Coq Au Vin – Chicken in Red Wine with Mushrooms Onions and Bacon
Your tastebuds believe you are dining in a fancy, French restaurant! Chicken in wine sauce with onions and mushrooms. It just does not get more satisfying than that.
Ingredients
- 4 lbs chicken (legs and thighs)
- Bacon (3 slices)
- Red Wine (3 cups) we used a red blend
- Beef Stock (1 cup) we used Swanson
- Tomato Paste (2 Tablespoons) we used a tube called Cento
- Garlic (3 cloves) mashed
- Thyme 1/2 teaspoon
- 1 bay leaf
- salt and pepper
- 1 jar Pearl Onions - we used Aunt Nellies
- 1 pint of fresh Baby Bella Mushrooms
- Butter 6 tablespoons (3 for browning 3 for gravy)
- 3 tablespoons flour
Instructions
- Start with your 3 slices of bacon. I cut them in half lengthwise, then make 1/4 inch slices. Brown those in your big skillet, set the bacon aside. While the bacon is browning, pat the chicken dry on both sides and give them a good seasoning of salt and pepper. Add a tablespoon of butter to your bacon grease and brown the mushrooms and pearl onions, when nice and brown (4 to 5 minutes) remove with slotted spoon and set aside.
- Place chicken pieces in the skillet let brown about 10 minutes turning once, I added 2 more tablespoons of butter at this point.
- Pour wine over chicken, and add beef stock to cover the chicken. Stir in tomato paste, garlic, and herbs. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer and cover. Let simmer slowly for about 30 minutes, or until chicken meat is tender when pierced with a fork. I used a thermometer on the largest thigh to make sure it was at 165 degrees.
- Now move the chicken to a casserole dish and place in the oven to keep warm. In a little saute pan melt last 3 tablespoons of butter and add 3 tablespoons of flour, stirring until just thickened. Add that to your skillet with the wine and broth and now add those mushrooms, pearl onions and bacon back to reduce and thicken the liquid. Stirring for the first few minutes. Once your sauce has reduced some, then you can pour all this yummy wine gravy over your chicken. We toasted some French bread topped with garlic and butter, cut into crostinis. We also served this with little red potatoes on the side. With more wine of course!
Notes
This is a little easier version of Julia Child's recipe. It doesn't include the flambe, if you'd like that part it includes 1/4 cup cognac and lighting with a match to let burn for a few seconds before adding the wine to the skillet.