Mel's Coq au Vin

I can remember, as a child, watching Julia Child on TV at my grandparent's house. This was my first exposure to cooking shows and to watching someone outside of my family cook. I was mesmerized. Her flamboyance and yet approachable ease to cooking had me hooked. I did not personally see the episode, but my Mom told me she once saw her drop something and pick it up and keep going. I don't know if this actually happened, but I loved the story nonetheless.

For some reason, Coq Au Vin had stuck in my head as one of "the" recipes that makes me think of Julia Child. I must have seen her make it before I was old enough to really remember what I was watching. For some reason this recipe has also really intimidated me. When I look at Julia Child's recipe, there are so many steps, and even sub-recipes. Well, this weekend, I decided to get over myself and come up with an approachable way of making Coq Au Vin, without the stress or mess.

I made a few rules for myself before I got started.
·         I was allowed use one pot, one bowl, one cutting board and one knife
·         One recipe, no sub recipes here
·         No special trips to the store, I was only allowed to use ingredients that I ordinarily keep on hand

With my research and rules in hand, I got started.  I had some leftover precooked bacon that I was able to use.  After I cut the bacon into one inch strips I put a little oil in my pot and crisped the bacon.  I pulled it out so it wouldn’t burn, then I browned up my chicken.  This step takes a great deal of patience on my part, but is so worth it!  Make sure your pot is on a high temp and let your chicken skin get nice and brown.  The darker the skin gets, the more flavor you are developing.  Just make sure it doesn’t go black, which is not the flavor we are going for here.  Also, don’t worry about fully cooking the chicken here, it will get cooked later in the broth. 

While my chicken worked on browning up, I cut my onions.  When we went to the store the white onions were on sale, so that is what I went with.  I took the time to cut the onions into eighths and leave part of the roots in tact so they would stay together.  I was so proud of how pretty they were.  However, this is an effort that I will not be repeating.  By the time this dish has finished cooking the onions had melted into the broth and looked as if I had just sliced them.  The only proof of my effort was the picture.  Disappointing, but lesson learned.

After the chicken had browned, I put the onions in the pot to pick up the yummy brown bits left by the chicken.  I also threw in a couple cloves of garlic, chopped.  After a few minutes, when the onions had softened a bit I poured in a little brandy, the recipe called for cognac, but I had brandy.  I used a match to flambé to burn off the alcohol.  It burned so quickly I didn’t have time to snap a picture.  I added the chicken, half a bottle of red wine, then topped it all off with veggie stock.  I added a bay leave and some thyme from my garden, put the lid on it in the oven at 350, and pretty much forgot about it for a couple hours.

 Flash forward about three hours and I pulled out my concoction.  I added a butter/flour mixture I had made by combining equal parts butter and flour and combining with a fork.  I also added a package of my rainbow potatoes and a container of prewashed and sliced mushrooms.  After a quick stir, I put the lid back on and threw it back in the oven for another hour. 

When I took the pot out of the oven for the last time I was pretty nervous.  I had cut out a lot of steps from Julia’s recipe, and I really hoped that it wouldn’t fall too short.  I was not let down!  The mushrooms were amazing, and I typically don’t like cooked mushrooms!  The onions were incredible!  And the chicken was fall of the bone tender.  To top it off, the purple potatoes were melt in your mouth!  Julia Child was definitely my inspiration here, but taking out the steps and stress were definitely worth it!  This recipe is definitely going down as a new family favorite!