Our main course this evening is...

coq au vin.

I adore the stuff. It's so easy to make that the results are almost like cheating. The recipe is as follows:

2 broiler chickens, cut up or 8 thighs, bone-in with skin
1 750 ml bottle of a decent dry red wine, decant it carefully and let it breathe for an hour or so
1 large onion, sliced thin
1 large carrot, sliced thin
4 springs thyme
5 sprigs parsley
2 T butter, clarified if you have it. unsalted if not.
1 pound small white mushrooms
1 pound white pearl onions
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
4 slices good bacon, cut into 1/4" pieces
1 bay leaf

In a bowl, place the wine, onion, carrot, thyme and parsley. Let it sit for at leasst 4 hours. Overnight is better.
Strain and reserve wine and vegetable/herbs separately.
In a large heavy pan (I use a 12" enameled cast braising pan) sweat/fry the bacon chunks until crispy and brown.
Remove and reserve.
Add 1 T butter to drippings. Brown chicken, in batches. Set aside in large bowl.
Add 1 T butter to pan, scrape well and brown the pearl onions until golden. Put in bowl with bacon.
Add the mushrooms, stirring well until they release some juice and start to brown. Add garlic and stir until garlic's aroma is released, about a minute. Remove all and put with onions and bacon. Set aside until later.
If needed add more dripping and/or butter to pan. Cook marinated vegetables and herbs until very limp. (The carrots won't cook through. Don't worry about it.)
Whisk in reserved wine and return combination to a slow boil.
Add chicken back in and cover. Simmer until chicken is tender. (Usually about 45 minutes.)
Return bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and garlic to pan, placing them between and around the chicken pieces.
Recover and simmer until sauce is beginning to reduce. (try to keep this well below a boil. Depending on what kind of wine you use and it's quality, boiling with usually give a nasty "bitter" taste to the sauce. It's icky and you don't want to waste all that good stuff. Even using a heavy pan, I put a heat diffuser under it and turn the gas as low as possible while still maintaining a decent simmer.)

There's 2 ways this can be done. If you don't like the sliced onion and all that in your dish, remove the chicken from the pan and strain the wine. Do this before adding in the onions, bacon and so forth. Return chicken to pan and add that other stuff.
Otherwise, if you don't mind the slices (which I don't) just continue simmering. If you are concerned about cooking the chicken too long, remove it for the time being. If you do this, you can simmer the wine and stuff until it's a consistency you like without worrying about the fowl falling apart totally.

This is tasty is cooked one day, cooled and kept in the fridge until the next day. Then reheat.

Serve with baquettes and salad or whatever you want. Mashed taters, rice, noodles, it's your call.

NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM as DD says.


I don't generally have a problem with stuff burning during the first few steps. If your pan is heavy enough and your heat is low enough and your patience is, well, patient? You will be fine. It would be a shame to burn something and lose the accumulated flavors and aromas from all the good stuff being sauteed or sweated or whatall.

Another thing... if you prefer to use olive oil in place of the dripping and butter, go ahead. It will change the final taste a bit but cut down on the saturated fat.

If, for some reason, you aren't happy with how the sauce is melding, a sneaky (and not authentic) way of bringing it together is to use about a tablespoon of tomato paste. Take everything out of the sauce, return to simmer. Stir in the paste and put everything back in. You won't taste the mater but it sure does tend to pull all the flavors together. Maters, the miracle fruit/veggie/dobob.

If you prefer to not use so much wine, a nice way to proceed that works just great is to use 1 1/2 to 2 cups wine and sub 1 cup chicken broth and 1 cup beef broth for the remaining volume.

Near the end of the cooking process, taste the sauce. You may need to add some salt, and various herbs to your personal taste. I do sometimes, depending on my mood at the time.