French · Main
Coq au Vin
Chicken legs braised in reduced red wine with the holy trinity of lardons, pearl onions and mushrooms — marinate overnight and the sauce turns profound
- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- 120 min
- Serves
- 6
Ingredients
- Chicken legs, whole (or 1 jointed large bird) — 6 (about 1.8 kg)
- Red Burgundy — 750 ml
- Brown chicken stock — 400 ml
- Cognac — 40 ml
- Smoked bacon lardons — 180 g
- Pearl onions, peeled — 250 g
- Button mushrooms — 300 g
- Carrot, chunks — 150 g
- Onion, chunks — 150 g
- Garlic — 15 g
- Tomato paste — 25 g
- Plain flour — 25 g
- Unsalted butter — 50 g
- Thyme — 5 sprigs; bay 2
- Fine salt — 12 g; black pepper 2 g
- Sugar — 5 g
Method
- Marinate chicken overnight in wine with carrot, onion, garlic, thyme and bay.
- Drain (keep everything); pat chicken very dry; season. Boil the wine, skimming, 5 min.
- Render lardons in a cocotte; remove. Brown chicken hard in the fat, in batches; remove.
- Brown marinade vegetables 5 min; add tomato paste and flour, cook 2 min.
- Add Cognac, flambé; add wine and stock. Return chicken and lardons; braise, lid on, at 150 °C oven for 75–90 min until the meat waves on the bone.
- Meanwhile glaze pearl onions with 25 g butter, sugar and 100 ml water, 12 min; sauté mushrooms in remaining butter until golden.
- Lift chicken; strain and reduce sauce to coating consistency; season.
- Reunite chicken, sauce, onions, mushrooms and lardons; simmer 5 min.