Dear Eric: Having eight people for dinner and want to serve coq au vin. Would you have a recipe that served that many?
Sue
Dear Sue: Mmm, coq au vin. Just saying it makes me hungry.
When I do, I immediately start dreaming about the aroma this French-style chicken casserole exudes as it cooks. I also salivate when thinking about how bubbly and divine it will look when it comes out of the oven.
Getting to that crescendo when I actually make coq au vin depends on the situation and how much preparation time I have.
Coq au vin, in English, means rooster cooked in wine. It was originally called that because in days of yore, slowly braising a tougher-in-texture, older rooster in wine was an effective way to tenderize the meat and make it palatable.
In more recent times, a quicker-cooking, much more tender, regular frying chicken is what you’ll see called for in most recipes for coq au vin. That includes Julia Child’s classic tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
In that book, Child notes that along with the chicken and wine, other key ingredients in the dish are bacon and mushrooms. From recipe to recipe, how those key ingredients come together in the casserole varies.
Some of those recipes are more complex. But one time, when I wanted to serve coq au vin to a fairly large group, similar to what Sue wants to do, I did not have a lot of time to mess around. So I took a more simplistic approach to making the dish and it still tasted wonderful.
That meant, instead of cutting up a whole chicken into pieces, as Julia Child did in her recipe, I bought already-cut chicken thighs, drumsticks and breasts to make the coq au vin. I did cut each breast into three pieces, so you would find more pieces of it in the casserole.
Also, unlike what most coq au vin recipes ask you to do, I did not pan sear the mound of chicken I bought to brown it before setting it into the casserole. I instead, less messily, set the chicken on a baking sheet and browned it in a very hot oven before setting it in the casserole.
Lastly, in some recipes for coq au vin, the mushrooms are cooked separately and added as a last-minute garnish. But I put them right into the wine sauce that’s poured over the chicken and they ended up tasting very succulent when the coq au vin was cooked.
My coq au vin recipe contains 24 pieces of chicken, definitely enough to meet Sue’s requirement that it serve eight.
If Sue wanted to make the coq au vin oven-ready up to a day in advance, after topping the chicken with the sauce as described in my recipe below, she should then cool the chicken to room temperature. Once cooled, cover and refrigerate the chicken until ready to bake as directed. If you do prepare the chicken in advance this way, add a few minutes to the cooking time to compensate for that fact that the par-cooked chicken will be cold coming out the refrigerator.
Eric’s Coq au Vin for Eight
Julia Child recommends serving coq au vin with parsley potatoes and buttered green peas or other green vegetable, such as green beans. The potatoes are simply boiled potatoes that are buttered and accented with salt, pepper and chopped parsley. Instead of parsley potatoes, I also sometimes serve coq au vin with garlic-mashed potatoes or egg noodles.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: About 90 minutes
Makes: Eight (three-pieces each) servings
4 large, bone-in, chicken breasts
6 bone-in chicken thighs
6 chicken drumsticks
• salt and freshly ground black pepper,
to taste
6 thick slices smoky bacon, sliced,
widthwise, in 1/4-inch strips
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups frozen pearl onions
(about 200 grams; see Note 1)
2 (7-ounce tubs) mini white button mushrooms (see Note 2)
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp herbes de Provence (see Note 3)
1 (750-mL) bottle red wine, such as Beaujolais, Côtes du Rhône or
gamay noir
1 cup chicken stock or broth
• chopped fresh parsley to taste (optional)
Place an oven rack in the lowest part of oven. Preheat the oven to 475 F. Line a large and sided baking sheet with parchment paper.
Set the chicken breast skin side up on a cutting board. With a large sharp knife, cut each breast, widthwise, into three pieces. Set the pieces of chicken breast, thighs and drumsticks on the baking sheet.
Generously season the chicken with salt and pepper and set the thighs and breast pieces skin-side down on the baking sheet. Roast the chicken in the lower part of the oven for 10 minutes.
Remove the chicken from the oven and turn each piece over. Place the chicken back in the oven and roast 10 to 15 minutes more, or until golden brown.
Remove chicken from the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 F.
Divide the chicken between two, 13- by 9-inch or similar size casseroles. Pour any juices from the chicken left in the pan into a small bowl and set aside.
Place the bacon and oil in a wide skillet or pot and cook over medium to medium-high heat until the bacon is slightly crispy. Add onions and mushrooms and cook until mushrooms are almost tender, about five to six minutes. Mix in garlic and herbes de Provence and cook one minute more.
Mix in flour and cook and stir until the flour is well incorporated and cook two minutes more. Slowly mix in one cup of the wine. After the mixture becomes very thick, slowly mix in the rest of the wine. Add the chicken stock or broth and the leftover pan juices and bring this sauce to a simmer.
Divide and pour the sauce over the chicken. Cover and bake 75 minutes, or until chicken is very tender. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, if desired, and serve.
Note 1: Frozen pearl onions are available in the freezer section of most supermarkets. If you can’t find them, finely dice a medium to large onion and use it in the recipe, cooking it with the mushrooms.
Note 2: Mini white button mushrooms are sold in tubs in the produce section of most supermarkets. If you can’t find them, use medium-size white mushrooms, but quarter them before cooking.
Note 3: Herbes de Provence is a French style blend of herbs available in the bottled herb and spice aisle of most supermarkets. If you can’t find it, use an equal amount of dried thyme in this recipe.
Eric Akis is the author of The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook (Appetite by Random House). His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
