I've finally figured it out, although only within the past year or so. It was not part of the kitchen lore passed down to me from my mother; in fact, I had to teach her.
Cookbooks will tell you to make a pan sauce after you roast a chicken, but I've done this maybe twice in my life. We're not a gravy kind of family. So if you don't make a pan sauce, there's a big greasy mess to clean up after you roast a chicken. Here's how to reduce the mess and get more out of your chicken.
After the meal, remove as much meat as you can from the bird and refrigerate it. Break up the carcass and throw it into a 3-quart pot along with all the skin and the gnawed-on drumsticks from dinner. Add all the accumulated juices from platter and roasting pan. Finally, add water to the roasting pan (about 2 cups), scrape up any bits remaining in the pan (heat it briefly if necessary to get them up), and pour this into your saucepan. Add more water if needed to cover the bones. Bring this to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer it for several hours (until bedtime approaches).
In the meantime, you can wash your roasting pan. Then, about a half-hour before you go to bed (or after at least 2 hours), pour the contents of the saucepan through a strainer, discard the bones and skin, let the broth (yes, now it's broth) cool a few minutes, then refrigerate it uncovered overnight. The next day you can remove the hardened fat and you will have chicken broth to use in cooking.
My next project is to begin saving all veggie scraps for broth, as recommended by Jacques Pepin. I'll keep you posted.
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