Coconut-Curry Braised Chicken Thighs

This simple, big-flavor chicken thigh dish is a great intro to the fundamentals of braising—once you've got the method down, you can braise just about anything. Braises are perfect for richer, slightly tougher cuts of meat—bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs in this case—and are all about building layers of flavor over time. You're essentially browning successive batches of ingredients (meat, followed by aromatics like onions, ginger, and garlic, followed by spices), then trapping all of that tasty goodness in liquid to create a complex and deeply delicious cooking medium. And since braises tend to be rich, we always like to serve them with something zippy to brighten things up—you can get by without the coconut condiment in this recipe, but a few wedges of lime and some cilantro are non-negotiable.