The Southern Recipe My Family is Addicted to

Smothered chicken may be the most delicious southern dish of all time. Well, I'm gonna show you how to make it even better using a few cooking techniques. I'm gonna make a sauce so good you'll wanna drink it. But first, we're gonna make a tasty rub for the chicken. In a small bowl, we're going to combine one tablespoon plus one teaspoon of coarse salt, a half teaspoon of ground black pepper, one and a half teaspoons of garlic granules. Yes, you could use powder. One and a half teaspoons of onion granules. Again, you could use powder. One teaspoon of ground regular paprika. And then finally, one teaspoon of ground celery seed. Mix all of these ingredients together. And if you're wondering, why am I using celery in this? Well, there are some early iterations of this recipe that have celery in the sauce. I feel like it can accomplish everything in the spice blend. Be sure to taste it. It should be delicious. Now, if you don't have access to ground celery, you can use one-to-one measurements of celery seed and just grind it yourself using a mortar and pestle. Perfect. We're gonna use that spice rub in a second, but first, let's break out that chicken. I have one whole roasting chicken in between three and a half to four pounds. Now, you could buy individual parts, but to me, it's way more economical to fabricate it yourself. Now, I've got an entire video on this, which you can watch here, or here's what you're going to do. You can use a chef knife, but for me, I prefer to use a boning knife. Locate that center sternum bone, and we're gonna slice on either side of it just to show you where it's at. Then, carving around the carcass, staying as close to the bone as you can, we are gonna remove the breast with the wing attached. Once you get to the bone where the wing is, we're just gonna expose it and then slice right through it. Be sure to keep as much of the skin around that breast meat as possible. Then, do the exact same thing to the other side of the chicken. We're going to make this an airline breast, so we wanna slice it in between the flat and the drum, making sure the drum is still intact with the breast. This is going to make sure it's bone-in for flavor and it's going to look aesthetically more beautiful. Now, for the thigh and drums, we're gonna leave this all in one piece. Just expose that thigh bone, and we're gonna flip it over. Be sure to slice and get all that chicken tender and continue cutting through, getting, again, as much skin as possible. Repeat the same process with the other side. And then, of course, you have a chicken carcass, which you can freeze later for stock, and the wings, you can also use those in stock, or you can save up until you get enough to make my world-famous smoked fried chicken wings. Yeah, they're money. Okay, back to the smothered chicken. Just going to give everything a real quick rinse. Then, with the chicken parts on a half-size sheet tray or a platter works fine, what we're gonna do is pat it dry on all sides with a paper towel. Remember, moisture is the enemy of a beautiful brown sear. Then, using about a total of three tablespoons of avocado or olive oil, we're gonna rub the chicken down on all sides. This is going to act as a binder for our spice blend. And speaking of that, we're just gonna remove one and a half teaspoons of it, and I'll show you what we're gonna do with that in just a minute. But first, let's go back to the chicken with the remaining spice blend, and we are gonna coat it on all sides, rubbing it in a little bit just to try to infuse a little bit more of those flavors. And just in case you're wondering, nope, no flour for dredging on this one. I want the skin to be as crispy as I possibly can. It's going to be more delicious that way. We're gonna quickly set this to the side because I've got another little secret here. We are going to thinly slice up six strips of smoked bacon. And yeah, this is a huge game changer. Let's immediately take it over to the cooktop where I am going to be using a six-quart Rondeau pan. Any sort of sauce pot will also work here. We're gonna turn the heat up to low-medium, add those bacon lardons in there. All we wanna do is render the fat and crisp up that bacon, which is probably going to take in between five and seven minutes. Once it's beautifully golden brown and crispy like this, I'm gonna swap out the wooden spoon for the slotted spoon because I'm just gonna take all this goodness out of here and set it to the side in a small bowl. And now I've got a beautiful Rondeau full of leftover rendered bacon fat. Yep, we're gonna cook in it. Mop up all those extra spices on the sheet tray with the chicken, and we're gonna put it skin side down right in the Rondeau pot, be about an inch apart from each other so we can get a nice sear. We don't wanna steam this. Let's turn the heat up from low-medium up to medium, and we're gonna cook this for in between four and six minutes. We wanna get a beautiful brown on this and try to crisp up as much of that skin as we possibly can. Yes, some of that spice blend is absolutely going to fall off, but browning that skin is just gonna add way more flavor to this. And after that amount of time, we're gonna flip it over. Oh, yeah, yeah, it looks incredible. We're gonna continue to cook it for four to six minutes on this side. But before we finish it, we're gonna be good stewards of our time. Let's head back over to our cutting board. I have two large yellow onions. You could also use white or sweet, but yellow is going to be best for caramelizing. After you remove the peel, we're gonna slice these into about half-inch thick rings, just like this. Then I have five garlic cloves, which we're going to thinly slice. Yep, just like in the Goodfellas movie when he's making sauce. Now that the prep is finished, let's head back over to the cooktop, have a look. The chicken looks fantastic. We are going to briefly set this to the side. And no, it will not be completely cooked through at this point, but we will get to that. However, we need to get cranking on this sauce. We are gonna add in the onions. Note, we don't need to gently season them because all that goodness in the bottom of the pan is gonna do that. Let's immediately take the heat from medium down to low-medium, and we are gonna occasionally stir these for a total of 20 minutes. I know that may seem like a bit of time, but I promise you it is 100% worth it. The flavors are going to be so, so good. Don't believe me at the end of the 20 minutes? Just go ahead and try one of those onions. Yeah, you know it's good. Okay, at this stage, let's add in our garlic cloves, and we are gonna cook them just until fragrant, which only takes 30 to 45 seconds. Starting to smell ridiculous in here. And I may make some Southerners mad, but I don't really care. I'm adding in one cup of dry Chardonnay wine. It's gonna add a little bit of acid and really flavor up our braising liquid. We're gonna turn the heat back up to medium. Yeah, I know, a lot of adjusting. And now using your spoon, remove the fond. That's the nummy goodness stuck to the bottom of the pan. Scrape all of that up. And reduce the wine to help concentrate the flavor. We're going to cook it until there's a few tablespoons left. This is also known as au sec, or almost gone. We are next going to add in three tablespoons of all-purpose flour because we want to create a roux so that our gravy is perfectly and beautifully thick. Stir in the flour until it's completely coated in with the onions. We're going to cook it for a further two minutes. We don't want a blonde roux. We don't want a dark roux. We just wanna cook these ingredients a little bit to make sure our gravy stays nice and dark. Now at this stage, I'm adding in four cups of good chicken stock. I've got a fantastic homemade recipe that you can check out right here. And we're gonna keep the heat on to medium. And we wanna bring it to a gentle boil. This will activate the roux so that it thickens our gravy. Sorry, things are getting a little smoky around here, but I promise you the viscosity of everything is perfect. And at this point, let's make sure it's seasoned up enough to braise our chicken. Oh my gosh, is that so, so good. All right, we are good to go. Adding the chicken right back into the gravy. And yep, get all the extra juices from the plate poured in there too, just more flavor. We are gonna simmer this over low to medium heat for a total of 20 minutes. We wanna make sure the chicken's cooked through. And we're gonna leave it uncovered to try to keep that skin as crispy as possible. And at this stage, all you need to figure out is what are we gonna serve this up with? You could go super classic with some creamy mashed potatoes or even some plain cooked rice. And of course, for a side of veg, maybe some collards or even just some simple butter glazed green beans. Yeah, I'm starving at this stage, but I know whatever you choose is gonna be ridiculously good. All right, let's go have a look at our chicken. Golly, does this look and smell so, so good. And I promise you, this is almost finished, but I've got another thing to just make the sauce that much better. Speaking of, let's ruffle some southern feathers, shall we? I'm going to finish it with a quarter cup of heavy whipping cream, then two teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves. Mix everything together, have a taste. Yep, good to go. In fact, it's incredible. Now to plate this up, you can serve the chicken right in that caramelized onion gravy. Don't forget about the crispy bacon and why not some chives? Now to serve this up, I'm all about those mashed taters. Big old scoop, tons of that chicken. Let's add some of that, yeah. Shout out to Colin for that shot. Finish it up with some chives. Let's get the verdict. Yep, winner, winner, chicken dinner. The flavors in this from the spice rub, the sear, the gravy, oh my gosh, the gravy. This is comfort at its finest. And if you really love these one pan meals, check out my Chicago Chicken Vesuvio. Had an awesome recipe video. See you on there.