What to Do With That Skin? Get Crackin' on Cracklins

Faced with a heaping pile of chicken skin and fat after using the rest of the bird in some healthy dish? Those squishy, sallow leftovers, Francis Lam writes in Gourmet, present the perfect opportunity to cook up "the noblest form of chicken byproduct": cracklins. With that extra skin and fat all crisped up, Lam drools, "imagine … sneaking the best part of fried chicken into everything."

"If all that skin was meant to stay in one piece," Lam writes, "the chicken would've found a way to stay alive." After rattling off turn-by-turn directions to cracklins heaven, he advises of the finished product: "Cook things in it without telling anyone and wait for people to ask you why your food tastes so good." (More chicken stories.)