Coq Au Vin

Coq Au Vin

By Gloria Kobrin Published: March 13, 2015

• Cuisine: French
• Course: Entrée
• Skill Level: Moderate

• Yield:

• 24 pieces of chicken

Ingredients

• 3 small frying chickens cut in joints and cleaned well
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• 18 tablespoons vegetable oil avocado oil for Passover
• 3 bottles Dry Red Wine not supermarket cooking wine
• 3-4 cups Fresh/Boxed Low Salt Chicken Broth
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 6 large garlic cloves peeled and crushed
• 4 large bay leaves
• 1 1/2 teaspoons crushed thyme
• 2 14-16 ounces packaged frozen pearl onions defrosted
• 2 pounds white small button mushrooms wiped clean
• 8 black peppercorns
• 2 parsley sprigs washed
• 1/4 pound Non-dairy Margarine softened
• 2/3 cup flour potato starch for Passover

Equipment

• 6 quart Dutch Oven/roaster
• 1-2 Large skillets with cover
• long handled tongs
• spider/slotted spoon
• wooden spoon
• whisk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to: 300° F. Rinse and pat dry all the chicken. Spread the chicken joints out in a single layer and grind black pepper lightly over them.
   
2. Pour six tablespoons oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add three or four pieces of chicken at a time to the hot oil-skin side down. Be careful the oil doesn't spatter. Let the chicken brown well on the skin side before turning the pieces over. This could take about 8-10 minutes depending on how hot your oil is. When each batch of chicken has browned, place it in roasting pan. As you continue to cook chicken, the chicken fat will render into the oil and there will be more chance for spattering. Continue browning chicken until it is all done. Place in a pre-heated oven uncovered for 15 minutes. Don't discard drippings from skillet.
   
3. Remove roaster from oven and pour in enough wine to almost cover the chicken. Top it off with chicken stock.
   
4. Add tomato paste, crushed garlic, one teaspoon of thyme and two bay leaves to the chicken. Bring liquid to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover roaster and simmer for 30 minutes. Prepare onions and mushrooms while chicken is simmering.
   
5. Either trim or remove stems from mushrooms. Leave them whole if they are small. Cut them in quarters if they are larger. Reheat the oil in the skillet over medium-high flame and add mushrooms. the hotter the oil is, the less juice will be released from the mushrooms. Shake the skillet until all the mushrooms are covered with oil and browned slightly. Remove mushrooms from skillet with a spider or slotted spoon. Set them aside.
   
6. Make an herb bouquet by wrapping parsley, peppercorns remaining bay leaf and thyme in a piece of cheesecloth. Add three-four tablespoons of oil to the pan-depending on how much is left. You need about six tablespoons of oil to brown the onions. Pat the defrosted onions dry and add them to hot oil. Brown onions on all sides by continuously shaking the pan. When onions have browned , add herb bouquet and 1 1/2 cups of wine to the skillet. Cover skillet and simmer onions 30 minutes or until they are tender. Remove onions from skillet with spider or slotted spoon and add to mushrooms. Cool.
   
7. When chicken has finished simmering, let it cool slightly. Remove chicken and bay leaves from sauce. Let it finish cooling before tightly wrapping and placing in fridge. Let the sauce cool completely before chilling in fridge over night.
   
8. The next morning, take sauce, chicken and vegetables out of the fridge. Remove fat from sauce by placing a paper towel directly on top of the sauce and lifting off the fat. You may have to do this twice.
   
9. Place pot of sauce over high heat and boil rapidly until it reduces by 25%. While sauce is reducing, mix margarine with flour to form a paste. When sauce has reduced, whisk in this paste and stir with a wooden spoon until it thickens enough to coat the spoon. Remove from heat. Carefully, add chicken and vegetables to hot sauce and heat over low flame until all the ingredients are hot. Serve hot.