Last January, my husband and I butchered a handful of 12-week-old heritage breed roosters. Although they were still young, the first one we roasted was somewhat tough. For our second try, we decided to prepare the traditional French dish coq au vin. Here, the chicken is marinated, stewed, and allowed to sit in its own juices to tenderize the tough meat as well as develop flavor.
The dish gets its rich color from the red wine used to create the sauce. However, abroad, in rural settings where chickens are butchered locally, the blood is often saved and added to the gravy at the last minute to provide a deep color and thicken the sauce.
Classic Coq au Vin
Give yourself plenty of prep time for this recipe. It takes time to cut the chicken, prepare the marinade, marinate the chicken overnight, stew it, and then let it rest for a day before serving. The end result, however, is well worth the work and wait! And since it can be prepared in advance, you're saving yourself a lot of effort on the day you decide to serve it. 🙂 Adapted from The Bon Appétit Cookbook.
Ingredients
- 750 milliliter bottle French Burgundy wine or any other dry red
- 1 large onion sliced
- 2 stalks celery sliced
- 1 large carrot peeled and sliced
- 1 clove garlic peeled and crushed
- 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 6- pound chicken *
- 6 ounces thick cut nitrate-free bacon preferably from pastured pork
- 2 large shallots chopped
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 4 large sprigs fresh thyme
- 4 large sprigs fresh parsley
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 3 tablespoons grass-fed ghee or other fat of your choosing
- 1 pound baby bella mushrooms or whatever is available
- 20 pearl onions peeled
Instructions
Marinade:
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Combine wine, large onion, stalks, carrot, and garlic clove in a large saucepan and bring to a boil.
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Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes.
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Cool completely before adding the olive oil.
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Place the chicken pieces in a large glass bowl or Ziploc bag.
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Pour the marinade over the chicken and toss to coat all pieces.
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Refrigerate at least 1 day and up to 2 days, turning the chicken occasionally.
To cook:
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Remove chicken pieces from marinade and set aside.
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Pat dry.
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Strain marinade, reserving the vegetables and the liquid separately.
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In a large heavy stock pot, cook the bacon until crisp and brown.
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Crumble, and set aside.
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Add chicken, skin side down, to the drippings in the pot.
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Saute until brown and set aside.
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Add the vegetables from the reserved marinade to the pot and saute until brown, about 10 minutes.
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**Note that at this point you may thicken your sauce with your flour of choice. See below.
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Mix in the shallots, chopped garlic, herb sprigs, and bay leaves, then broth.
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Return the chicken to the stock pot, skin side up in a single layer, and bring to simmer.
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Reduce heat to medium low, cover, and simmer for at least 30 minutes.
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For best results, reduce heat to low and allow to slow cook all day.
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Melt 3 tablespoons of ghee, or fat of your choosing in a heavy large skillet over medium heat.
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Add the mushrooms and sauté until tender, about 8 minutes.
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Set aside.
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In same skillet, add pearl onions and saute until brown, using additional fat for frying if needed.
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Set aside, reserving the skillet.
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Strain the sauce from the pot into the reserved skillet, pressing on solids to extract all juice.
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Discard the solids.
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Bring sauce to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits.
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Pour sauce back into the stock pot, add onions, and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
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Cover and cook until onions are almost tender, about 8 minutes.
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Add the mushrooms and bacon and simmer until the onions are very tender and the sauce is slightly reduced. (If you wish, thicken sauce with arrowroot at this point.)
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Season to taste.
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Return chicken to pot.
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May serve at this time, but for best results, cool slightly and refrigerate overnight.
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To serve, rewarm over low heat.
Recipe Notes
*Remove the backbone and cut the roasting chicken into 8 pieces: 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2 wings, and 2 breasts.
**To thicken sauce: sprinkle about 2 tablespoons over the vegetables and stir for two minutes. Alternatively, you may thicken just before serving by using arrowroot powder instead. Gradually whisk in marinade, bring to a boil and cook sauce for about 2 minutes.
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Sounds lovely! Love great food, love to cook with wine, and love to use all the resources God has given us. Will have to give this a try very soon!
Good luck with it Sally! I hope you enjoy it!
We’re in a French variation of your homesteading, and are also keen foodies, so loved the recipe and the link to the homesteading blog, now also favourited and in the midst of reading. The French are great at not wasting ‘real’ food, cooking all parts, and all types of animals. I came across Coq consequently at the butcher counter and have tried a variety of recipes, including Coq au vin. Delicious dish and I look forward to trying your version.
We have chickens and a cockeral, currenty only kept for eggs. But we are anticipating the day when life will naturally end for them and plan that their demise will not go to waste. At that time I expect we will have to learn how to butcher. Any tips welcome.
Alycea, we have used the Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens as a resource for how to butcher poultry. It has some great tips in it. We use a cone for processing ours and that has worked out great.
Some further tips I would recommend:
*It is a big job and pretty intense. Two or more working together is a good idea.
*We dont’ have a feather plucker. We scald our birds beforehand. The water has to be at just the right temperature so as not to cook the skin, and yet hot enough to get the feathers off.
*Make sure you cure your birds up to 48 hours in the fridge before eating or the meat will be tough.
Good luck with them!
making coq au vin with chicken is almost pointless. like making beef burgundy with tenderloin. as a graduate of the ecole de cordon bleu in paris, i can say that your recipe will produce a wonderful dish. well done!