Let's make Coq au vin

For those who don't know, this classic French dish is translated to English as "Chicken (cock, rooster) and wine" and it's very simple to make.

Here are the ingredients:

Kosher salt, cracked pepper, mushrooms, onions, garlic, carrots, tomato paste, bacon, bay leaf, thyme, chicken, chicken stock, butter and flour (not shown) and a very high quality red wine, and as you can see I spared no expense on the wine.



With a couple of tablespoons of oil, saute the bacon on medium low heat until crispy and remove leaving the fat. Season the chicken and dredge in flour, shaking off the excess. Turn up the heat and sear skin side down first, then turn over until the chicken is nicely brown.





Remove the chicken and in go the carrots, onions, mushrooms for a few minutes, then add the garlic and cook for only about a minute until you smell the garlic.



Next, pour in the red wine to deglaze the pan and to burn off the bitterness. Reduce. Pour in your chicken stock or broth, add fresh thyme, a bay leaf and perhaps a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce. I also added a touch more flour and some butter at this point. Cover and into a 350 degree oven for just under an hour until the chicken is tender. Basting the chicken halfway is optional.

Along side of this dish I made potatoes fondant. Basically you take small potatoes and cut off the ends, then stand it up and cut the skin from the sides to obtain a barrel shape. Cut that in half so you get two pieces from the potato that have the look of large scallops. Those get seared in a hot cast iron until brown, then flipped to brown the other side. Pour in chicken stock to almost cover and I put this in the same oven uncovered next to the coq au vin. My goal was to use up some homemade chicken stock that I'd made the day before.

This is the plating with a touch of parsley on top:



It turned out fantastic and my guest was pleased. The dog was happy too because I sauteed the chopped chicken liver for him.