Chicken Vesuvio

Another standby. This is a slightly simplified version which works nicely for me when it's been a busy day. Or when I'm totally disgusted with the world.
This will serve around 4 people as a main.

4 1/2 pound chicken, quartered and backbone removed
salt/pepper
1 T dry oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
olive oil, as needed for browning
2 pounds russet potatoes, each cut into 6ths.

6 large garlic cloves, peeled and quartered
1/2 tsp (minimum) red pepper flakes
1/2 c (as needed) chicken broth

1 C frozen peas, thawed
fresh parsley, chopped for garnish

Oven to 450.
Salt and pepper chicken pieces. Sprinkle oregano and garlic powder on chicken.
Heat oil in heavy braising pan.
Saute potatoes until golden brown.
Remove potatoes, add chicken to braising pan and brown on all sides. (I put bacon weights on the chicken to make sure all the skn gets browned.) Add cloves garlic and red pepper, stir until aroma is released.
Return potatoes to pan. Remove pan from heat and stir in broth. Return pan to heat and bring to boil.

Cover pot tightly, move to oven and bake until chicken is fully cooked. Add peas to pot, recover and cook for around 5 minutes until peas are done.

Serve, garnished with peas, potatoes and parsley. Pour sauce around chicken on plates.

Good stuff.

Since I discovered that there were no potatoes in the house, I ended up using canned new potatoes. This made it necessary to change things around a bit. I browned the chicken first, then deglazed the pan with a little chicken broth. Cooked that down and added the canned taters. Browned them up nicely and set them aside. Added a little more chicken broth and the garlic cloves and pepper flakes. Stirred until aroma was released and removed the garlic. (Since my chicken was about 1/2 again as large as called for I figured the cooking time would need to be lengthened so I increased the amount of broth to 1 cup.) Put the broth in the pan, brought it to a boil, added the chicken pieces and stuck the garlic down into the broth around the meat. Covered it and put it in a 425 degree oven for an hour. Removed the pan, added the browned potatoes, recovered and returned to the oven for 30 minutes. Pulled the pan partway out of the oven, lifted lid and dumped in the peas. Slid cover back on and let cook for another 10 minutes.
Removed pan from oven, put chicken on a platter, peas and potatoes in bowls and set them aside under a towel. Returned the pan to the cooktop and cooked and stirred the sauce down to a 1/2 cup.
The intensity of flavor we got using this variation we found to be a real "wow" factor.