1. Prep the chicken.

Mix the following in a small bowl: 

• 1 tablespoon salt;
• 1 tablespoon pepper;
• 1 teaspoon paprika; and
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour.

Preheat a large sauté pan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. The one I use is 11 inches across. Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

While the pan preheats, you’re going to get this flour mixture all over the outside of your 8-10 chicken thighs. A couple of ways to do this. You could take each thigh and roll it around in the flour mixture. But that’s messy and leaves you with a raw chicken bowl to clean. My preferred method is to sprinkle half of the mixture over the tops (skin-side up) of the chicken thighs while they sit in the container I bought them in. Then I use tongs to move the thighs directly from the store container into the hot pan to brown, skin-side down. While the skin side is browning, I sprinkle the remaining flour mixture over the bottoms of the thighs. Makes the process a bit easier with less cleanup.

To brown the thighs, don’t overcrowd them in the pan. I can usually squeeze in up to 10 with my 11-inch pan, but for a smaller pan you will likely need to work in batches. Give the thighs a solid 5-8 minutes for the skin to turn a nice golden brown.  Then turn the thighs over and let them brown on the other side. Once finished browning, remove them from the pan and set them aside . See below for how the browned chicken thighs should look.

2. While the chicken thighs brown, prep the shallots.

The chicken will take a bit of time to brown. Use this time to peel and halve the 10-15 shallots lengthwise (i.e., hot dog, not hamburger, style). Prepping the shallots is honestly the most labor intensive part about this dish. This part takes forever. Apparently you can buy pre-peeled shallots – but I have not yet indulged in this luxury. See my note below about using onions if you don’t have enough shallots.

Once the chicken finishes browning, and you’ve removed it from the pan, turn down the heat a bit and throw in the shallots. Pay attention to them and stir every minute or so to make sure they don’t burn. Don’t use super high heat – you want them caramelized, not browned. In the picture below, these shallots still had a good 3-5 minutes left of browning.

While the shallots take forever to caramelize, wash and half the cherry tomatoes. Set them aside for the end. 

3. Add the wine, mustard, tarragon, and chicken.

Once the shallots look good and caramelized (err on the side of more caramelized than less), add to the pan:

• 2 cups dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon Greek yogurt
• 2-3 sprigs of tarragon

Bring to a simmer. Picture below. You can see that when I was working on this particular iteration, I was running low on shallots. I replaced 4 shallots with 1 quartered red onion.

Add back in the browned chicken, skin-side up. Lower the heat and cover. 

4. Cook for 30 minutes over low heat.

After 30 minutes, the chicken should be cooked through. Remove the top and plop in the tomatoes. Allow the dish to cook for another 10-15 minutes at a simmer. This will encourage the wine sauce to reduce a bit.

5. Enjoy!