French sauté - Chicken Zucchini and Carrots

Heat up oil in a nice big skillet to a little over medium heat. A nonstick skillet won't brown stuff up as well, but it is fine to use it. Cut the zucchini and carrots into 1/4 inch rounds, sprinkle with salt. Throw the cut veggies into the skillet and let them just cook. You want them to still be solid, but not uncooked feeling. Remove to a bowl. Salt and pepper chicken thighs and add them to the still hot pan (if you need to add more oil, do so). You want them to brown and cook all the way through, turing once. The key here is to get a nice crust going. Once they are cooked thoroughly (don't undercook, no sense getting sick) remove them to a bowl. I use the same bowl to hold the chicken and veggies, since the chicken is now completely cooked.

Turn down the heat to medium low and add the shallot, with a sprinkle of salt and a grind of pepper.

When cooking onion or shallot, I like to do it low and slow as it brings out the sweetness. It takes a few minutes, but if you do it right, they will start to get a little color without burning and they will really add some richness to your dish.

Once the shallot has just started to turn color, turn up the heat, quickly add the garlic, oregano, thyme and parsley. Give it a quick stir and wait for the room to smell heavenly. I then add the flour and a little more butter. Stir it all up, it will look a mess, but don't worry, it will get much better very soon. Give the flour a moment to cook so it won't taste raw, but don't cook so long that stuff begins to really burn, the shallot and garlic are a bit touchy on that front.

Now add the wine, and start scraping the pan with your wooden spoon, get all that flavor up and into that sauce. The wine will be cooking down as you do this, and it should really start to thicken up so start adding your stock (or water if you don't have some stock handy) while stirring and scraping. Add liquid until it is just a little runny for your tastes and let it cook down for a moment and thicken up. You could keep the chicken and veggies in the oven to keep them warm and then make a really pretty presentation on the plate with the thigh placed just so, the zucchini and carrots placed artfully around it and the sauce drizzled on with so much flair...

Or you can do what I did. Turn the heat down and throw the chicken zucchini and carrots back into the saute pan (with all the juices) and stir them around with the sauce and let them come up to temperature. Then turn off the heat and drop a good Tablespoon of butter into it and stir it around just before serving over rice.

The herbs for this recipe were simply what I had on hand that sounded good in this. It would be fun to try the same thing with a completely different set of herbs to see how it changed everything.

Go and cook this for your loved ones.