Coq Au Vin Recipe – Chicken Cooked in Red Wine
Coq Au Vin Recipe – Chicken Cooked in Red Wine
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Peel your pearl onions. I sliced off the ends and removed the outer layers. Watch some Youtube while you peel. Try not to cry.
  2. Chop your celery and carrots. I don’t peel my carrots, seems like a waste of perfectly good food, a good wash is fine. Is that weird?
  3. Tie your parsley, thyme, and bay leaves together with string to make a bouquet garni.
  4. Cut up your chicken. If you’ve never done this before, it’ll probably feel a bit awkward. Basically, you’re aiming to separate the legs, wings, and thighs from the body at the joints. You can use your hands to feel for them, or bend the limbs in the opposite direction to find where they are. Google it if you have trouble, the more you do it the easier it’ll get! Separate the wings, legs, thighs, and breasts. Put the remaining skeleton (carcass?) in a freezer bag or container and keep it in the freezer for making chicken broth or soup later.
  5. Uncork your wine, and toss the chicken, chopped vegetables, bouquet garni, peppercorns, and wine in a large bowl. Mix to make sure the chicken is submerged and coated. Cover and marinate overnight up to two days, turning every twelve hours or so to make sure it gets into every piece.
  6. Who knew purple chicken could be so appealing. Strain the marinade, reserving it (you’ll need it later) and let the chicken rest for 5-10 minutes to dry out. You can also pat the pieces dry with a paper towel.
  7. While you’re letting the chicken rest, dice your bacon and fry it in a dutch oven until crisp and brown. Remove the bacon from the pan (leaving the grease) and set aside.
  8. Brown the chicken in the bacon grease, working in batches to not crowd the pan. This seemed so wrong and so right. Once the chicken is brown, set it aside.
  9. Add the pearl onions, carrots, and celery from the marinade into the same pot you browned the chicken in. Let them cook for five minutes, then add the mushrooms, and cook a few more minutes. Dust the veggies with the flour, stirring to combine. This will make the gravy nice and thick.
  10. Add the liquid from the marinade, the bouquet garni, and the chicken into the pot and let it come to a boil. When it boils, lower the heat and let it simmer about 1 hour.
  11. Serve with rice and a glass of your favorite red wine.
Recipe Notes

Recipe inspired by Julia Child, bon appetit, Raymond Blanc, epicurious, and Gimme Some Oven.