Coq au Vin

Serves 2.

• Prep time: 30min
• Cook time: 1h 20min
• Total time: 1h 50min
• Difficulty: Intermediate

This famous French dish is not very complicated to make and your guests will love it! Once you put it in the oven, you can forget about it for an hour which gives you plenty of time to make the sides and set the table. It’s best served with creamy mashed potatoes or polenta and for a bit of freshness try adding a couple of roasted cherry tomatoes on the sire. Oh, and don’t be intimidated by the flambé technique. It’s actually quite simple and straightforward. Perhaps you’ll find this video helpful.

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°C.
Wash chicken and pat it dry. Rub salt and pepper over it and roll the chicken pieces in flour.
In a non stick frying pan heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil and fry the bacon until crispy. Set aside. To the same pan add mushrooms and cook on high heat until browned on all sides. Remove from the pan. Now add the chicken to the pan and cook on medium to high heat until crispy and browned on all sides. Remove chicken from pan and add onions and garlic. Saute for 2 minutes, or until the onion becomes translucent. Return the meat to the pan and turn up the heat. Add brandy and flambé the chicken. Add carrots, tomato puree and dried thyme and season with salt and pepper. Pour wine and stock over it, add bay leaf, fresh thyme and rosemary and crispy bacon and turn up the heat. When it starts to boil remove from heat and transfer to baking dish. Cook for one hour. Add button mushrooms 15 minutes before time’s up.
Serve with creamy mashed potatoes or polenta and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley. To add some freshness to the dish, serve it with roasted cherry tomatoes and a bowl of green salad.

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Commentary:

Category: Meat
Cuisine: French

Coq au Vin is, along with Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, probably one of the most popular classic French dishes. This dish is apparently not much older than 400 years, while its popularity  reached its peak in the second half of the 20th century. Although no one knows the exact origin of this famous dish, it is known that  Coq au Vin was originally not made with chicken, but a cock (rooster), hence the name. The cock’s meat is usually quite hard and stringy, so cooking it slowly in wine tends to  soften the meat and make it more enjoyable to eat. Today there are many versions of this dish, some of which use white wine. However, the most well-known verion of Coq au Vin comes from the French wine region Burgundy and uses red wine.

Thank you!