You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients
Julia Child
For the season ending episode of Mad Men I couldn’t resist a making a coq au vin, a popular dish in the 60’s, after looking at several recipes I decided to try Eric Ripert’s version and at the end I blend in Beurre Manie to which I’ve added a little grated lemon zest, perfect little perk up to the dish. I used to make Craig Claiborne’s recipe or Julia’s, CI’s modern version, Amanda Hesser’s recipe on food 52, but Eric won out for some crazy reason, just something new, but I can tell you that the dish is rich in flavor and a keeper recipe.
My ongoing issue with the vent hood fan forced me into broiling the chicken and I used the crisper for the bacon in the microwave, chicken not so pretty golden, but what does it matter after it cooks for 3 hours and easily falls off the bone and the sauce, my goodness just delicious.
The braised carrots are really good and not too far off carrots Vichy that I love, add water to just cover carrots add a teaspoon or two of sugar, brown or white, salt, & pepper, and a tablespoon of butter cook uncovered for about 2o minutes or until desired doneness or until most of the water is gone, toss with additional butter and a bit of fresh minced parsley.
Recipe: Coq au Vin
Serves 8
1 chickens, cut up
flour for dusting chicken
½ cup canola oil
2 slices smoked bacon (optional)
1 cup celery, medium diced
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup diced onion
4 garlic clove, peeled and sliced
6 ounces baby bella mushrooms, diced
1 cup brandy
1 cup Vermouth
1 bottle red wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 sprigs fresh thyme 1 bay leaf
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 package fettucine nests or egg noodles
- Lay the chicken pieces on a parchment lined baking pan; season chicken with salt and pepper and lightly dust with flour.
- Heat canola oil in a heavy bottomed stock pot, slowly add the chicken and cook over medium heat until the skin is golden brown and crispy. Turn chicken and continue cooking until golden brown.
- Remove chicken from pan and discard all but 1 tablespoon of oil. Render the bacon until crisp and add the celery, carrot, onion , garlic and mushroom; cook until lightly caramelized.
- Deglaze the pan with the brandy and add the browned chicken, red wine and tomato paste and thyme. Bring to a boil and simmer on very low heat for about 3 hours, until the chicken is very tender and starts falling off the bone.
- Carefully remove the chicken from the sauce and reduce the sauce by half. Once the sauce had thickened, add the chicken and season to taste. Serve over egg noodles
