Coq au Vin

This is something I thought we ate fairly often but looking back through the archives, it seems we haven’t eaten it at all since we started blogging. We’re definitely in Autumn now so this seemed like the perfect Sunday afternoon dish.

Previously, I think we’ve always used the Delia version but today we made it up as we went along, borrowing from both Delia and Nigel Slater along the way.

Serves Two (generously)

2 chicken legs and 2 chicken thighs
125g bacon, chopped (or lardons)
1 large onion, chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
350ml red wine
150 ml chicken stock
2 cloves garlic, crushed
150g chestnut mushrooms, chopped
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs thyme
Salt and pepper

Season the chicken pieces and then brown them. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Fry the bacon until the fat has rendered. Remove from the pan and add to the chicken.
Fry onion and celery until softened. Remove from the pan and add to the chicken.

Put all ingredients back into the pan and deglaze with the wine. Add the chicken stock and all the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Season with salt and pepper and then simmer for 40 minutes.

Just before serving, remove the chicken, bacon etc. from the pan so you’re just left with the liquid. Add in a paste of flour and butter, bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes to thicken the sauce.

Nigel suggests using something other than a non-stick pan so that a crust forms on the bottom during the initial frying. This seemed like a good idea so we used our Le Creuset casserole.

All the recipes that we came across during our “research” suggest cooking the mushrooms separately and adding them near the end of the cooking time, we’ve never bothered with this before though and have always been happy with the result so didn’t bother with that this time.

Next time I think I’ll either stir in some flour before adding the wine to help with the thickening process or coat the chicken in seasoned flour before frying so as to avoid adding the flour and butter paste at the end to thicken. Wikipedia suggests adding blood but we didn’t have any hanging around 🙂

Nigel commented that when he’d eaten this in France it was served with long, flat noodles. That seemed a little odd to us so we ignored him and had mashed potatoes, cabbage and beans instead. I can’t imagine the dish with noodles but it might be something to try in the future.

It turned out well but, as happens often, was better once it had been left to stand for a little while. It’s a relatively quick and easy dish to make and is a lot like Beef Bourginon…another dish I thought we ate quite recently but the archives tell me differently. Look out for that soon.