Coq au Vin

In the interest of getting our butts back in gear, cooking more at home, and ensuring leftovers for lunches (we've been spending an obscene amount of money in restaurants and on take-out lately), we recently selected this Coq au Vin recipe to try out, from Julia Child's beloved Savenor's Market.  Having never done a Coq au Vin before, I planned to stick to it as exactly as possible, but there did end up being a few small changes.  Here's how it went (our version, not theirs)....

INGREDIENTS

• ½ pound of sliced bacon, cut into quarter-inch pieces
• 40 frozen pearl onions
• 3 pounds of chicken thighs and legs, skin on
• 8 garlic cloves, peeled
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2 cups red wine (the original recipe called for pinot noir, burgundy or zinfandel -- I just used up what I had leftover, and honestly I have no idea what kind it was)
• Dried thyme
• Dried parsley
• ½ pound of button mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 2 Tablespoons of butter

PROCEDURE

First, I gathered up and prepared most of the ingredients (chicken, chicken stock, wine, bacon, onions, garlic, butter, and mushrooms).

Next, I decided to skip the step in the original recipe of blanching the bacon, and went straight into browning it on medium-high heat in a dutch oven that would be big enough to hold all the chicken.  This took about ten minutes.

Removing the crisped bacon (but not the rendered fat) from the pan, it was then time to work on the chicken.

I worked in two batches, heat still on medium-high, putting half of the chicken pieces and half of the onions right into the hot oil and leaving it for a few minutes to brown.

Then, I flipped it over, added half of the garlic, salt and pepper, and left it for a few more minutes to brown on the other side.

All of it (chicken, garlic and onions) was then removed from the pan.

I dumped the fat out of the pan, and added the chicken stock and wine to deglaze.  After which, the chicken, onions, garlic, and bacon were put back in, along with some parsley, thyme and two bay leaves.

I brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat and covered it, and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Next, I took the chicken pieces out of the pan and set them aside, and it was time to work on the sauce.  I didn't remove the onions (as suggested by the original recipe) or any of the other stuff (garlic, bacon, etc).  The mushrooms were added to the pan, and the heat was turned up to full blast so that it could boil and reduce down.  At this point I also started a pot of white rice cooking, so that we could serve the chicken on top of that.

I let it boil for probably another 20 minutes, until the volume had reduced by approximately three quarters.

Then I removed the bay leaves, stirred in the butter....

....and added the chicken pieces back in to get re-warmed and coated in the sauce.

It was plated on top of a bed of rice, with a scoop or two of the mushroom-onion-bacon fortified sauce.

I have to say that at first, particularly as I was starting to reduce the sauce down, I though that maybe this recipe was too much trouble, and not worth all the effort.  But once we finally dove in and started eating it, I realized that I was wrong.  Very delicious!!

It only seemed complicated because it was my first time making this.  And it really didn't take very long (about an hour and a half start to finish).  I think I could easily do this one again, without even having to look at a recipe, now that I know the basic techniques involved in a classic Coq au Vin.