Pan roasted boneless half chicken with reduced chicken jus

Lay the chicken backs and feet on a sheet tray and roast at 475F for 30 to 40 minutes until hard roasted.

Rough chop the unpeeled onion, carrots, celery and the rinsed leek into a mirepoix, toss with olive oil on a second tray and roast alongside.

Discard the rendered fat, put the bones in the slow cooker, add water to the hot trays and scrape up the fond with a wooden spoon; not deglazing leaves a weaker, paler stock.

Add the roasted vegetables, the deglazing liquid and the tomato paste, then water to cover, about four to five litres.

Slow cook 12 hours or overnight.

Strain through a fine mesh chinois and ladle off as much fat as possible; a hard simmer later would emulsify excess fat into the stock and taste bad.

Make the brine: 1,000 g water, 150 g salt, 50 g sugar, two bay leaves, a halved head of garlic and a clamshell of fresh rosemary, thyme and sage.

Simmer ten minutes to infuse, kill the heat and steep another five to ten minutes like tea.

Pour the hot brine over 1,000 g of ice; once melted it is at the right strength and temperature to use.

Butcher a boneless half chicken with the skin intact: cut down the breastbone letting the ribcage guide the knife, free the wing and breast at the wing socket, cut the skin down the spine to the leg quarter, pop the leg out of its socket and cut through the thigh joint.

Lop the wing at the drumette joint, then open the drumstick and thigh along the bone line, clean the meat back and remove the double bone, cutting the tendon end on the drumstick side.

Brine both halves for four hours; a wet brine rather than a dry one, because boneless meat at very high heat benefits from the extra water weight osmosis brings in.

Drain on a double layer of paper towel and return to the fridge to dry out further; wet skin will not render and sear, and it spits in hot oil.

Reduce the stock in a heavy bottomed pot about an hour, or longer, until it is sticky and syrupy and leaves a trail behind the spatula.

Move the glaze to a small sauce pan, split it in half and freeze the other half. Lid on, keep warm.

Preheat the heaviest 12 inch pan over high heat for about two minutes, the oven to 475F and the vent hood to high.

Add about three tablespoons of canola or vegetable oil and once it shimmers lay the dry half chicken in skin side down, pressing the breast and thigh flat with a spatula.

Sear hard two to three minutes until the skin browns, then roast in the 475F oven seven to eight minutes.

Back on the stove over medium, flip it and finish on the flesh side.

Add four to five tablespoons of butter and a bundle of the poultry herbs and baste the skin side on and off for three to four minutes, which crisps the skin further and fries the herbs.

Check the thickest part of the breast at 150F and rest on a wire rack five to ten minutes with one last bath of butter.

Over medium heat swirl four to five tablespoons of butter into the chicken glaze to emulsify; the gelatin grabs the fat and makes it velvety. Finish with a big pinch of salt.

Plate the rested half chicken and spoon a generous dose of the jus over it.