Coq au Vin Recipe Needed

Can you get a capon?

I've used the following recipe from the New York Times Cookbook. Enjoy!

COQ AU VIN (6 servings)

1 five-pound roasting chicken, cut into serving pieces
Flour for dredging
1/2 C butter
1 slice raw ham, chopped
10 small white onions, peeled and left whole
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 tsp thyme
1 sprig parsley
1 bay leaf
8 whole mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste
2 ounces (1/4 C) warmed cognac
1 C dry red wine

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Dredge the chicken with flour. In a skillet heat the butter, add the chicken and brown on all sides. Transfer the chicken to an earthenware casserole and add the ham, onions, garlic, thyme, parsley, bay leaf, mushrooms, salt and pepper.

Pour the cogtnac over the chicken and ignite. When the flame dies, add the wine.

Cover and bake until the chicken is tender (about two and one-half hours).

Note: The classic vin for coq au vin is Chambertin, but any good dry red wine will do.

Here's the Cook's Illustrated recipe for a more "contemporary" Coq au Vin. I'm not sure it's "FANTASTIC," but a lot of people, including a few friends whose taste I know, think it's great.

Cook's Illustrated Coq-au-Vin

A medium-bodied, fruity red wine such as Pinot Noir or Rhône Valley Grenache is best for this recipe. Avoid bold, heavily oaked red wine varietals like Cabernet and light-bodied wines like Beaujolais. To use fresh pearl onions, trim the root and stem end of each onion and discard. Boil for 1 minute, shock in ice water, then peel a thin strip from root to stem. Remove any remaining outer skin (it's like peeling off a jacket). If neither frozen nor fresh pearl onions are available, substitute one large onion cut into 1/2-inch pieces. (Do not use jarred pearl onions, which will turn mushy and disintegrate into the sauce.) Serve the stew with egg noodles or mashed potatoes. Serves 4 to 6

1 bottle fruity, smooth, medium-bodied red wine (see note above)
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
10 sprigs fresh parsley leaves
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
4 ounces bacon , preferably thick-cut, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch pieces
2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs , trimmed of excess fat and cut in half crosswise
Table salt and ground black pepper
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
24 frozen pearl onions , thawed, drained, and patted dry (about 1 cup) (see note above)
8 ounces cremini mushrooms , wiped clean, stems trimmed, halved if small and quartered if large
2 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 teaspoons)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1. Bring all but 1 tablespoon wine (reserve for later use), broth, parsley sprigs, thyme, and bay to simmer in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook until reduced to 3 cups, about 25 minutes. Discard herbs.

2. Meanwhile, cook bacon in large Dutch oven over medium heat until browned, 7 to 8 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper-towel-lined plate. Reserve 2 tablespoons fat in small bowl; discard remaining fat.

3. Lightly season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon reserved bacon fat in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add half of chicken in single layer and cook until lightly browned, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to plate and repeat with remaining chicken and 1 tablespoon bacon fat.

4. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in now-empty Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When foaming subsides, add pearl onions and mushrooms; cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, 5 to 8 minutes. Reduce heat to medium, add garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add tomato paste and flour; cook, stirring frequently, until well combined, about 1 minute.

5. Add reduced wine mixture, scraping bottom of pot with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits; add 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Return chicken, any accumulated juices, and reserved bacon to pot; increase heat to high and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover pot, and simmer until chicken is tender, about 25 minutes, stirring halfway through cooking time.

6. Using slotted spoon, transfer chicken to large bowl; tent with foil to keep warm. Increase heat to medium-high and simmer sauce until thick and glossy and measures 3 1/4 cups, about 5 minutes. Off heat, stir in remaining 2 tablespoons butter and reserved 1 tablespoon wine. Season to taste with salt. Return chicken to pot and top with minced parsley. Serve immediately

Shel, I noticed your first post asked about the availability of a capon but your second post called for chicken thighs. Did you have another recipe in mind or do you use the capon for the thighs interchangeably?

The traditional recipe for Coq au Vin does not include chicken, but rather a "Coq," which is a rooster. A lot of recipes originally called for old barnyard fowl, roosters, capon (a desexed rooster), and old, worn out hens. The capon is considered a little more tender than an old rooster, and that's why I mentioned it, considering that a lot of people might not want to futz around finding a rooster or invest the extra stewing time to get it to the degree of tenderness that is often expected these days. IOW, the capon seemed like a reasonable compromise,

As for the second recipe, well, it's just an expedient take on the original. It's a pretty good recipe, but was designed for short cuts. For example, the thighs used are boneless/skinless, and some people, myself included, feel that leaving the bone in and the skin on contributes to some extra flavor. Many more tyraditional recipes call for use of the whole leg, which can increase stewing time a bit, but which, again, IMO, contributes a bit to flavor.

While the original poster asked for a "FANTASTIC" recipe, I felt that this one might add to the discussion and offer some ideas to the OP. Personally, I'd modify the recipe to go a few steps back in time, where there might be fewer compromises on flavor and texture - IOW, move closer to an original recipe rather than one that's main intent is to save time. Perhaps Coq au Vin is as much about technique as it is about choice of ingredients.

Kind regards,

Shel

Actually, the classic wines used are more often determined by region rather than using a particular wine. There are versions that use white wine, where the regional wines are mostly white. Some have argued that a white wine is a better choice for chicken as it does not mask the flavor of the chicken as much as red wine does.

The thing about Coq au Vin is that it's been an evolving recipe for hundreds of years (some say from the time of Caeser (the emperor guy, not the salad guy <LOL>) and that each region, and practically every household in the region, had their own take on the recipe. It was peasant food, and the farmers would make do with what they had on hand. Today Coq au Vin has been lifted from it's peasant roots and made into something more than it was originally, which is not to sat that's a bad thing, just that what it is now is not what it was, for better or worse. Perhaps a really FANTASTIC Coq au Vin might be closer to what it was 125 years ago, and that could be done with the proper fowl and less concern for expediency in the preparation.

Shel

Coq Au Vin is a Burgundian dish. the red wine is used not to mask flavor, but to allow the acids to help break down the old meat of the cockerel. True coq Au Vin was actually finished with the blood of the rooster stabilized with brandy and vinegar, this would help the blood not clot.The gartiture of baby onions and mushrooms is also a classic stemming from Burgundy. Most of us today cannot find roosters, so we use chickens and prepare what is really called poulet Au Vin rouge (chicken with red wine)The wine for coq Au Vin should always be a red burgundy (Pinot Noir)like the Chambertin quoted previously. We should also consider reducing the wine a bit with the aromatics to soften the acids and rough edges as a standard bird today will braise to quickly for the wine to naturally soften, then marinate

Using white wine would not constitute a coq Au Vin, it would be a poulet Au Vin blanc (simply)