Coq au vin

Coq Au Vin

Traditionally, Coq au vin is made from an old rooster, a regional dish from Burgundy. But this can also be easily done from chicken legs or a chicken from the butcher. In Burgundy, this dish was actually a workers' dish, everything that was left was thrown into 1 pan and enriched with wine and stock. Until the restaurants discovered it and gave it a different twist and it became a higher quality to famous dish.

In this dish I give a way of making Coq au vin, but there are many different compositions to make a tasty Coq au vin.

Red wine was always used for the wine in Burgundy, namely the Pinot Noir it is said that Coq au vin must be made with Gevrey Chambertin, but I think this is a real waste of the expensive and tasty wine, so I prefer to use cheaper wine.

What do we need to make a pan of Coq au vin:

      Whole chicken from the butcher (or a French Bresse chicken) chicken legs is also possible

•       75 grams of butter

•       10 Juniper berries

•       150 grams Bacon block preferably smoked but not necessary

•       Celeriac (select a small one at the market

•       10 shallots

•        Handful of pickled onions (you can also just use a jar)

•        10 sprigs of thyme

•       2 bay leaf leaves

• .   1 large winter carrot

• .   250 grams of mushrooms

• .   12 cloves of garlic

• .   1 jar 350ml chicken stock

• .   3 tablespoons of cornstarch

• .   500 ml cheap pinot noir

• .   1 jar of tomato puree

• Bunch of flat-leaf parsley
•           2 tablespoons of flour

• 3 celery stalks
• 2 onions

Cut the chicken into pieces or take the chicken legs, I always remove the skin myself, but I don't have to, put it in a large fitting bowl, add the 500 ml pinot noir and 5 juniper berries, 5 twigs of thyme and chop 6 cloves of garlic and add them. Cut 4 shallots into coarse pieces and add. Take the stock and add it, make sure the chicken is completely covered in the wine and if the stock doesn't work, I'll add more wine myself. Cover the dish with cling film and set aside for 24 hours to marinate in or outside the refrigerator in a cool place.

After 24 hours, remove the chicken from the dish and place it on kitchen paper. Pat the chicken dry well so that when we start searing the chicken, it also roasts and does not boil from the wine and broth. Do not throw away the wine and broth with the ingredients.

Take a sufficiently large pan that can hold everything and put it on the fire, I always cut my own pieces of bacon into larger pieces, you can also use bacon cubes, but I think that this bakes away and boils and is almost impossible to see again.

Throw the butter in the pan and first fry the bacon until it starts to brown, then remove the bacon cubes from the pan with a slotted spoon and do not clean the pan, do not remove the browned bits from the bottom, this will all add flavor later .

Put some salt and pepper over the chicken and fry it until it is nicely browned all over and also remove it from the pan with a fork or slotted spoon.

Mise en Place (you can prepare this before roasting)

Cut the carrot in half lengthwise and make large blocks of 1 to 2 cm, the 2 small onions and cut them into large pieces. Take the remaining garlic cloves and chop finely. Take the celeriac and cut 3 slices of more than a cm from it. Take the slices from the center of the celeriac. Peel off the outside of the slices and cut the slices into approximately 1 cm cubes. cut the celery stalks into 1 cm pieces.

When the chicken is seared and removed from the pan. then add all the above vegetables to the pan (do not clean the pan) and fry for a few minutes until it is slightly translucent. Add the jar of tomato paste and fry it a bit by stirring so that the sourness of the tomato paste goes out and the sugars come to the top. Then add the 2 tablespoons of flour and stir well so that there are no more lumps.

Then take the bowl with the wine and broth that is left and add it to the vegetable mixture, halve the other peeled shallots and add them together with half a handful of pickled onions. Bring all this to a boil and lower the heat and let it boil down together for 30 minutes on a flame distributor so that no hotspots arise in the pan when you use gas.

After 30 minutes, add the chicken and bacon and make a bouquet of 5 sprigs of thyme and 5 sprigs of flat-leaf parsley and 2 leaves of laurel, tie this together with string and put it in the pan.

So don't let the chicken cook on low heat, but simmer very gently until a bubble rises in the pan for half an hour, then add the other pickled onions and take the mushrooms.

When I get mushrooms I usually look for the small ones and fry them in the pan with some butter and 2 cloves of garlic, if you can't find small mushrooms, halve or cut the very large ones into 4 pieces.

When the chicken has stewed for 45 minutes, add ¾ of the mushrooms and your Coq au vin is ready. Don't stew for too long, because then there won't be any left of the chicken and it will fall apart, everything should still have a bit of bite. Remove the bouquet from the thyme and flat-leaf parsley.

Take your Maizena (corn starch) mix this with 1 or 2 tablespoons of water into a paste first add half of this to the pan and stir gently until your sauce thickens if this is not possible yet add the other half until the sauce is nice condensed. Add some salt or pepper to taste

Your Coq au vin is ready but.. It's actually even better the next day pff

You can put the pan on the table in Burgundian style and then scoop, but serving it neatly on a plate is neater.

Finely chop some of the remaining flat-leaf parsley, and take a nice plate, put some chicken on it and spoon some of the sauce with vegetables over it. Take some of the remaining mushrooms, put a few on top as a garnish and sprinkle some of the chopped flat-leaf parsley over the dish and Voilà Food but.

To serve with it, you can make mashed potatoes or baked potatoes. Some beans with bacon. Or cooked endive. Cut a baguette into slices to dip in the sauce if necessary.

Serve wine with it you can drink the wine you used for marinating, I usually take a nice one myself Pinot Noir from Burgundy, for example

·        Henri de Villamont savigny les Beaune

·        Domaine Marrillier Clos Saint Germain Burgundy Pinot Noir

·        Domaine Lois Dufouleur Clos Des Perrieres 1er Cru

·        Domaine Manuel Oliver Hautes Cotes de Nuit