Pan Chicken with New Potatoes & Artichoke Hearts

You need the bone and the skin for this to work, so you can either purchase a quartered chicken, or you can buy a whole one and butcher it yourself.

Quarter about a dozen new potatoes. Slice one onion thinly. Rub the chicken with salt, pepper, garlic and a squeeze of lemon. Set everything aside.

In a LARGE skillet, heat up about a tablespoon of butter or oil. Let the pan come to high heat and then place the chicken in skin side down. Let it sizzle and pop, then turn the heat down to medium high. Flip the chicken and sear the bone side until the bone turns a deep brown. Remove the chicken from heat and set aside.

Place the potatoes in the chicken fat and sear them until you see a light crust forming. Then scoot them to the edges, add the onions and place the chicken back in the pan. Sear the chicken just a little bit further—skin side down--and then bring it to rest skin side up. Everything in the pan should be in a layer.

While the pan is hot, hit it with a serious splash of wine. You could measure it like a wussie, or you could pour it from the bottle dramatically for a count of “3 Mississippi”. The pan will hiss at you like a pissed off cat and steam like a sauna and your people will be impressed. When it settles down pull it from the heat and put the whole pan in a preheated 400 degree oven.

Walk away, lovey. Walk away. Let this bad boy roast for about 20 minutes. After that, pull it from the oven and add 1 jar of drained artichoke hearts and a dallop of good, whole grain mustard. Stir that all in, moving things around a bit. Back in the oven it goes for another 5 minutes at which point you begin to check it for temperature. 170 degrees on the thigh is your magic number.