How To Make Coq Au Vin Recipes

Steps:

• If you are using lardons, saute several minutes in 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy bottomed casserole until lightly browned; remove lardons to a side dish and leave fat in pan; otherwise, film pan with 1/8 inch of oil.
• (My weird turkey bacon didn't give up a lot of fat, so I went with a little extra olive oil--).
• Heat fat or oil in pan to moderately hot, add chicken, not crowding pan; turn frequently to brown nicely on all sides (my skinless thighs didn't exactly"brown" as chicken with skin would have; if I had used white meat I would have left the skin on).
• Pour in the Cognac, shake pan a few seconds until bubbling hot, then ignite Cognac with a match.
• (What a rush!).
• Let flame a minute, swirling pan by its handle to burn off alcohol; extinguish with pan cover.
• Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper; add bay leaf and thyme.
• Place onions around the chicken.
• Cover and cook slowly 10 minutes, turning once.
• Uncover the pan; sprinkle on the flour turning chicken and onions so flour is absorbed; cook 3 to 4 minutes more, turning once or twice.
• Remove from heat, gradually stir and swirl in the wine and enough stock or bouillon to almost cover the chicken.
• Add the browned lardons, garlic, and tomato paste.
• Cover and simmer slowly 25 to 30 minutes, then test chicken, remove those pieces that are tender, and continue cooking the rest a few minutes longer.
• (I actually cooked it about 15 to 20 minutes longer so it would reduce and become more of a sauce.) Return all chicken to the pan, add mushrooms and simmer 4 to 5 minutes.
• Taste carefully, and correct seasoning.
• Sauce should be just thick enough to coat chicken and vegetables lightly.
• If too thin, boil down rapidly to concentrate; if too thick, thin out with spoonfuls of bouillon.

Steps:

• Cut off the root end of each pearl onion and make an "x" with your knife in its place. Bring 2 to 3 cups of water to a boil and drop in the onions for 1 minute. Remove the onions from the pot, allow them to cool, and then peel. You should be able to slide the onions right out of their skin. Set aside.
• Sprinkle the chicken on all sides with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the chicken pieces, a few at a time, into a large (1 or 2-gallon) sealable plastic bag along with the flour. Shake to coat all of the pieces of the chicken. Remove the chicken from the bag to a metal rack.
• Add the 2 tablespoons of water to a large, 12-inch saute pan over medium heat along with the salt pork. Cover and cook until the water is gone, and then continue to cook until the salt pork cubes are golden brown and crispy, approximately 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the salt pork from the pan and set aside.
• In the same pan, using the remaining fat, add the pearl onions, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and saute until lightly brown, approximately 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the onions from the pan and set aside. Next, brown the chicken pieces on each side until golden brown, working in batches if necessary to not overcrowd the pan. Transfer the chicken into a 7 to 8-quart enameled cast iron Dutch oven.
• Add the mushrooms to the same 12-inch saute pan, adding the 1 tablespoon of butter if needed, and saute until they give up their liquid, approximately 5 minutes. Store the onions, mushrooms and pork in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to use.
• Pour off any remaining fat and deglaze the pan with approximately 1 cup of the wine. Pour this into the Dutch oven along with the chicken stock, tomato paste, quartered onion, carrots, celery, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf. Add all of the remaining wine. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
• The next day, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
• Place the chicken in the oven and cook for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, or until the chicken is tender. Maintain a very gentle simmer and stir occasionally.
• Once the chicken is done, remove it to a heatproof container, cover, and place it in the oven to keep warm. Strain the sauce in a colander and remove the carrots, onion, celery, thyme, garlic, and bay leaf. Return the sauce to the pot, place over medium heat, and reduce by 1/3. Depending on how much liquid you actually began with, this should take 20 to 45 minutes.
• Once the sauce has thickened, add the pearl onions, mushrooms, and pork and cook for another 15 minutes or until the heated through. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary, remove from the heat, add the chicken and serve. Serve over egg noodles, if desired.
• Cook¿s Note: If the sauce is not thick enough at the end of reducing, you may add a mixture of equal parts butter and flour kneaded together. Start with 1 tablespoon of each. Whisk this into the sauce for 4 to 5 minutes and repeat, if necessary.

Steps:

• Heat vegetable stock in fondue pot until it begins to simmer.
• Add all other ingredients, bring to simmer.
• Place individual pieces of desired meat or veggies on fondue fork and put in pot until correct temperature has been reached. Lobster and shrimp may take under a minute to cook while beef and pork will take slightly longer. Take the necessary precautions so you don't eat raw meat.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
• Season chicken thighs all over with salt and black pepper.
• Place bacon in a large, oven-proof skillet and cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until evenly browned, about 10 minutes. Transfer bacon with a slotted spoon to a paper-towel lined plate, leaving drippings in the skillet.
• Increase heat to high and place chicken, skin-side down, into skillet. Cook in hot skillet until browned, 2 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer chicken to a plate; drain and discard all but 1 tablespoon drippings from the skillet.
• Lower heat to medium-high; saute mushrooms, onion, and shallots with a pinch of salt in the hot skillet until golden and caramelized, 7 to 12 minutes.
• Stir flour and butter into vegetable mixture until completely incorporated, about 1 minute.
• Pour red wine into the skillet and bring to a boil while scraping browned bits of food off of the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Stir bacon and thyme into red wine mixture; simmer until wine is about 1/3 reduced, 3 to 5 minutes. Pour chicken broth into wine mixture and set chicken thighs into skillet; bring wine and stock to a simmer.
• Cook chicken in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Spoon pan juices over the chicken and continue cooking until no longer pink at the bone and the juices run clear, about 30 minutes more. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, near the bone should read 165 degrees F (74 degrees C). Transfer chicken to a platter.
• Place skillet over high heat and reduce pan juices, skimming fat off the top as necessary, until sauce thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper; remove and discard thyme. Pour sauce over chicken.

Steps:

• Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan or flameproof dish. Tip in 3 trimmed and chopped smoked back bacon rashers and fry until crisp. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.
• Add 12 peeled shallots to the pan and fry, stirring or shaking the pan often, for 5-8 mins until well browned all over. Remove and set aside with the bacon.
• Take 2 chicken legs, 4 chicken thighs and 2 boneless chicken breasts, all with skin removed and pat dry with kitchen paper.
• Pour ½ tbsp olive oil into the pan, then fry half the chicken pieces, turning regularly, for 5-8 mins until well browned. Remove, then repeat with the remaining chicken. Remove and set aside.
• Scatter in 3 finely chopped garlic cloves and fry briefly, then, with the heat medium-high, pour in 3 tbsp brandy or Cognac, stirring the bottom of the pan to deglaze. The alcohol should sizzle and start to evaporate so there is not much left.
• Return the chicken legs and thighs to the pan along with any juices, then pour in a little of 600ml red wine, stirring the bottom of the pan again.
• Stir in the rest of the wine, 150ml good-quality chicken stock and 2 tsp tomato purée. Drop in 3 thyme sprigs, 2 rosemary sprigs and 2 bay leaves to make a bouquet garni, season with pepper and a pinch of salt, then return the bacon and shallots to the pan.
• Cover, lower the heat to a gentle simmer, add the chicken breasts and cook for 50 mins - 1hr.
• Just before ready to serve, heat 1 ½ tbsp olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add 250g chestnut mushrooms, halved if large, and fry over a high heat for a few mins until golden. Remove and keep warm.
• Lift the chicken, shallots and bacon from the pan and transfer to a warmed serving dish. Remove the bouquet garni.
• To make the thickener, mix 2 tbsp plain flour, 1 ½ tsp olive oil and 1 tsp softened butter in a small bowl using the back of a teaspoon.
• Bring the wine mixture to a gentle boil, then gradually drop in small pieces of the thickener, whisking each piece in using a wire whisk. Simmer for 1-2 mins.
• Scatter the mushrooms over the chicken, then pour over the wine sauce. Garnish with a handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in an ovenproof pot over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Cook chicken in batches until browned, 5-6 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
• Add bacon to pot; cook until rendered. Add carrots, celery, and onion; cook until onion is translucent, 7-8 minutes. Stir in 1 cup wine and tomato paste; simmer for 2-3 minutes. Add remaining 3 cups wine. Boil until wine is reduced by half, 15-20 minutes. Return chicken to pot.
• Add broth. Tie thyme and rosemary sprigs together; add to pot. Bring to a boil and cover pot. Transfer pot to oven and braise until chicken is tender, about 1 1/4 hours.
• Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; sauté until browned, about 5 minutes.
• Transfer chicken from sauce to pot with mushrooms; keep warm. Simmer sauce over medium heat until reduced by 1/3, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
• Add mushrooms and chicken to sauce. DO AHEAD: Coq au vin can be made 3 days ahead. Chill uncovered until cold. Cover; keep chilled. Rewarm before serving.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
• Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the bacon and cook over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove the bacon to a plate with a slotted spoon.
• Meanwhile, lay the chicken out on paper towels and pat dry. Liberally sprinkle the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. When the bacon is removed, brown the chicken pieces in batches in a single layer for about 5 minutes, turning to brown evenly. Remove the chicken to the plate with the bacon and continue to brown until all the chicken is done. Set aside.
• Add the carrots, onions, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper to the pan and cook over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the Cognac and put the bacon, chicken, and any juices that collected on the plate into the pot. Add the wine, chicken stock, and thyme and bring to a simmer. Cover the pot with a tight fitting lid and place in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is just not pink. Remove from the oven and place on top of the stove.
• Mash 1 tablespoon of butter and the flour together and stir into the stew. Add the frozen onions. In a medium saute pan, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and cook the mushrooms over medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until browned. Add to the stew. Bring the stew to a simmer and cook for another 10 minutes. Season to taste. Serve hot.

Steps:

• Braising chicken in wine is an age-old tradition, and a method used all over France. You brown the meat, add liquid to the pot, be it water, wine or stock, and then set it over low heat for a lengthy simmer. That initial browning creates the foundation of the sauce, lending complex layers of flavor to the final dish.In a traditional coq au vin, which hails from the Burgundy region, wine is used both to tenderize what was traditionally a tough old rooster (a coq in French) and to imbue the meat with its heady flavor. When the bird is slowly simmered, often for hours and hours as the oldest recipes suggest, its sinewy flesh slackens, growing soft and aromatic, and easily yielding to the fork.As the simmering wine seasons the chicken, the chicken seasons the wine, helping transform it into a savory sauce. The wine, which reduces as it cooks, also takes on the other flavors in the pot, in this case brandy, mushrooms, onions, bacon and herbs, along with the savory fond - that is, the caramelized bits on the bottom of the pan that you get from the initial browning of the chicken. The young, tender chickens of today cook more quickly than those earlier birds, but they are imbued with similar lusty flavors.There are variations of coq au vin all over France, each a celebration of local wines both red and white. In Alsace, a dry riesling is used, resulting in a lighter, brighter sauce that is often enriched with a little cream or crème fraîche stirred in at the end. The Jura and the Champagne regions also have their own recipes; cooks in the Jura sometimes substitute morels for the more common white or brown button mushrooms. In Beaujolais, the young dark purple nouveau wine gives that dish the name coq au violet. But Burgundy's version, made with its local wine, is the best known across France and all over the world.No matter what kind of wine you pour into your pot, the method of simmering it with chicken or other meat is applicable across the kitchen. Case in point: Boeuf bourguignon, another French classic, is essentially coq au vin made with chunks of stewing beef instead of fowl. Mastering this one technique leads to many excellent dinners.
• Legend has it that Julius Caesar himself introduced a version of coq au vin to France. As the commonly cited (and thoroughly apocryphal) story goes, the Celtic Gauls sent a rooster to Caesar during the Roman occupation. Caesar had his cook stew it in herbs and Roman wine and then returned it to the Gauls. Whether or not this is true, the tradition of simmering poultry in wine does indeed date to ancient Rome, and perhaps even further back.Because the main ingredient of a coq au vin was historically a tough old rooster, it is very likely that the earliest versions were peasant fare. Recipes calling for rooster rarely graced the early tracts on French cooking in the 17th and 18th centuries, which documented food for the wealthy. It wasn't until the more current substitution of tender chicken in the 19th century that the dish and all its variations entered the French canon. That the Burgundian version emerged as the most prominent in the United States is because of Julia Child, who championed the recipe as a symbol of the sophistication and verve of French country cooking.Above, "Still Life" by Jacopo da Empoli (1551-1640).
• Dutch oven A 6- to 8-quart Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot with lid (a rondeau pot) is an essential tool for a braise. If the pot is too small, the liquid won't evaporate enough to give you a rich sauce; if it's too large, the wine in the pot won't sufficiently cover the chicken.Skillet The pearl onions and mushrooms for the topping are cooked separately from the chicken, so they have their own distinct flavor and texture. A 10-inch skillet with a lid is ideal.Tongs A good pair of kitchen tongs will help you maneuver the chicken as you brown it, allowing you to fully sear the skin all over.Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has a guide to the best Dutch ovens and nonstick pans.
• This recipe for coq au vin yields a supremely rich sauce filled with tender chicken, crisp bits of bacon, mushrooms and burnished pearl onions. Traditional versions call for a whole cut-up chicken, but using only dark meat gives you a particularly succulent dish. The crouton garnish adds a buttery crunch.
• You want to build flavor in the pan at every step, which enriches the sauce and gives it body. That begins with the meat, which should be seared deeply to create a brawny base.• Using only bone-in dark meat makes the stew richer and thicker, because of the marrow in the bones. And dark meat isn't as prone to drying out as white meat. However, it is traditional to use a whole chicken, cut into pieces, and you can do that if you'd prefer; just add the breast to the pot 30 minutes after adding the dark meat.• Marinating the chicken before browning it will give you a more evenly seasoned bird whose flesh is fully imbued with wine. The ideal marination time is 24 hours, but even four to six hours helps the cause.• To get a good sear, the chicken must be fully dry. Otherwise, moisture will steam the skin instead of browning it. Pat it well with paper towels after marinating.• Take your time when browning the meat; it's one of the most important steps for getting robust flavor out of the chicken, and creates a brawny base for the sauce. Plan to spend at least 15 to 25 minutes at the stove for this step, searing the pieces in batches. Use tongs to hold the chicken and change its position, pressing it into the pan when necessary, so that all sides make contact with the hot metal to get a deep sear.• Some coq au vin recipes call for chicken stock to replace a portion of the wine, which accentuates meaty notes in the finished sauce. But this can dilute the wine flavor. The bacon and the searing of the chicken skin provide sufficient meatiness here, so this recipe omits the stock.• Sautéing the tomato paste with the vegetables caramelizes the tomato. It also eliminates any metallic flavor, which can be an issue with canned tomato paste.• Adding flour to the pot helps thicken the sauce. Here, it is stirred into the vegetables while they're browning, which allows the taste of raw flour to cook off.• Brandy brings complexity to the final dish. Igniting the brandy in the pot is a quick way to cook out much of the alcohol, and it's easier than you think. Use a long-handled igniter or match to light the flame. It burns out pretty quickly, so there is not much to fear. However, you can skip this step and simply let the brandy cook down in the pan for 1 minute.• Here, the wine is boiled down for about 12 minutes before the chicken is added to the pot. This makes for a more intense sauce without overcooking the chicken.• One quick way to peel pearl onions for the topping is to blanch them for 1 minute in a pot of boiling water. Drain, let cool, then slip off their skins. (Frozen peeled onions tend to be very soggy, and therefore much harder to caramelize because of their high moisture content. Use them only as a last resort.)• A garnish of crisp toasted bread provides a textural contrast to the soft chicken, but feel free to leave it out.• Like all braises, coq au vin is best made a day ahead, so the flavors have a chance to intensify. Let it cool completely, then store it in the refrigerator. To reheat, first spoon off and discard any solidified fat on the surface, then place the pot over a low flame for about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Or reheat it in a 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes. It's best to prepare the onions and mushrooms, and the croutons, just before serving.• Serve with a green salad, and a good bottle of Burgundy.
• Like coq au vin, its sister dish from Burgundy, boeuf Bourguignon is a stew of meat slowly simmered in red wine along with pearl onions, mushrooms and bacon. Use a good wine here, something simple but drinkable. It makes all the difference in the finished dish. As with all beef stews, this one is best made a day or two ahead, but don't sauté the mushrooms and onions until just before serving.
• PhotographyFood styling: Alison Attenborough. Prop styling: Beverley Hyde. Additional photography: Karsten Moran for The New York Times. Additional styling: Jade Zimmerman.VideoFood styling: Chris Barsch and Jade Zimmerman. Art direction: Alex Brannian. Prop styling: Catherine Pearson. Director of photography: James Herron. Camera operators: Tim Wu and Zack Sainz. Editing: Will Lloyd and Adam Saewitz. Additional editing: Meg Felling.
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