

Made this recipe and would strongly recommend browning the chicken that is dusted with flour- before roasting. Otherwise, nice dish!

While Herbes de Provence may have become popular in the US in the 1970's, they've been around for a whole lot longer than that and are STILL in the pantries of any decent home chef. That said, it sounds like a nice recipe. I love one pot meals, and I'll be making this one soon

Made this last night and the skin did not crisp up as noted in the recipe. It might be better made in a shallower sheet pan than a large roasting pan to spread out the chicken and avoid a steaming effect from the high sides of the roasting pan. Frankly, I found this to be a rather bland dish. I'm not clear what good merely spreading the lemons around does. Adding some olives as one commenter suggested would help. As for the "sauce" it's mostly rendered chicken fat. I was underwhelmed.

Wow, such vitriol over a chicken recipe...maybe his neighbors ARE plain spoken. I lived in Madison and that would be considerd a compliment....
As they say in the South, don't get your panties in a wad. I never realized what cooking snobs there are out there. Checking the ingredient list now, should be embarrassed if I don' t have every single ingredient at the ready in my pantry, including natural chickens in the pasture!

Yum. Yum!

Herbes de Provence is hardly a staple of the 70s. I've kept it on hand in my cupboard for years and use it frequently.
There seems to be quite a range of different herbs and proportions of herbs in this mixture, depending on the brand. Some contain marjoram, sage and/or tarragon, some don't. Whole Foods' version seems to have more rosemary. I like the version made by McCormick, a Canadian brand.
It would probably be easy to come up with your own mix, using whatever proportions of savory, rosemary, basil, thyme, lavender and other herbs you prefer. The fresher the better, of course.

I look forward to making this. Thanks, NYT.

Made it on Wednesday night and loved it! Easy to put together and impressive to serve. I'll be keeping this recipe. Thanks!

Isn't just nice to read comments that don't involve politics, war and general nastiness??? Civilities just as I remember them.

Yes, of course people in Wisconsin have "plain-spoken tastes" and everyone is just so nice! I really do tire of these irritating cliches about people who live in the mid-west.

We in Wisconsin also like colorful dish ware,despite what he says!!

Hmmm, another recipe with chicken thighs. Do people include the fat that is hidden in store packages or remove it? If the latter, you must have a lot of time on your hands.

I think it would be more accurate to say, "Americans discovered Herbes de Provence in the '70s, when those little hand-lettered clay pots were all the rage at upscale kitchen shops." I discovered it when I was gifted with one of those pots. Herbes de Provence has been a staple of my spice cupboard ever since, though I still haven't decided whose version I like best.

Sounds like a good recipe, I'll be trying it tonight. Thank you, NYT!

I eat chicken only when I have to -- i.e., when it is served on my plate. Otherwise, Steven Stolman's excellent recipe can be used for pheasant, partridge or grouse, injected with white wine prior to cooking. Thank you for this recipe!

Could this recipe be altered to slow cooking in a crock pot? Would make things convenient to prepare in the morning for an evening meal.

Use as many round, plump cloves of garlic as you can fit in the dish. Consider it a vegetable, not just a seasoning.
Beautiful recipe. makes me long for garlic harvest (June).

Plain spoken tastes of neighbors in Wisconsin? Really? What a bizarre comment! Plain white china beautifully displays and holds anything from lamb biryani to chicken provencal. It has nothing to do with "plain tastes".

"...had its heydey"? I beg to differ; there was no heyday as herbes de Provence been a gestalt for a long time in France! Also, 'accoutrements' is, I believe, the correct spelling.

alright ! - we're going to Provence next week - so I'll look out for this - thanks !

"Be nice" is good advice for family sharing meals together. We can all forget sometimes.
This recipe looks great. We're going to make it tonight.

It sounds very good - much too good for one chicken leg to be a "serving". Not at my house.

This recipe is vaguely written. are the herbs scattered on the chicken in the roasting pan? If so, both sides? Is the chicken placed in the pan skin side down?

You should really add some small potatoes to the pot as soon as the chicken is brown. I cook this in my Staub pot for chicken. Then when it is done, take it out of the oven and let it sit covered for a long time until everyone is ready to eat. Something like Yukon gold potatoes or red ones , some that roast nicely is what you need in here. I use some Orvietto in the pot as well, and drink it with the dinner.

The very idea that Herbes de Provence has to be explained, as in "it's still there, in the supermarket . . . " and apologized for ("Herbes de Provence had their heyday in the 1970s . . . ") as if it were something passé is tragic, if not laughable. The seasoning is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. No one in France could even conceive of apologizing for using it.

This is the kind of food writer who gets excited about the latest flavoring of crème brûlée, because crème brûlée is not good enough unless it is flavored.

I think we could do with a lot less of this kind of mentality when it comes to food.

Any chef worth his salt that doesn't have Herb D"Provence in their cupboard doesn't know anything. It has hardly been relegated to the cooking of the 70's. What rubbish. This "HIPSTER" article made me laugh out loud. Oh yes, make sure you use that special Bloomingdales' platter and be sure to wear your blue suede shoes when you serve it to your privileged, pampered friends.

Steven is one of the nicest people I've met! His generosity shines through in this recipe and article.

Looks great. We are familar with chicken provencal as a stew -- it's our favorite stew and it's super easy. And it's a great demonstration of fennel as a stew element. Here are barebones instructions:

Fry (in olive oil or butter) a finely sliced fennel bulb and a large onion (or equivalent shallots), chopped garlic in a stock pot till they carmelize or even burn a little. Meanwhile fry about 6 boneless chicken thighs till they're brown at the edges, then deglaze (boil clean) both pans with with white wine and chicken broth and add everything to the stock pot. Add a large can of plum tomatoes (which you may want to chop). Add some nice olives -- kalamata or provencal or oil-cured of any time. Season with salt, pepper, thyme, and add wine and chicken broth to get whatever is your optimum level of liquid -- some like it more stewy, some like it more brothy (for dipping bread perhaps).

The flavors develop nicely in about 40 minutes of gentle simmering, but it's better if it can go slow for an afterno0n, and even better the next day after a refrigerator/reheat cycle.