The Healthy Vegan Kitchen

April’s Challenge went classic: Coq Au Vin

This recipe is from Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook Les Halles

Now, I know that Anthony Bourdain is no lover of anything or anyone vegan/vegetarian, but I still love, love, love watching his show No Reservations on the travel channel. He speaks his mind, no wishy washy talk here. Needlwss to say, no matter what the recipe was for this month, if it was from Tony, I was hooked. I loved what our host this month, Temperance,
had to say, “I have never had a cookbook swear at me before or call me names, I quite enjoyed it. What i also enjoyed was the fact he didn’t assume I knew what I was doing but still expected me to do it right (after all he was telling me exactly what to do).”

She goes on to say that “Coq au vin is a peasant recipe, As Anthony Bourdain has said ‘Coq au vin is an old, tough bird you have to drown in wine to get it to taste good. That’ll be $28.95 please.’ This it one of those recipes that is deceptively hard, with a little prep work it is easy as pie, maybe even easier. The secret is the mise en place. do it all ahead stuff it in the fridge & throw it all together when you are ready.

Excerpt from the Les Halles Cookbook, by Anthony Bourdain…
Another easy dish that looks like it is hard. It is not in fact, this is the kind of dish you might enjoy spending a leisurely afternoon with. There are plenty of opportunities for breaks. It’s durable, delicious, & the perfect illustration of the principles of turning something big & tough & unlovely into something truly wonderful. Knock out your prep one thing at a time, slowly building your mise en place. Listen to some music while you do it. There’s an open bottle of wine left from the recipe, so have a glass now & again. Just clean up after yourself as you go, so your kitchen doesn’t look like a disaster area when you start the actual cooking. You should. with any luck, reach a Zen-like state of pleasurable calm. And like the very best dishes coq a vin is one of those that goes on the stove looking, smelling & tasting pretty nasty, and yet later, through the mysterious alchemical processes of time and heat turns into something magical.

Coq au vin (I halved the recipe)
from the  Les Halles Cookbook, by Anthony Bourdain, Serves 4

1 bottle plus 1 cup red wine I used The Other red wine (around $8.99 at World Market, not cheap, but tastes amazing!)
1 onion, cut into a 1-inch dice
1 carrot, cut into ¼-inch slices
1 celery rib, cut into ½ inch slices
4 whole cloves I wasn’t sure if this was whole cloves or garlic, I used garlic)
1 tbs/14 g whole black peppercorns
1 bouquet garni
1 whole chicken, about 3.5 lb, “trimmed” – meaning guts, wing tips & neckbone removed I used chicken style seitan
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tbs/28 ml olive oil omitted
6 tbs/75 g butter, softened Earth balance, but only 1 TBSP
1 tbs/14 g flour
¼ lb/112 g lardons tempeh “bacon”
½ lb/ 225 g small, white button mushrooms, stems removed I used dried shiitake
12 pearl onions, peeled
pinch of sugar

Equipment:
3 large, deep bowls
plastic wrap
fine strainer
large Dutch oven or heavy –bottomed pot
tongs
wooden spoon
small sauté pan
small sauce pan
1 sheet parchment paper
whisk
deep serving platter

DAY ONE
The day before you even begin to cook, combine the bottle of red wine, the diced onion (that’s the big onion, not the pearl onions), sliced carrots, celery, cloves, peppercorns, & bouquet garni in a large deep bowl. Add the chicken & submerge it in the liquid so that all of it is covered. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap & refrigerate overnight.

DAY TWO
Remove the chicken from the marinade & pat it dry. Put it aside. Strain the marinade through the fine strainer, reserving the liquids & solids separately. Season the chicken with salt & pepper inside & out. In the large Dutch oven, heat the oil & 2 tablesppoons of the butter until almost smoking, & then sear the chicken, turning it with the tongs to evenly brown it. Once browned, it should be removed from the pot & set it aside again. Add the reserved onions, celery, & carrot to the pot & cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until they are soft & golden brown. That should take about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables & mix well with the wooden spoon so that the vegetables are coated. Now stir in the reserved strained marinade. Put the chicken back in the pot, along with the bouquet garni. Cook this for about 1 hour & 15 minutes over low heat. Have a drink. You’re almost there…

While your chicken stews slowly in the pot, cook the bacon lardons in the small sauté pan over medium heat until golden brown. Remove the bacon from the pan & drain it on paper towels, making sure to keep about 1 tablespoon of fat in the pan. Saute the mushroom tops in the bacon fat until golden brown. Set them aside.

Now, in the small saucepan, combine the pearl onions, the pinch of sugar, a pinch of salt, & 2 tablespoons of butter. Add just enough water to just cover the onions; then cover the pan with the parchment paper trimmed to the same size of the pan. (I suppose you can use foil if you must.) Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, & cook until the water has evaporated. Keep a close eye on it. Remove the paper cover & continue to cook until the onions are golden brown. Set the onions aside & add the remaining cup of red wine along with salt & pepper & reduce over medium-high heat until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon.

Your work is pretty much done here. One more thing & then it’s wine & kudos…

When the chicken is cooked through – meaning tender, the juice from the thigh running clear when pricked – carefully remove from the liquid, cut into quarters, & arrange on the deep serving platter. Strain the cooking liquid (again) into the reduced red wine. Now just add the bacon, mushrooms, & pearl onions, adjust the seasoning with salt & pepper, & swirl in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Now pour that sauce over the chicken & dazzle your friends with your brilliance. Serve with buttered noodles & a Bourgone Rouge.

Tips:
1. An old bird is best, hard to find though. Ideally you are looking for a stew chicken or an old rooster, I recommend a Kosher or Halal meat market (remember they have no pork though).
2. Bouquet garni is a bundle of herbs usually tied together with string, most recipes include parsley, thyme & bay leaf
3. Lardon may refer to different pork products cut from a pig’s belly & used for larding in French cuisine. In this case you are looking for slab or country bacon, cut into small oblongs (lardons) about ¼ by 1“. I used salt pork, which did not smell like bacon cooking but tasted pretty good. Either way a good thick bacon with alot of nice fat & not alot of additives is what you are looking for.
4. the wine should be red, other than that pick what suits your pallet & wallet. But here is a helpful guide as well, Wine With…Coq au Vin

Further tips, tricks & things to help the budget:
- Frozen pearl onions are cheap, easy & just as good as the ones you peel yourself (though nothing beats homegrown)

- Instead of buying 2 bottles of wine to get 1 liter & 1 cup wine use water for the extra cup.
- Instead of using a whole chicken get precut chicken so you can do portion control (it will also make it easier to marinade)
- don’t use non stick pan, this recipe is all about the brown bits.
- when marinading, you might want to weigh the chicken down to keep it covered.
- If you go to a Halal market take pictures if you can’t speak the language.

I totally forgot to get the mushrooms, so luckily I had some dried shiitake’s in the pantry. I served mine with noodles & broccoli.

Verdict: We both really liked this one. The one change I would make next time would be to just leave the seitan out, it didn’t really add much. I used to make a dish called Balsamic Chicken with Thyme that was pretty similar to this. I would make it again.

Here is the recipe: http://recipestorival.blogspot.com/2009/04/coq-au-vin-aprils-challenge.html

Check out everyone else’s results here: http://recipestorival.blogspot.com/

This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 12:09 am and is filed under Dinner, Recipes to Rival, Veggies, pasta, Challenges, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.