Coq au Vin Recipe

One of the earliest written references to coq au vin comes from L'Art de Bien Manger, or The Art of Good Eating, by Edmond Richardin, in 1938. This seems quite a modern reference, but it is certain that this type of dish was passed down from mother to daughter for centuries in countless farmhouses all across France. As such, coq au vin isn't so much a recipe as it is a technique.

I'm guessing although it may not have been called Coq Au Vin, as soon as someone threw an old worn out hen or rooster into a pot with a whole lot of wine and slow cooked it over a fire, we had the beginnings of this classic dish.

According to my friend Peter Hertzmann, "Coq au vin falls into the general classification in French cooking of a fricassée, which is a form of braising. So the concept is very old. I'm sure if I looked through Apicius, I'd find that the Romans cooked chicken in wine. The first time the actual term coq au vin shows up in print is 1913 and the first printed recipes with the name are a decade later. The rooster appears even later, probably introduced by someone who didn't know the origins of the recipe."

"Although Coq au vin is well known and was featured in numerous menus in the third quarter of the 20th century, it does not have a long history. The flesh of a cock has always been regarded as somewhat tough and indigestible, and with few exceptions cooks of earlier centuries saw no merit in cocks except as a source of cockscombs (much in demand as a garnish) and sometimes for making a bouillon.

One of the very first recipes for Coq au vin, that of Brisson published in Richardin's L'Art du bien manger [a periodical] (1913), was presented as a real 'discovery', the author having been surprised to find the dish in Puy-de-Dôme, and surprised by how good it was. The ingredients in this case were the cock, good wine of Auvergne, bacon, onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Wine from Burgundy has since become the one commonly used, and indeed many recipes just say 'red wine'.

The upsurge of interest in regional cuisines has recently brought to light other similar traditions for preparing Coq au vin. In Franche-Comté the bird is simmered in vin jaune; and in Alsace in Riesling. ln both these regions morels and cream are gladly added if available.

Indeed, knowledgeable food experts no longer speak of Coq au vin in the singular but of coqs au vin in the plural, while acknowledging that these dishes were doubtless simmering away for long years before the first recipes were published and before the gastronomes 'discovered' the virtues of simple country fare."

Did you know this classic French dish, Coq au Vin, has been mentioned in several movies including:

A Touch of Class - 1973 - Starring George Segal and Glenda Jackson

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover - 1989

Donnie Brasco - 1997 - Starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp - There is a great clip of Pacino making Coq au Vin on YouTube but because he drops the "F" word a few times, I decided to exclude it but the rest of the clip is fun to watch.

These days, especially here in America, home to large-scale, industrialized farming, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find an "old rooster" that needs tenderizing. Unless you own your own chickens, it's probably almost impossible to find a chicken older than 6 months. There are two ways around this problem:

1) We can be very happy that we don't have to eat tough old roosters, or

2) We can substitute other meat for the rooster.

Since we are looking for as much connective tissue as possible to enrich the eventual sauce, I suggest using dark meat chicken quarters, if you can find them. If not, using any combination of thighs and/or legs will produce good results.

Now that we have the rooster stand in figured out, we need to look at how to prepare him. First, consider how we want the dish to taste and feel in our mouths. The meat should be tender. The sauce should be somewhat thickened and well-seasoned. It'd be nice to have some crunchy bits to contrast with the silky sauce and tender meat.

photo credit

How do you get the meat to be tender? - Braise it in wine.

How do we get the sauce to be a little thick? - Use a roux.

How do we make sure the sauce is very flavorful? - Mire poix and a bouquet garnis.

How can we add some crunchy bits? - Bacon!

Now knowing all of that, let's review techniques.

To braise, we'll want to brown our meat. We need some fat for that. We might as well use the bacon fat, so we'll want to cook our bacon first.

We'll build our roux after we brown the bird, so we'll just add flour to the pot, equal to the amount of fat in the pan. If there isn't an ounce or so of fat in the pan, we'll add a little more.

We'll chop our onions, celery and carrot for our mire poix and tie together together a couple of garlic cloves, a bay leaf, a sprig or two of thyme and parsley and a couple of peppercorns to let it steep during the braising process.

And that is how you make coq au vin!

Coq Au Vin by Julia Child

I am a huge fan of Julia Child. As a kid, I remember my mom watching her TV show back in the 1960s. If you think French cooking and live in America, you have to think Julia Child. She was instrumental in getting millions of home cooks inspired to prepare new and different meals in their home kitchens.

Ingredients
1/2 cup lardons, cut into 1/4 by 1 1/2-inch strips (optional)
2 or more tablespoons
olive oil
2 1/2 pounds ready-cut frying chicken (a selection of parts, or all of one kind), thoroughly dried
1/4 cup Cognac or Armagnac

Salt and pepper
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
16 to 20 small white onions, peeled
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups red wine (Burgundy, Côtes du Rhône, or Pinot Noir)
About 2 cups brown chicken stock or beef bouillon
1 or 2 cloves garlic, mashed or minced
About 1 tablespoon tomato paste
3/4 pound fresh mushrooms, trimmed, washed, and quartered

How to Prepare

1. If you are using lardons, sauté 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.)

2. Heat fat or oil in pan to moderately hot, add chicken, not crowding pan; turn frequently to brown nicely on all sides. Pour in the Cognac, shake pan a few seconds until bubbling hot, then ignite Cognac with a match. Let flame a minute, swirling pan by its handle to burn off alcohol; extinguish with pan cover.

3. 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.

4. Uncover pan and sprinkle on the flour, turning chicken and onions so flour is absorbed; cook 3 to 4 minutes more, turning once or twice.

5. 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 to the pan. 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. If onions are not quite tender, continue cooking them; then return all chicken to the pan, add mushrooms, and simmer 4 to 5 minutes.

6.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.