Herbes de Provence Baked Chicken & Gravy

My mom never cooked in the oven. Sure, she made the occasional cake (I can't wait to copy down the Hot Milk Sponge Cake recipe when I get home tomorrow). I wanted a roast chicken with drippings for gravy but I'm still squeamish about dealing with a whole chicken, let alone a turkey! Not quite feeling like brining today. Also, at the end, you have to carve the said whole poultry. Why not just have the chicken already cut up?

So I decided on baked chicken (curiously, roast chicken is a whole chicken in the oven and baked chicken is chicken pieces in the oven). My friend Zach told me about using Herbs de Provence and butter. A couple recipes I found called for stuffing the bird with lemon. So, I mashed everything together and came up with this. I've never baked a chicken before (ok, fine, there was one time with Italian dressing), so I welcome comments/ suggestions.

Herbs de Provence Baked Chicken
- 1 whole chicken cut into pieces (we like dark meat so I also get a package of legs and thighs - and you thought my chicken had mutated!)
- Kosher salt
- Fresh cracked pepper
- Herbs de Provence
- 2 lemons (sliced thinly on a mandolin)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly spray a baking sheet with canola oil and line bottom of pan with sliced lemons. Wash and dry chicken and sprinkle with salt and pepper on both sides. Brush one side with butter, sprinkle with herbs and lay butter side down on pan. Brush other side with butter and sprinkle with more herbs. Place remaining lemon slices on chicken and pop in the oven for 20 minutes. Check every 10 minutes after that for a nice brown color, thickest meat cooked through and the juice runs clear. When done, remove from pan and lightly cover with foil to rest before serving.

Gravy
- drippings
- white wine
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 fine diced shallot
- 2 tbsp flour

Take pan drippings from Herbs de Provence chicken and pour out fat so you have about 2 tbsp or so of drippings. Pour into a sauce pan and put on medium heat. Add pinch of salt, shallots. As shallots cook, whisk in flour. As shallots turn translucent and the pan starts to dry, add a splash of white wine and scrape up brown stuff. As that gets dry, add another splash. As that gets dry, add the broth and whisk. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until sauce is at desired consistency.