Coq au Vin | Piletina U Crnom Vinu
Serves 2.
- Prep time: 30min
- Cook time: 1h 20min
- Total time: 1h 50min
- Difficulty: Intermediate
This famous French dish is easy to make and will impress your guests! You can leave it in the oven for an hour and forget about it, giving you plenty of time to prepare the sides and set the table.
It’s best served with creamy mashed potatoes or polenta, and a few roasted cherry tomatoes on the side for some freshness. Oh, and don’t be afraid of the flambé technique. It’s not difficult to understand.
Ingredients:
- 4 chicken pieces (thighs, wings…)
- some salt
- frteshly ground pepper
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 50g bacon, diced
- 200g button mushrooms, halved
- 2 onions, finely sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 medium carrots, sliced
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 2 tablespoons brandy
- 200ml red wine
- 300ml chicken stock
- 1 bay leaf
- pinch of dried thyme
- 2-3 fresh rosemary sprigs
- some fresh parsley
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Wash and pat dry the chicken. Season with salt and pepper and roll the chicken pieces in flour. In a nonstick frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and fry the bacon until crispy. Place aside.
Add mushrooms to the same pan and cook on high heat until browned on all sides. Take out of the pan. Cook the chicken in the pan over medium-high heat until crispy and browned on all sides.
Remove the chicken from the pan and sauté the onions and garlic for 2 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. Return the meat to the pan and increase the heat to high. Flambé the chicken with brandy. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the carrots, tomato puree, and dried thyme.
Pour in the wine and stock, then add the bay leaf, fresh thyme, rosemary, and crispy bacon. When it begins to boil, remove from heat and place in a baking dish. One hour in the oven.
15 minutes before the timer goes off, add the button mushrooms. Serve with creamy mashed potatoes or polenta and fresh parsley on top. Serve with roasted cherry tomatoes and a bowl of green salad to add some freshness to the dish.
Commentary:
Coq au Vin, along with Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, is one of the most well-known classic French dishes.
This dish is only about 400 years old, and its popularity peaked in the second half of the twentieth century. Although no one knows where this famous dish originated, it is known that Coq au Vin was originally made with a cock (rooster), hence the name.
Because cock meat is typically stiff and stringy, simmering it in wine softens it and makes it more enjoyable to eat. There are numerous versions of this dish available today, some of which include white wine. The most well-known version of Coq au Vin, however, comes from the French wine region Burgundy and is made with red wine.