Synopsis: Today we made a very tasty Coq Au Vin with a very complicated recipe. It was worth the work, which is why I’m posting it up now. But just know before you start, it takes some time! If you use something to substitute for the beef glace, it can cut the total hours spent on it by quite a bit.
And then on the other end of the spectrum we have crepes, which are super-simple yet delicious. So take your pick. (Or if you’re feeling ambitious, do them both!)
Recipe: Coq Au Vin (involved)
- Sliced carrots
- Diced celery
- Diced onion
- Diced bacon
- Quartered mushrooms
- Pearl onions
- Thyme
- Cracked black pepper
- Red wine
- Chicken legs and/or thighs, bone-in
- Beef glace
- Beurre manie (equal parts flour and butter)
Sautee carrots, onions, and celery in a large pan. When they start to get soft, add enough beef stock to cover the veggies, and add about 1/2 of that amount of red wine. While that simmers, dredge each chicken piece in flour and fry them in a bit of oil until it has a nice brown on each side. Add the chicken to the sauce.
Now you can use the same pan you used for the chicken to fry the bacon, mushrooms, and pearl onions. Sautee them until bacon is done and mushrooms are tender, and add to the big pot o’ chicken and sauce. Now you need some extra flavor and a thickener. For the flavor, we used beef glace, which is beef stock that has been reduced to about 1/20th of its original volume and is very thick when chilled. If you don’t want to use this, you can just use some beef base, bullion, or consomme flavoring. Now for the thickener we used beurre manie (French for “kneaded butter”). This is pretty simple to make. Just take equal amounts of butter and flour, and knead it like crazy until it forms something like a soft pie dough. Add this to the chicken/veggie/sauce mixture in little chunks and stir to dissolve. Add until it thickens up to a light stew consistency. And at long last, you’re done! This goes great with mashed potatoes, as the sauce from the coq au vin can also serve as a delicious gravy for the potatoes.
Recipe: Crepes (simple)
- Flour
- Milk
- Eggs
- Salt
- Orange/Lemon zest, other flavorings (optional)
Now for the easy one – crepes! Everybody likes them, and they seem like they’re a lot more work than they really are. The only tricky part is flipping those thin suckers over in your pan, but with practice it becomes pretty easy. To prepare, just mix up all of the above ingredients in a mixing bowl until it’s the consistency of a smooth, thin pancake batter. Get a frying pan nice and hot with a little oil or butter (we use clarified to avoid burning), and ladle some batter into the pan. Get it as thin as possible – you can use the ladle itself to push the batter around the pan in a circle, but if your batter is thin enough you won’t even need to do that. You can just tilt the pan in a circle to get the batter to run, and if your pan is small enough you will have nice circular edges. When it looks like the top of the crepe has “set” (doesn’t look wet or raw any more), flip it with a spatula or with the pan itself if you’re feeling daring. Let it get a little browned on the underside, and you’re done. Now time for the fun part – deciding what to stuff the crepes with! Nutella-and-anything is great, as is fruits, jam, whipped cream, or perhaps something savory if you’re in the mood. That’s what’s so great about crepes, you can make them go with almost anything!
That’s it for today, chefs, enjoy!