Our favorite sauce is made from chicken skin. It is a delicious gravy that we use for a lot of dishes at Joe Beef—more than we would like to admit. It’s like an extraction of the deliciousness of crispy chicken skin. Ask your butcher for the chicken skin. More skinless chickens are sold out there than skin-on birds, so the skins must be somewhere other than at a schmaltz factory. Serve this on its own or as a sauce on guinea hens or other poultry.

　　

Ingredients

Makes about 2 cups (500 ml)

　　2 pounds (900 g) chicken skins

　　1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks

　　1 celery stalk, cut into chunks

　　1 onion, cut into chunks

　　1 sprig rosemary

　　1 clove garlic

　　Pinch of salt

　　2 bay leaves

　　4 1/4 cups (about 1 liter) water

　　2 cups (500 ml) dry white wine

　　

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). In a large enameled cast-iron pot, combine the chicken skins, carrot, celery, onion, rosemary, garlic, salt, bay leaves, and 1/4 cup (60 ml) of the water. Place in the oven and cook, uncovered, for 2 hours, stirring and flipping the chicken skins occasionally.

　　

Step 2

After the 2 hours, the skins should look like the skin of a roasted chicken. Drain off the fat and add the remaining water and the wine to the pot. Return the pot to the oven, lower the temperature to 300°F (150°C), and cook for 1 hour.

　　

Step 3

Remove from the oven, strain, and serve right away or cool and refrigerate or later use. It will keep in the fridge for up to a week, or a month in the freezer.

　　Reprinted with permission from The Art of Living According to Joe Beef by Frédéric Morin, David McMillan & Meredith Erickson, copyright © 2011. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.