Coq au Vin

If you look back through these posts, you'll find a few meals we've done out of the Les Halles Cookbook, by Anthony Bourdain (of 'No Reservations' fame). You might notice a trend with these recipes, namely, that they have all been knockouts. Not just good.....KNOCKOUTS. This one is no exception.

This takes two days to throw together, the first day simply getting the marinade together and soaking the bird. The second day, doing the actual cooking. This dish TASTES like a two-day project. It tastes like your French grandmother made it.

The key to our success here was not rushing anything, using a wonderful free-range organic chicken, using good wines and lastly, using a temperature probe for the chicken. Had we left it in the pot according to recipe directions, it might have gone a bit dry. When the chicken got to 163F, we pulled it out and let it rest a bit while finishing the sauce.

This was absolutely wonderful and easy to produce.

1 liter red wine, plus 1 cup
1 onion, cut into a 1-inch/2.5-cm dice
1 carrot, cut into 1/4-inch/6-mm slices
1 celery rib, cut into 1/2-inch/1-cm slices
4 whole cloves
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
1 bouquet garni
1.3 kg chicken, guts, wingtips and neckbone removed
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon flour
112 g slab bacon, cut into lardons 1/4 by 1 inch
225 g small, white button mushrooms, stems removed
12 pearl onions, peeled
1 pinch sugar

DAY ONE
The day before you even begin to cook, combine the bottle of red wine, the diced onion (that's the big onion; not the pearl onions), sliced carrot, celery, cloves, peppercorns, and bouquet garni in a large, deep bowl. Add the chicken and submerge it in the liquid so that all of it is covered. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

DAY TWO
Remove the chicken from the marinade and pat it dry. Put it aside. Strain the marinade through the fine strainer, reserving the liquids and solids separately. Season the chicken with salt and pepper inside and out. In the large Dutch oven, heat the oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter until almost smoking, and then sear the chicken, turning with the tongs to evenly brown the skin. Once browned, remove it from the pot and set it aside again. Add the reserved onions, celery, and carrot to the pot and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and golden brown. That should take you about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and mix well with the wooden spoon so that the vegetables are coated. Now stir in the reserved strained marinade. Put the chicken back in the pot, along with the bouquet garni. Cook this for about 1 hour and 15 minutes over low heat.

Have a drink. You're almost there ...

While your chicken stews slowly in the pot, cook the bacon lardons in the small saute pan over medium heat until golden brown. Remove the bacon from the pan and drain it on paper towels, making sure to keep about 1 tablespoon of fat in the pan. Saute the mushroom tops in the bacon fat until golden brown. Set them aside.

Now, in the small saucepan, combine the pearl onions, the pinch of sugar, a pinch of salt, and 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add just enough water to just cover the onions, then cover the pan with the parchment paper trimmed to the same size as your pan. (I suppose you can use foil if you must.) Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until the water has evaporated. Keep a close eye on it. Remove the paper cover and continue to cook until the onions are golden brown.

Set the onions aside and add the remaining cup of red wine to the hot pan, scraping up all the fond on the bottom of the pot. Season with salt and pepper and reduce over medium-high heat until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon.

Your work is pretty much done here. One more thing and then it's wine and kudos ...

When the chicken is cooked through-meaning tender, the juice from the thigh running clear when pricked-carefully remove from the liquid, cut into quarters, and arrange on the deep serving platter. Strain the cooking liquid (again) into the reduced red wine. Now just add the bacon, mushrooms, and pearl onions, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, and swirl in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Now pour that sauce over the chicken and dazzle your friends with your brilliance. Serve with buttered noodles and a Bourgogne Rouge.

IMPROVISATION
If you are a bold adventurer, and live near a live-poultry market or friendly pork butcher, you might want to play around a bit after doing this recipe a few times. By cutting back on the flour and thickening with fresh pig or chicken blood, you will add a whole new dimension to the dish. Be warned, though: add the blood slowly. It doesn't take much to make the sauce sit up like a rock. (Blood freezes nicely, by the way, so you might consider keeping a stash in small, individual packets. You never know when you'll need it.)