Food for Thought with Suzanne Dunaway
Coq au vin
This has to be one of the easiest and tastiest classic French dishes that tastes even better, as so many things do, on the next day or two. We have lovely free-range chickens here in our corner of France or at least biologically raised without hormones and such and yes, there really is a difference in taste.
That said, The Chicken Man who brings his traveling rotisserie to our local open markets does a very mean roast bird, with the juices dripping over little new potatoes below. Very hard to resist, but I urge you to try coq au vin at least once in your cooking lifetime, put on some Edith Piaf and pour a nice glass of red or white wine and say, “Je suis très heureuse.”
Recipe
Ingredients
- A 2-3-pound lovely plump chicken, cut into serving pieces
- 4 slices lean bacon
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- A little dusting of sweet paprika for the chicken pieces
- 2 sweet onions, chopped fine
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
- 3-4 stems of parsley, chopped fine
- A dozen brown mushrooms, sliced thin and sautéed in olive oil until soft
- 2 cups red wine
- 1 cup rich chicken broth
- 6 small new carrots (optional)
- Sprig of fresh thyme leaves
Method
You may leave the chicken whole if you wish, but I feel that more surface area touched by the wine and broth will always produce a better final dish.
In a large casserole, sauté the bacon until fairly crisp and pour off any extra fat, but leave a spoon or two to flavor the chicken.
Remove the bacon, add the butter and oil, sprinkle the chicken pieces with paprika, salt and pepper, and sauté them in the butter and oil mixed with the bacon essence, turning them to brown quickly.
Put the bacon back into the casserole and add the onion to cook in the butter and oil for a minute or two.
Add the parsley and the new little carrots if you wish them included.
Let the vegetables take on color and sprinkle them ever so lightly with a pinch of sugar.
Add the wine and chicken broth.
Add the sprig of fresh thyme and bake slowly at 350F/175C for 30 minutes then add the sautéed mushroom and lower the heat to 325″ for 15 more minutes.
When the chickens are browned and you cannot bear to only smell them cooking, they are done. There should be much tasty juice, so have a good bread with this for those among you who feel this is the best part.
Dash the whole thing at the end with cognac and light it, if you like.
(You may not believe this, but I coated the insides of the chick once with mole poblano and it added an extraordinary taste to this creation. It’s the chocolate and red wine that marry happily.)
All content and recipes are copyright of Suzanne Dunaway.
