Instructions

1. To get the crustiest skin, leave the deboned, seasoned chicken uncovered skin side up in the refrigerator for between 1 – 4 hours.

The Chicken

1. Debone the chicken (don't forget that extra nub), trim the excess skin. Add the bones and skin to two cups of water in a small stock pot. Bring to boil, reduce to something betwixt a simmer and a boil. Like a vigorous simmer. This simmer will go on until the chicken is cooked, so YMMV.
2. Liberally salt the chicken on its skin side. Flip it over and liberally salt and pepper it in the non-skin side.
3. Nestle chicken skin-side down in a cold, dry cast iron skillet Typically, the general shape will be kinda triangular, so you can point them all into the center. They can snuggle, but if they do, they will stick together. What’s going to happen is that you’re going to bring them up to heat and render out the fat. They WILL be stuck to the pan, until they’re not anymore.
4. Put the cold cast iron on a medium / medium-high burner and let it begin to come up to temperature. I usually cook for about 20 minutes on the skin side, monitoring the temperature. I’m looking for a nice dark golden brown skin before I flip them. It will get splattery as the fat renders out. I like to use a “meat weight” thing that we have, but you can also just occasionally smash them down with a spatula. If you have a splatter guard, it wouldn’t be a bad idea; I usually need to wipe down the whole stove when I’m done with this. But your ticket to flavortown is worth it.
5. When the skin is nice and golden brown, and absolutely not sticking to the pan, flip the chicken over – usually about 20 minutes. Throw in a couple tablespoons of butter, some whole cloves of garlic, and sprigs of rosemary.
6. Cook chicken until it’s at least 175. You really can’t overcook it, FR FR.

The Sauce

1. Remove chicken to a plate. It’s on bitches!! Pour the liquid from that stock pot that’s been simmering on the back burner through a strainer directly into the cast iron skillet (Discard everything left in the stockpot or strainer). Deglaze that shit!!. Scrape all that fond off the bottom with your favorite wooden spatula. Congratulations, you’re making an epic gravy AND cleaning your cast iron at the same time!!
2. Drop (around) four tablespoons of butter into the hot stockpot, back on the same heat source. Once the butter has melted, whisk in flour slowly to make an awesome roux. Once you like where the roux is and like how much the stock has reduced, pour the stock out of the skillet through a strainer into an intermediate vessel that you can hold with one hand.
3. Slowly add the stock to the roux, whisking constantly. When you have a nice gravy, you’re done. Don’t forget the salad. Hopefully you have enough gravy to pour it all over everything, because it’s amazing.
4. The dijon… is problematic. I always add it, but the dijon that I have usually makes the gravy lumpy. I like the tanginess that it gives, but I might need to replace it with something else.
5. You can add white wine or cream (or both) if you have them around, but if not, no wories.