Preheat your oven to 375 F convection.

Start out with rendering the pancetta or lardons until they go crispy and golden. Do this all in one pan and add a tablespoon of water to help render the fat out. Once they are crispy remove.

Season your chicken with salt on both sides and let sit out between paper towels for 20 minutes to come to room temperature. Once the pancetta is done, cook the chicken skin side down in the fat over medium heat. You want to allow the chicken skin to go crispy. Once the skin is golden brown, flip and cook on the other side for about 1 minute. Remove and set aside.

If you have more than 1 tablespoon of fat in the pan, remove some with a paper towel.

Now add the onion. I don't add any salt as the fat is already salty. Coat the onion in the fat and then top it with the thyme stalks.

Now lay the chicken breasts on top of the thyme and onion. Add in a small handful of the bacon back in for flavor and then add the water. Again, you can use chicken stock or wine here too.

Cover and cook in the oven for 10 minutes.

Now remove the lid and cook the remaining time uncovered so the skin stays crispy. I cook the chicken until the internal temperature reads 165 F at the part of the breast near the bone. This took around 20 minutes of total cooking time.

Now remove the chicken from the pan and let it rest. Remove the thyme as well. You can actually save the thyme for a stock if you want.

Put the pan on the stove top and add in the flour. Cooking on a medium heat for 2 minutes stirring constantly. Now add 1 and ¼ cup of chicken stock and the black pepper. Stir or whisk to make sure there are no clumps of flour. Cooking for 2-3 minutes and then taste. You may add a touch of salt at this stage but if your chicken stock is seasoned, you likely won't need it.

Now add in the mustard. It's a lot of mustard. You might think it's too much mustard. It's not.

Again, whisk or stir aggressively until the mustard is all incorporated and then add in the heavy cream. The sauce is now done.

Finish it with the finely chopped parsley and it's ready to serve. Put down a lovely generous layer of the sauce onto a plate and then slice the chicken in half on the diagonal and plate it up.

Scatter around the pancetta you had set aside earlier and then give it a final sprinkling of parsley.