Coq au Vin — Chicken with wine.
Preparing the chicken
Get your ducks in a row, and your Mis en Place
Potatoes, parsley, butter, onions, butter, mushrooms, and butter
Dinner for deux
Ingredients
- 1 chicken (frier — about 4 to 5 lbs) cut into pieces
- 3 cups cheap red wine (almost a whole 750ml bottle, leaving enough behind to sample)
- 1/4 cup Cognac
- 1 to 2 cups of chicken stock (or beef stock if you prefer)
- 8oz sliced mushrooms
- 18 or so white pearl onions
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/2 Tb tomato paste
- approximately 1/2 stick of butter for sautéing
- 1/4 tsp Thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 tb All-purpose flour
- Salt and pepper
- Fresh parsely
Notes
This recipe is based on Julia Child’s recipe from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. The original recipe calls for cooking the chicken in rendered bacon fat. I omitted this ingredient because the person I was cooking for is none too fond of pork (though polite enough not to complain). The 1961 version of this recipe calls for blanching the bacon prior to frying to remove the smoked taste that we associate with bacon (tres French) so the primary reason the bacon is used is for the saltiness, the fat, and a touch of pork flavor. If you’re down with some porky goodness, drop 3 or 4 strips of bacon in boiling water for 30 seconds, pat dry, and fry it up, instead of using oil and butter.
Coq au Vin is basically browned chicken cooked in red wine with mushrooms and onions. It’s hearty and delicious. Roast up some potatoes to go along with it. It’s not altogether different from Chicken Cacciatore in its construction.
Preparation
Cut your chicken into pieces, breasts, thighs, drumsticks, and wings. Save the carcass for making stock. Sprinkle salt liberally over both sides of the chicken, set aside on a cutting board or plate.
Blend the 3Tb of flour with 2Tb butter to create a thick paste. I do this in a small (cereal) bowl with a fork. Set this aside, it will thicken the sauce later.
Get all your spices, salt, and pepper measured into little dishes (soy sauce plates from an Asian market work great) . This way, when it’s time to drop in ingredient x, you don’t have to fumble around for a spoon.
How to
Begin by preparing the mushrooms and onions. You may also want to boil or roast some potatoes while your doing this, because Coq au Vin loves potatoes.
Sauté your mushrooms in a couple tablespoons of butter, with a touch of oil added. When you’re sautéing, you should have the pan pretty hot, nearly smoking, and you should keep the food moving around. Also, whatever you’re sautéing needs to be dry on the surface, otherwise it will not brown…and brown is what you want here. If you like, finely dice half a shallot and toss in with the mushrooms.
Once brown on all sides, move the mushrooms to a plate, and put your pan back on the heat.
Using the same pan as the mushrooms, add a couple more tablespoons of butter and sauté your pearl onions. To peel these little guys drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds. The peels will slide right off.
Roll your onions in a paper towel and add them to the hot butter. Roll them around to get all sides nice and brown. Once brown, add about 1/2 cup of chicken stock (or white wine if you like) to the pan. Cover and turn the heat to low. Once all the liquid is gone, you’ll have beautiful brown and tender onions.
In an oven-safe pan, melt 2Tb of butter with 1Tb or so of cooking oil (I used olive oil) over high heat. Once the butter has stopped foaming, just before it turns brown, add the chicken. Let it brown on both sides for about 4-5 minutes. Season the chicken with a little pepper.
Pour in 1/4 cup of Cognac. Using a long kitchen match, ignite the cognac. You don’t even have to touch the flame to the liquid, just bring it close, and stand the f**k back. Flames will dance 2 feet in the air over the pan. Allow the flames to die down, shaking the pan once it’s safe to approach, to burn off the rest of the alcohol.
Pour 3 cups of cheap red wine (preferably a bold one, like a Shiraz or a Côtes du Rhône, but cheap) over the chicken. Add one bay leaf, 1/4 tsp of thyme, and two crushed garlic cloves. Stir in 1/2 Tb tomato paste. Turn the heat down to low, allowing the chicken to simmer for about 30 minutes. Check for doneness with a meat thermometer, or check to see the that juices from the chicken run clear.
Once the chicken is cooked, remove and place on a plate. Turn the heat off the sauce, and skim off the excess fat. With the fat removed, crank up the heat to a boil and reduce the mixture by half-ish (about 2 1/4 cups).
Once reduced, remove the bay leaf and crushed garlic. Blend in your butter-flour paste with a whisk until smooth. Allow this to simmer until the sauce is thickened. Add the chicken back to the sauce, along with the mushrooms and onions. Make sure the chicken gets evenly coated with the sauce.
Allow the chicken to simmer for a minute or two, to bring it back up to temperature, then serve with roasted potatoes, garnished with fresh parsley.
