Coq au Vin

In our Native family tree we do have some French relatives from Eastern Canada. I traced the Pelletier French name to the Normandy region of France, coq au vin did not originate in Normandy, and I would really like to cook a few recipes from that region. Anyhoo I love cooking with wine and I am pretty sure its those recessive French genes. One of my favorite dishes to cook is boeuf bourguignon. I love the richness of slow cooked meat in red wine so cooking coq au vin is a French dish I just have to cook.

Coq au vin originally uses an old rooster or an old chicken that is old and tough. I decided to use organic Cornish game hens. They were smaller than the Tyson raised Cornish game hens, they were also $2.80 a bird so I couldn't resist. Its difficult to find an old rooster and chicken today does not have much flavor. I started using Cornish game hens because they seemed to be more flavourful. I would buy one hen for about $8.00 to $9.00 in Canada for soup. It made enough "chicken" soup for my son and I. When I bought these little beauties I knew I wanted to use them for coq au vin.

Now because I don't drink wine and I have no wine experience I used a cheap bottle of red wine and I will admit I should have selected a decent drinking wine. Next time I would like cook coq au vin with a good white wine, coq au Riesling or coq au champagne.

This is my first attempt cooking coq au vin turned out great. I followed a recipe I found online and I would change the amount of wine and chicken stock used if using game hens. This depends on how thick or thin you like your sauce. I like a thicker sauce so I would less chicken stock.

Coq Au Vin 

3 to 4 Cornish game hens-cut up or use whole or 8 chicken thighs

5 slices of good thick bacon

4 cloves of minced garlic

1/2 onion 

1 stalk of celery

2 cups of red wine

2 cups of chicken stock

1 bay leaf

6 sprigs of thyme 

3 tablespoons of tomato paste

2 tablespoons of flour

8 ounces of button mushrooms

8 ounces of pearl onions 

parsley for garnish

1. Prep all your ingredients. Mince garlic cut up celery and onion. Wash and quarter button mushrooms, remove outer layer of peal onions if they are fresh, if frozen remove from freezer. If you are using game hens you can leave them whole and generously season with salt and pepper or you can cut them up into smaller pieces. 
2. You are going to cook this on the stove so use a good size pot, pan or dutch oven that will hold 3 to 4 game hens or 8 chicken thighs. Cut up and fry the bacon. Once the bacon is cooked remove from the pan and set aside.  
3. Brown the game hens or chicken thighs in the pan you used to cook your bacon, remove game hens/chicken from the pan. Remove all but a couple of tablespoons of baking drippings from the pan. Keep the excess bacon drippings. You are going to combine the bacon drippings with the 2 tablespoons of flour. I didn't combine the flour with the bacon grease. I combined the flour with a bit of water this could have been a mistake of mine)
4. Next, sauté the chopped onion, celery and minced garlic until soft then add in red wine, chicken stock, bay leaf, thyme, tomato paste, and cooked bacon. Stir until tomato paste in combined then add game hens/chicken thighs to the pan. Once the liquid comes to a simmer cover and cook for 45 minutes.  
5. After 45 minutes, remove game hens/chicken from the pan, cover and set aside (I took apart the hens with my hands at this stage, they come apart easily). Next, add the pearl onions and mushrooms and the flour mixture to the pan, not all at once to avoid lumps and mix well. Once the mixture is brought back to a simmer and is thickening add the game hens/chicken back into the pan and cook for another 15 minutes.

Serve with chopped parsley. 

Adjustments:

I could not find pearl onions so I ended up using 5 shallots. The recipe also de-glazed the pan with cognac before adding the stock and red wine but we a dry family so I was not going to buy a bottle of cognac so I omitted that step. I would also either omit the celery or add a chopped up carrot to the celery and onions. I like a sauce that thickens on its own therefore, I would only use 1 cup of red wine and by pass the flour mixture (I used flour and water). You can always add the 2nd cup of red wine if you need to during the cooking process and if you want a thicker sauce then use the flour mixture.