Food for ...

Coq au vin

At the end of last year I did a wine harmonisation course with the London Wine and Food Academy and can I say ... two hours each Monday night of tasting food and wine is the BEST way to spend a Monday evening. It was pretty much all you can eat and all you can drink food and wine and I learnt a hell of a lot about wine. Harry and Mikhail were both excellent teachers - they had a real passion for wine. They pretty much both lived food and wine. Now that is my kind of career.

Anyway, it wasn't unusual to go home with a bottle full of a mixture of the red wines that we had drank during the class to use as a marinade in cooking. Being a non-red meat eater, one evening I asked Harry what I should cook my red wine with. He told me, coq au vin. I did ... and it's now a big treat in our household. I make loads and loads of it so it lasts for days and it gets better day after day. It's especially good for dipping crusty bread.

Ingredients

Chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1/2 bottle or so, of good quality red wine
250g ( 8oz ) Shallots
250g ( 8oz ) button mushrooms
4 rashers of smoked bacon, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
sunflower oil and equal amount butter, for frying
1 level tablespoon of flour
Bouquet garni:
Celery stalk, 3-4 parsley stalks, sprig of thyme
and a bay leave, tied all together with string.

Method

fry the diced bacon, then add the shallots and fry until light brown
remove from pan and put aside
now fry the mushrooms gently until just going brown
remove from pan and put aside
clean pan and then heat more oil and butter
brown the chicken pieces on all sides,
drain off the fat
add the wine, crushed garlic bringing it to the boil
add the Bouquet garni and season to taste
let it simmer gently for 20 minutes
now add the bacon, shallots and mushrooms and let it simmer gently for another 10-15 minutes
thicken with flour and bring back to the boil, stirring all the time
let it simmer for another 2-3 minutes

I generally serve with mashed potato. Heaven!

posted by Melissa @ 11:53 AM