Monday 15 September 2008

Classic French Coq au vin

Last night I cooked the classic French dish, Coq au vin. When I was making this I was reminded of the Blackadder episode where Baldrick offers Blackadder Rat au vin, when asked what exactly that entails Baldrick replies it's rat that's been run over by a van!!
Luckily I didn't have to resort to anything scraped off the road! For my Coq au vin I used chicken legs although to be truly authentic I should have used a cockerel rather than chicken. Traditionally it was the old, and therefore tough birds that were used, hence the need for long slow cooking.Coq au vin is delicious and simple to make, unfortunately it seems to have gone out of fashion, I say it's time for a comeback! Very few ingredients are required for this, it can vary a bit but it always contains onions/shallots, bacon, mushrooms, chicken, red wine and a bouquet garni. These are cooked together for a good few hours until the chicken is meltingly tender and the wine has reduced to an intense and delicious sauce.
I was really pleased with how this came out, it was packed with flavour and really tasty. I served mine with French bread but it would be great with mashed potatoes too.

While I didn't use a recipe but this recipe by James martin is almost identical.

7 comments:

~Marielle~ said...

Hi Sam!!
We've been paired together for Adopt-a-blog! You're blog looks great, I'll try to help you when you need it, but it seems like you're on a roll! (literally! haha)
Keep up the great work!
-Marielle, la petite chef-

Sylvie said...

I've never had coq-au-vin, I think it's about time i changed that.

Hopie said...

You are totally right about the need for a comeback, and it's funny you say that because I have guests coming to visit not this weekend but the next and I was totally planning on coq au vin. I have a recipe that marinates for two days before you cook it! It comes from the recipe book Kafka's Soup (I don't know if you've seen it, but it's pretty funny: the author writes recipes in the style of classic authors).

Jo said...

Great picture and write up Samuel. (I can confirm that the food was as good as it looks!) You might want to change 'great wished mashed potatoes' to 'great with mashed potatoes' though!

Abitofafoodie said...

This looks like a terrific dish - I adore coq au vin. The longer it cooks, the better, I always think. Served with crusty French bread, what could be better?

Sam said...

Marielle: Thanks!

Sylvie: You definitely should this was one of my best meals all month!

Hopie: I bet that will taste fantastic, I'd love to here what it's like.

Ben: It was pretty good. Shame I can't take credit for that!

Antonia: Exactly!

Alicia Foodycat said...

Delicious! I haven't had a good coq au vin in ages! Nice to have a reminder.