Destination Dill Chicken

My favorite use for chicken thighs is enchiladas rojas, a recipe that I love from America's Test Kitchen. The other night, I bought some boneless thighs at the market and when I got home I went to work trying to figure what I wanted to do with them. I found a recipe in Sara Foster's Fast Easy Fresh cookbook for braised tarragon chicken. With a some modifications, my boyfriend and I were soon having Dill Chicken Thighs with Pan Sauce. The chicken was very tender and the sauce complimented it nicely. Plus, I always like a recipe you can start on the stove and then throw in the oven to finish while going about other things. I served the chicken with an orzo salad with fresh peas and roasted aspargus and kale sauteed with spring onions and olive oil. As hard as I try, I don't love kale and the CSA farm share has been full of it for three weeks straight. I don't mind a couple of the more mild varieties, but since I don't know their names I can't recommend them here. Orzo salad came out well: orzo, lemon vinaigrette, asparagus, minced shallot and some lovely fresh peas that I threw in with the orzo for the last minute of cooking.

I've seen recipes for toast with butter and sliced radishes and they never really interested me. However given the large number of beautiful purple, red and white radishes in the farm share from yesterday, I knew I had to figure something out. I toasted some sliced sour dough bread, spead it with unsalted butter and topped with the thinly sliced radishes and a sprinkling of kosher salt. That turned out to be a pretty good snack while preparing dinner. I do love toast with butter, so throwing the radishes on top isn's that much of a stretch. So what if all those French people know what they're talking about. With the rest of the radishes, I think I may go with Deborah Madison's recommendation from Local Flavors and make a compound butter to speed the radish-toast-butter-salt intake process. I'll throw the radish butter in the freezer and just take a little slice when I need my toast and radish fix.

Dill Chicken Thighs with Pan Sauce

4 small (about 1 1/2 lbs) skin-on chicken thighs
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1 large shallot, minced
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon dijon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoons of olive oil in a 10" skillet over medium high heat
Season chicken thighs with salt, pepper, and half of dill
Cook chicken 4-5 minutes until golden on one side and turn them to cook for 4-5 minutes longer
Remove chicken from skillet and turn heat down to medium
Add shallot to skillet and cook 2-3 minutes, until soft
Add broth and deglaze the pan
Whisk in mustard, return the chicken to the skillet and bring to a boil
Put skillet in oven and cook 20 minutes
Remove chicken and if sauce needs to thicken, reduce over high heat
Stir in remaining butter and dill and season to taste with salt and pepper
Serve sauce over chicken