This is the first of a series of dishes that I plan to cook following recipes from my cookbook collection. This recipe was taken from the Le Cordon Bleu Centenary Cookbook: “Classic French Cookbook” (1994) I only used half the recipe, as follows, and I made my own chicken stock:
INGREDIENTS:
1 kg whole Chicken, cut into 8 pcs
1/2 cup (125mL) Cream
2 T Cooking oil
1 T Water (for deglazing)
1/2 cup (125mL) Chicken Stock *
2 T Flour
MARINADE:
500mL White Wine (preferably French, if available)
100 g Mirepoix**
1/2 clove Garlic, crushed
1 Bouquet garni***
6pcs White peppercorn
CHICKEN STOCK*:
Backbone and winglets from the whole chicken, skinned, cut into smaller pcs., and then rinsed in water
Water to cover the chicken bones by ~1cm
100g Mirepoix**
1/2 clove Garlic, Crushed
1 bouquet garni***
Mirepoix** (200g)
50g Onion, diced
50g Celery, diced
50g Carrot, diced
50g Leeks, white portion, sliced
Bouquet garni *** (2 bundles)
4pcs 5 inch slices of onion leeks (green portion)
2pcs 5 inch stem of celery
2pcs Bay leaves
2 sprigs Parsley stem
2 sprigs Thyme
6 whole Peppercorns
2pcs 8- inch strings for tying
Garnish:
75g Mushrooms
juice of 1/4 a Lemon
1 T unsalted butter
Pepper to taste
10 pcs whole Pearl onions, preferably raw but I only had pickled
1t sugar (I used coco sugar)
1T water (for cooking the onions
1 T Parley leaves, finely shopped
When I looked up recipes for coq au vin online, most of them required red wine. Even the ones I have tried were red so I was curious to make this dish from the cookbook. It turned out so full of flavor. The savory chicken and tart garnish balanced perfectly with the creamy sauce; it was like eating good wine! Since I have never actually seen or tasted this white wine version I am not sure how it was supposed to look like in terms of consistency of the sauce and color of the chicken. Taste-wise, I think it was perfect! Also, there is something rewarding about making everything in this dish from scratch.
A few learnings from this cook: 1) Cooking the chicken for 40 minutes, instead of 1 hour, as in the recipe, prevented the meat from drying up. After all, I used half the quantity of chicken, 2) I could have browned the chicken a bit more evenly for aesthetic reasons and 3) I should have reduced the cooking time for the sauce (after straining) to make it less thick so that it could cover the meat more smoothly.
#coqauvin #Frenchrecipe #mycookbookseries #alsacechickeninwinesauce