Coq Au Vin

COQ AU VIN

WARNING: PREPARE ONE DAY IN ADVANCE

INGREDIENTS:

• One whole chicken deboned
• Or 1kg of chicken pieces (tights works best)
• For the marinade:
• 1 litre of red pinot noir wine (burgundy)
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
• 1 shallot
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 bouquet garni
• 1 teaspoon of black peppercorn
• 50 ml of Cognac (I used Courvoisier)
• 20 ml of peanut or sunflower oil

For the stock:

• The Carcass of one chicken cut in pieces
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
• 1 tomato
• 1 bouquet garni (or a bay leaf a few twigs of thyme)
• 500ml of premium chicken stock (of the shelf)
• 200 ml of water

For the sauce:

• Marinade used to cook the chicken
• Reduce chicken stock
• Cognac 50ml

For the garnish:

• 125 grams of pearl onions
• half a tablespoon of butter
• half a tablespoon of granulated sugar
• 125 grams of smoke pork belly, bacon or pancetta in cubes
• 125 grams of button mushrooms (you can use other forest mushrooms too)
• 4 slices of white bread
• Parsley (to decorate)
• Salt and pepper to season

Things to prepare the day before:

1. Marinate your chicken pieces in red wine to do so:
2. Put all the chicken pieces in a large recipient and add with 1 sliced carrot, 1 sliced onion, 1 sliced shallot, 2 cloves of garlic, a few twigs of thyme and 1 or 2 bay leaves.
3. When done add one litre of burgundy red wine and two tablespoons of oil over the chicken.
4. Finally using a clotted spoon, give the mix a stir, cover with a lid or plastic wrap and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 6 hours, turning the pieces of chicken from time to time.
5. Make a 500 ml of brown chicken stock using this recipe. Or eventually you can use a good quality of the shelf brown chicken stock (in liquid form, not stock cubes)

METHOD:

Start by getting your marinade and stock ready for use:

Take the chicken pieces out of the marinade and pat them dry with a kitchen towel. do the same with the garnish from the marinade and keep both the chicken and the vegetables from the marinades separate.

When done filter the marinade through a sieve into a sauce pan and bring it to the boil to allow it to reduce. Before the marinade boils make sure to remove the scum appearing on the surface.

Do the same with your chicken stock. (if you use readymade stock just warm it up in a pan and let it simmer gently while you start cooking your chicken)

When the above is done, you can start cooking the chicken:

In casserole dish, add a mix of butter and oil, bring up to medium heat and brown all the chicken pieces until golden, then transfer to a plate. When done (in the same casserole dish)  cook the marinade’s vegetable for a few minutes and return the chicken to the dish. Add a dash of cognac and lit it up to do a flambé. Add now the wine marinade and leave to reduce for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes top up with warm chicken stock until it barely covers the chicken pieces. Season lightly with salt and pepper put a lid on the casserole dish and cook in the oven for 30 minutes at 200 Celsius or 392 F

While the chicken is cooking, prepare the garnish:

Caramelised pearl onions: add all the pearl onions in a sauce pan, add a tablespoon of butter, half a tablespoon of sugar, top up with water half way to the top of the onions and cover with a piece of parchment paper. Leave to simmer on low to medium heat until all the water evaporates and the onions are caramelised (they should become light brown in colour). When done keep aside.

Fried Mushroom and Bacon: put a in a frying on high heat add a tablespoon of butter in it and wait until the butter start foaming. Add the mushroom cut in quarters in and fry until golden brown. Reserve on a plate when done. Next in the same pan add your bacon cubes and frying until lightly crispy. When done return the mushroom to the pan mix well and reserve on the side.

Large croutons: start by cutting large triangle in the Crumb of a large white bread. then put a frying pan on the stove and bring it to medium to high heat, add a good nudge of butter in. when the butter foams add the triangle of bread and toast until golden brown. To one side first then the other side. You may have to add butter in the pan. If you like you can use oil instead of butter. When done set aside.

Finishing the dish:

When the chicken is cooked after 30 minutes take the meat out of the dish and reserve it on a tray while you finish the sauce. Filter the sauce through a sieve and discard all the garnish. Once the sauce has been filtered put it back in your pan. check the seasoning of your sauce and add any salt and pepper if needed. Then to give the sauce the right thickness, add a little bit of beurre manie (equal amount of butter and flour mix together) to the sauce until you get the desired consistency. Add now all the fried bacon and mushroom in the sauce, a dash of cognac and bring to the boil. As soon as the sauce boil its ready to serve.

Serving: you really have 2 choices. The first one is to put all of chicken in the pan with the sauce add the caramelised onions in as well, give it a stir and put the casserole on the table as is.

Source: The French Cooking Academy