Cookbook | Ingredients | Recipes 

| Cuisine of France | Meat

Many French regions claim coq au vin, or chicken stew, as their own, but legend has it that the recipe originated with Caesar's chef. Different variants exist throughout the world; the following recipe is one. Note that you can also use capon.

Serves 4–6.

Ingredients

Gear

Wide skillet, deep pyrex bowl with lid, and jug.

Directions

  1. Mix flour, salt and pepper. Coat chicken, onion and carrot in flour mixture and set aside.
  2. Sauté mushrooms, set aside.
  3. Brown the chicken pieces a few at a time, set aside.
  4. Brown onions and carrots. Put chicken into large casserole on medium-high heat along with onions, carrots and mushrooms.
  5. Combine wine, garlic, and basil; pour over chicken. Cover the casserole, cook until chicken is ready (1–1.5 hours), stirring occasionally.

Variations

Nearly all recipes other than those altered for low-fat diets start with lardons, or their more available substitutes, unsmoked bacon or pancetta. The lardons are cooked, and the rendered fat used for browning the other ingredients, and (with the addition of the flour) to form the roux which thickens the sauce. Generally, a full bottle of red wine is used, and brandy may be added.

Porcini mushrooms, while not particularly authentic, are good in this dish.

For the preceding ingredients, follow this timeline:

  1. For chicken stock, sear the giblets in a bit of oil in a pan, and simmer in water with an onion, a carrot and some peppercorns. For the vegetable stock, make up a cupful with Vegcon, just salty (can act as the entire stock - make 1/2 pint).
  2. In the skillet, fry pancetta and porkbelly fat with butter till golden brown. Remove pancetta.
  3. To the skillet, add the seasoned chicken pieces skin side down and fry until honey-coloured, then turn. This is vital for the flavour; the skillet must be left sticky. There won't be enough room to do it in one go, so take it in turns. Remove, leaving the porkbelly behind, snipped into pieces. (If you're doing breasts off the bone, sear on skin side only and do not put back into the dish until the oven stage - otherwise they will toughen up.)
  4. To the skillet add the chopped onion and the button mushrooms; fry for 5 mins, then add the sliced garlic and immediately flame off one of the measures of brandy.
  5. To the skillet add the chicken pieces and pancetta, then pour over all the wine and the chicken & veg stocks. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and, adding the crushed garlic and herbs, simmer for 45 mins. Turn the chicken pieces twice. Remove the chicken pieces to the pyrex lid and pour the skillet sauce into the jug; put the jug in the freezer for 30 mins and then remove the fat. At this stage, it is recommended that you refrigerate the whole dish overnight.
  6. In the skillet, add some butter along with the wild mushrooms; then pickling onions, carrots and celery; fry till mushrooms brown. Stir in the asafoetida and flame off the second measure of brandy.
  7. Add the jug ingredients to the skillet sauce, along with another crushed clove of garlic, and push the veg to the edge of the skillet; reduce the sauce in the skillet until glossy (may need flour stirred in - but it shouldn't be thick): 15 mins.
  8. Pour half the sauce into the pyrex bowl, then place the chicken pieces in, and pour the rest of the sauce on top; put the covered pyrex bowl in an oven on 170 C for 90 mins.
  9. Sprinkle parsley over each portion, and serve with asparagus/green beans, and steamed potatoes/flat noodles/rice/orzo/colcannon.

This is a difficult dish, but you've got to try it. The asafoetida is a novelty, but it does add pungency.

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