A butcher, a rooster, and an awkward moment

Coq au Vin

And then there was the time I decided to make Coq au Vin.

I picked out a fresh, plump chicken at the market and asked the butcher to cut it up for me because I was making Coq au Vin. I knew he would be charmed and impressed.
He told me that he had a coq if I wanted one.
A rather awkward pause followed.
Perhaps I'd been a bit too charming.
Finally I dared to look where this cheeky Frenchman was pointing.
And there it lay. A rooster, dead, in full form: head, eyes, wobbly red bits under its chin and on top of its head.
Oh. Right.
Coq=Rooster.
I quickly regained my composure and realized that to select the rooster would mean witnessing its decapitation. So, I politely declined, and urged him to proceed with the headless chicken I had already selected. But cock-a-doodle-do to you old boy, I thought. Or cocorico actually, since he was a French rooster, after all.

The making of the Coq au Vin began. Chopping, marinating, browning.
And then there was the part in the recipe where I had to add the cognac and light it on fire.
Yes, well.
Sometimes I forget about my own tendencies toward clumsiness.
But I do still have both my eyebrows and all of my eyelashes so have no fear.
The dish turned out wonderfully. There was endless dipping of bread into sauce, which had turned out rich and full of flavour, the addition of unsweetened cocoa powder adding to its deep, dark colour. The chicken was tender and falling off the bone.

I felt a little bit more French for having made this. I may even be ready to get myself a beret soon.

Coq au Vin
adapted from Saveur Cooks Authentic French, Chronicle Books 1999

1 roasting chicken, (up to 6 lbs) cut into pieces
2 large yellow onions, peeled and roughly chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 large cloves of garlic, peeled and halved
bouquet garni consisting of 3 thyme sprigs, 3 parsley sprigs and 2 bay leaves tied in a bundle
1 bottle good rich burgundy wine, plus 375ml water (or 1.5 bottles wine)
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
2 tbsp flour
1/4 cup good cognac
1.5 tb unsweetened cocoa powder
6 oz salt pork, diced (you can buy thick slabs of it, or use pancetta in the same form)
3/4 lb button mushrooms, cleaned and stems trimmed

Put first 6 ingredients (up to and including wine and water) in a large bowl. The recipe recommends you cover and refrigerate for 24 hours. I only did it for 4 and it was still great. But perhaps its even better if you go the full 24.

Remove the chicken from the marinade (don't discard the marinade) and dry the pieces well with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Heat oil in a heavy pan over medium high heat and brown the chicken on all sides. Do it in batches so as not to crowd the pan. Set the chicken aside when each piece is done browning.

Add flour to the pan and cook, stirring for about 2 minutes.
Return the chicken to the pan.
Remove the pan from the heat and add the cognac and light it with a match until the flame dies out. Keep the pot lid nearby to extinguish the flames if necessary.
Return pan to heat and add the reserved marinade back in and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to low and simmer, partially covered about 1.5 hours, or until chicken is tender.

Remove chicken from pan again and strain the sauce through a sieve, discarding the solids. Return the sauce to the pan.
Put cocoa powder in a small bowl and whisk in 1/2 cup of the strained sauce until it is smooth. Stir it into the pan then reduce the sauce to about 4 cups, 15 to 20 minutes. Reduce heat to low and return chicken to pan.

In the meantime, saute the salt pork in a skillet over medium heat until crisp then remove from skillet, drain on paper towel, and add to chicken. Add mushrooms to the same skillet and saute until golden about 10 minutes. Drain and add mushrooms to chicken.Serve.

Recipe notes
-I omitted the mushrooms only because my boyfriend is not a fan of mushrooms. But the recipe would have been greatly enhanced by their addition. We were left with nothing but sauce and chicken which, although fantastic, could have benefitted from either mushrooms or carrots or even small new potatoes, to turn it into a well-rounded meal in itself.

-This recipe requires that you take the chicken out of the pan and put it back in over and over it seems. But in the end it makes sense. And it tastes really very good.

-If you are nervous about lighting the cognac or don't have any on hand, I think you would be ok to leave it out and just skip that part of the instructions.