Dijon Chicken Fricassee

OK, so I'll be honest: we don't really like chicken all that much. It's kind of bland, usually hard to make it taste like anything but cardboard, and the quality of the meat you find in the average supermarket is pretty low. That said, we're trying to get some different protein sources into our kids' diet besides the grass-fed beef that's been the staple for so long. So, we hunted out the best chicken we could find, and then hunted around for a somewhat different recipe that might be interesting enough. Fricassee is a classic way to prepare poultry, it's pretty fast, and the flavors are about as good as you're going to get. Here's what I tried:

1 cup chopped onion (half a large onion)
1/2 cup diced carrot (2 carrots)
1/2 cup diced celery (2 stalks)
4 bone in skin on thighs (would work just as well with two thighs and two legs)
1 quart water
3/4 cup white rice
2-3 tablespoons of Dijon mustard, to taste

Coat the chicken in paprika. Heat a 12" stainless skillet (you CANNOT use non-stick) to medium, and add regular olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the mirepoix plus a decent pinch of salt and sweat, about 5 minutes. Remove the vegetables, add a bit more oil if needed, let the pan heat back up, and add the chicken skin side down. Brown the skin (about 5 minutes), then flip and brown the other side for about 5 minutes. The pan needs to be rather hot - the chicken should be browned well but nowhere near done, with a decent amount of fond in the bottom. Leaving the chicken in, deglaze the pan with the water (you could use chicken or vegetable stock) and add the vegetables back in along with the Dijon mustard. The liquid should not quite cover the chicken pieces. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer covered for about an hour, until the chicken crumbles with only a bit of pressure from a wooden spoon. Remove the chicken from the pan, remove the meat from the bones, then shred the meat a bit and return to the pan. Add the rice, cover, and cook until the rice is done. Serve hot - it's a whole meal in one pan.