With this chicken recipe, you don’t sear, and you don’t roast, and you don’t grill and you don’t do any of the things we’re taught to do to chicken. Instead, you lay the chicken, skin side down, in a barely hot pan. Then you leave it mostly alone for about 30 minutes, flipping only once. The skin becomes impossibly crisp, enough so to satisfy your darkest fried chicken cravings.
The simplest version of the sauce has only minced-up preserved lemon stirred into the pan juices at the end, but you can play with this technique as you like using sherry and mushrooms, or bacon and olives. You can deglaze and make gravy or a fancy pan sauce. Or just eat all the chicken as fast as you can.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Rind from half of a preserved lemon, finely chopped
- Lemon wedges, for serving
Directions
- Put the olive oil into a large, heavy skillet over medium heat.
- Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and add them to the skillet, skin side down.
- Cook them like this, without moving them, until the fat has rendered out and the skin is deep golden brown and crisp, 15 to 30 minutes.
- Fiddle with the heat, reducing it to medium-low if the skin begins to burn before it gets evenly golden brown.
- Turn the thighs over and stir the preserved lemon rind into the fat in the skillet.
- Continue cooking the thighs until the meat closest to the bone is cooked through, about 15 minutes more.
- Serve the thighs and lemony pan drippings with the lemon wedges.