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Author: Paul Merrett
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  • 5 minutes

Recipe: Coq au vin

Updated Wednesday, 27 April 2005

Try out our recipe from the Ever Wondered About Food series

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Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 1.5 kg (3 lb) free-range chicken

Stock

  • 2.5 litres (80 fl. oz) of water
  • half a carrot (6"), peeled and roughly chopped into chunks
  • 20 white peppercorns
  • ½ a head of garlic (cut horizontally)
  • 1 sprig each of thyme and rosemary
  • vegetable oil to fry

Coq au vin

  • 6 shallots or 3 banana shallots, peeled and halved
  • 50 g (2 oz) lump of streaky bacon, lightly smoked
  • 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
  • 1 sprig each thyme and rosemary
  • half dsp of plain flour
  • 500 ml (17.6 fl. oz/three quarters of a bottle) of red wine
  • 32 lardons of streaky bacon, lightly smoked
  • 24 button onions
  • 32 button mushrooms
  • 1 French breadstick
  • olive oil
  • flat-leaf parsley, chopped, to garnish

Method

Stock

  1. Preheat the oven 250ºC/500ºF/Gas mark 9.
  2. Joint the chicken into 2 breasts, 2 drumsticks and 2 thighs, or you can ask the butcher to do this for you. But remember to ask for the carcass too.
  3. Take the trimmings and carcass and brown them in a hot pan with a little vegetable oil.
  4. Pour the water onto them, adding the carrot, garlic, peppercorns, sprig of thyme and rosemary.
  5. Leave these to simmer for at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours. You want a nice, dark chicken stock.

Coq au vin

  1. Take the chicken meat and brown it in a very hot casserole dish with a little oil. Remove the browned chicken from the pan and put it aside.
  2. Into the casserole dish put the shallots, lump of bacon, garlic, sprig of thyme and rosemary and allow to brown.
  3. Once browned, dust the mixture in the pan with the flour. Add the wine and reduce to half its volume.
  4. Strain the stock and add 500 ml of this to the casserole dish.
  5. Then add the chicken and allow to simmer for 45 minutes on a medium heat with a lid half on.
  6. Remove the chicken and leave in a large ceramic serving dish with a lid on.
  7. Take the sauce from the casserole dish and sieve it into a clean pan. Throw away the sieve contents.
  8. Taste the sauce. If it is not strong enough, reduce it and add more red wine if you feel it needs it. Pour the sauce over the chicken.
  9. In a little oil, fry the lardons until crisp, the whole onions until caramelised and soft, and the whole button mushrooms until browned. This will take about for 8–10 minutes. Throw these in with the chicken.
  10. Cut the French bread stick diagonally into 2 cm thick slices, and paint them with olive oil. Roast in the oven for about 5 minutes until crisp but doughy in the middle. Place these around the sides of the coq au vin.
  11. Sprinkle the coq au vin with chopped parsley and serve.
 

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