OnePotChicken

A friend of ours had bariatric surgery recently. So he eats far less now than he used to. It's important that what he does eat is really tasty, healthy and nutritious. He doesn't want a lot of potatoes - he simply doesn't have the capacity for them any more. And no carbonation in anything - so no beer (or soda).
So the upshot was to make a one dish meal with chicken... But of course it needed to be amped up, so here goes. The ngredient list looks pretty intimidating, but I would imagine you would have most of the ingredients in the pantry. And yes we did "serve this to people" and Madame said we could!
And, full disclosure, I adapted this from a Serious Eats recipe - Thanks again Kenji

Ingredients

1T olive oil

9 chicken thighs (that's because 9 fit into my largest skillet!), bone in and skin on, seasoned with salt and pepper

8 oz bacon chopped into small pieces crosswise

1 large red onion (that's because we had a red onion - white or yellow would be fine too) diced

1 fennel bulb - diced in the same sized pieces as the oinion

1 head green cabbage shredded like you might for coleslaw

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

2T coarse grained mustard

2t habanero vodka (aka secret ingredient)

3 cups chicken stock

2T white sugar

3 bay leaves

12 thyme sprigs

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 and position a rack in the middle. I used the convection bake setting, so it doesn't matter quite so much where the rack is. I had these potatoes (for Madame and me) salt baking on the middle shelf.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a 12" saute pan. Make sure it is shimmering and that there are little whiffs of smoke. Place the thighs SKIN SIDE DOWN into the hot pan. Do not cover with a lid, but do use a splatter guard if you have one. Leave over medium heat undisturbed for 8-10 minutes. The skin should brown and start to crisp up.

Once the chicken has browned, flip it over and cook on the other side for 3-5 minutes - just to get some color.

Transfer the chicken to a warm plate and add the bacon to the pan. The bacon will need to cook for 3-5 minutes. It crisps and darkens a bit.

Pour off most of the fat in the pan and then add the onion and fennel and cook until soft and very slightly brown. Again about 3-5 minutes.

Add the cabbage (it will look like the pot is overflowing, but it does wilt down sum. Keeping the pan on medium heat cook the cabbage until some of it gets a slight char. You will need to keep tossing it in the pan because there is so much of it. 

Add the vinegar, mustard, secret ingredient and deglaze the pan.

Add the chicken stock, thyme, bay leaves, and sugar and bring to a simmer.

Nestle the chicken skin side up in the simmering stock. It is vital that the skin of the chicken be above the liquid. 

Put the pan into the preheated oven and "bake" for 35-45 minutes. My instant read thermometer registered a scary 200. But the chicken was fine. Skin nice and crispy. Certainly any pathogens had been obliterated. 

To serve, place the chicken onto a serving platter or bowl. Cover with the cabbage and remaining liquid. Garnish with fennel fronds, and serve.

A bit of work for a Tuesday - total elapsed time about 75 minutes. But a good chunk of the time was spent with the dish in the oven.

Now I have some left overs for lunches. Except, of course, I forgot to take any to work today.