- Coq au vin, probably one of the most classic French dishes out there, translates to chicken and wine. You are gonna hone your culinary
skills today, my friends. It is super good. You are gonna absolutely love this recipe. So yeah, obviously things look a little bit different right now. I no longer live in Chicago.
My studio is long gone. I'm literally working in like
a house kitchen right now until my new studio is done being built. Am I gonna have that perfect, bright white shot every single time? Yeah, maybe I'll get there a few times, but am I absolutely gonna
give you as much information, just like I always have about each recipe with tons of shots? Of course, I'm gonna give that to you. That has always been
my plan since day one. My comies is to teach you
these fundamental techniques. I'm gonna do it every single time for every video that I
ever am going to grit. Now, with that being
said, let's chat a second about this coq au vin. We are gonna kick it off
by making some mirepoix. So I've got some onion,
celery, and carrots. The first thing we want to
do is just roughly chop up some stalks of celery. It does not have to be perfect in any way. Again, it's just going in a marinade. Next, I've got some carrots. We want to peel these
and just like the celery, roughly chop it. Do not have to be uniform. Does not have to be perfect. Once they are chopped, just
simply set them to the side. Next, I've got a few garlic cloves, which I'm just gonna smash
with the side of a knife. This will sort of activate them, make them more aromatic into the marinade. Next I've got a yellow onion. I'm just gonna slice off each
of the sides, the ends there. Slice it in half. Of course, peel it. Peel off that outside layer there. That's no good in this
marinade and then again, just roughly chop it. You don't even have to do
it the way that I did it. Just give it a chop, get
everything nice and cut up. And at this point, we're gonna add it to the celery, carrots and
garlic and a plastic bag. Now you can absolutely just use a plastic container with a lid. I just use plastic bags because it's easy to mix ingredients around in there, but that part is totally up to you. Now here's what we're gonna do next. I've got a fabricated whole
chicken cut into parts, breasts, thighs, drums, and wings. I always like to use whole chicken. I feel like you get the
best value when doing this. And plus when it's
done, you have a carcass which you can freeze, pull out later and make chicken stock with. Yes, you can just use
thighs, drums or breasts. It's totally up to you. But since I did it this way, I'm also gonna French the breasts. By doing this, what we
do is we have that little sort of leg sticking out,
we want to cut around it using a very, very sharp
knife, just like you see here, and then start to scrape up. We wanna expose that bone.
This is purely for looks. You do not have to do this, but again, I'm gonna hone those
skills in this video recipe and you'll be better for it. Once you get to the top with all the skin and a little bit of
meat, just slice it off. You can see here, a
nice clean chicken bone. This looks fantastic. Now what we're gonna do is
take all of these chicken parts and place it in the plastic bag, along with the mirepoix. Once it is in there, now we're
gonna add in some goodness to help with that marinade. I've got a nice Beaujolais wine, when in Rome we're making French food. You could use a burgundy
or a Cotes du Rhone. If you had cab or Merlot,
totally fine. Use what you got. I'm gonna add in two to three cups or so and I'm gonna hit it with
a little bit of cognac. There are some classic recipes
that cook with the cognac. I like it in the marinade. And now for a little fat. This is totally optional and definitely a little tweak that I added
to this, some olive oil. We're gonna season it up
with a little bit of sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper. And then at this point, go
ahead and zip up the bag. And this is the reason I
definitely like to use plastic bags is because I can move things around. I can sort of infuse those flavors, make sure this marinade is touching every little square
centimeter of the chicken. So it will have the most flavor possible. We're heading right over
to the refrigerator. We're gonna pop it in there.
Make sure it's nice and cool. Now we're gonna leave that coq
au vin marinating overnight. When I say overnight, here's what I mean. If you make it at four in the
afternoon or eight at night or 12 in the afternoon, the next day. Okay, there's no perfect, you
have to make it a 9:00 PM. When you wake up at 6:00 AM,
you have to prepare this, okay. Overnight could be up to 24 hours. Totally fine to do the longer, the better. Remember when it marinates
all those flavors infuse. If you can't do it overnight and you really want to
make this thing the day of, at least hit it in there
for four to six hours, you should be good to go. Here's what we do next. I'm gonna go ahead and
pull out our chicken. It looks fantastic. It smells great. I'm gonna remove it from the marinade. There are a lot of
classic Coco Von recipes that call for you to use the marinade, drain it and cook with it. I was always taught whenever
you're marinating anything, discard that liquid and
that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be safe. Go ahead and set the chicken to the side and if we've got a
little bit of prep here. So I'm gonna slice the
ends off of a yellow onion. Cut it in half. Of course, I'm gonna peel it and then I'm gonna small dice it. This is just gonna be
cooked with a little bit, add a little flavor, set it to the side. I've got a couple of carrots.
We just wanna peel those up. And then I'm gonna thickly slice it. Since this is gonna braise
for about 75 to 90 minutes, thicker slices take longer to cook. So they won't be mushy
at the end of cooking it. Sometimes if you cut those carrots or other vegetables too small
and cook for long times. You end with mushy vegetables
and that's no good. Next of course, I've got some garlic,. You know I can't stand
chopping it anymore. So I'm gonna run it right
through a garlic press. Make sure I get all those
little good morsels off there. Scrape scrape it with my knife. And now we're gonna make a bouquet garni. I've got a leek which
I'm gonna slice in half and peel off the outside layer. I'll keep the rest of
the leek for some stock. Add a nice bunch of fresh
Italian flat leaf parsley, a big old sprig of fresh thyme. I'm gonna put two of those leek peelings right on the outside. And then using some butchers twine. All you do is simply tie a double knot. This will hold it securely
in place and then make a bow. I mean, it's just like you're
tying shoes, my friends. It's really that simple. Go ahead, set it to the
side once you're done. And with this bouquet garni, if you don't have any butcher's twine, it's totally fine just to put
everything in there loose. You're just gonna have to
do a little bit of fishing when this recipe is done so that you get all those thyme sprigs and parsley sprigs and the leeks out of there. It's no big deal though. If you don't have it, don't sweat it. Now I've got some button mushrooms. Using a damp towel, you
should just wipe off any excess dirt. Want them to be nice and clean. You can also peel a layer
off that outside cap if you want to do as well. If your mushrooms are
big, these are pretty big, I'm gonna cut them in half. You could even cut them into quarters. If they're smaller, I actually
like to leave them whole, just like the way they look. Set them to the side and now
I've got some pearl onions. This part is totally optional, okay. You can use a regular onion if you'd like. I like pearl onions,
they're nice and sweet. And they just look
really good in this dish. That's all I can say. Slice off that root end
of the pearl onions. Here is an awesome trick for you guys. Go ahead and add them back to the bowl. We are going over to a
pot of boiling water. We're gonna add them in there. We're gonna maybe cook them
for 45 seconds to one minute. They're gonna start to soften up. Immediately, remove 'em, drain 'em. And then what you wanna
do is run some cold water all over the onions. We want to get 'em so
that we can touch them. So they're not extremely, extremely hot. And here is why we do that. Go ahead and shake off
the water. Take 'em out. Here's how simple they are to peel. Just give them a little squeeze
from the one end and boom, They pop right out. Let me show you again. This is so awesome. Love this trick. Little squeeze, boom, a
beautiful, perfect pearl onion. Don't lie. That trick
is a total game changer. It literally saved my life
in the restaurant industry. Instead of having to peel all
those little pearl onions. It's super easy to do, takes
a little bit extra time, but you're not gonna be trying
to peel all those onions, which is gonna take you
literally like an hour. You're welcome, my friends. Here's what we're gonna do now. The last and final thing of prep, we are going to slice up
some very thick cut bacon, just like you see here. Once it's sliced, add it to a bowl. Now go ahead and grab that bacon and grab our marinated,
fabricated chicken. We are going right over to a Dutch oven. This is a cocotte made
specifically for coq au vin. You definitely don't need
it, just a Dutch oven and over medium heat, add
in those bacon lard ends. We're gonna cook it. We just want to crisp it up,
render some of that bacon fat. Tons of flavor in there.
We're gonna saute in here. So make sure that it renders
off quite a bit of fat. And then go ahead and set those lard ends right to the side in a small bowl. Don't put 'em far
because we will need them in just a little bit. Set that to the side and then add our chicken right in there. We are cooking in this bacon fat. We want to get a very
nice brown, beautiful golden sear on these gonna
take about six minutes. Now let me stop and say this. Don't sweat it if your pot
isn't big enough to roast up everything at one time, you can
absolutely do it in batches. Because when we put the
chicken back in there with the liquid, it could
literally be stacked up on each other. As long as it's in the liquid,
you're gonna be good to go. Here's what we do now. After that six to seven minute period. Go ahead and give it a little flip. You see that beautiful golden brown and it's just like extra brown because of that deep
red marinade it sat in. We're not trying to cook it through. Again, we just wanna
brown 'em on each side. Maybe the other side,
four to five minutes. Take it out, set it to the side on a plate and because there's so
much rendered bacon fat and chicken fat in there, I'm gonna drain off about half of it. We definitely do not need it. You could discard this fat,
strain it and freeze it. Maybe put it in some
confit, totally up to you. Now add in those small
diced yellow onions, followed up with those large cut carrots. We're gonna hit it with a little bit of that finely minced garlic
through the garlic press. We're just gonna sweat
these on low to medium heat for three to four minutes. We're not looking to cook 'em through. Just get a nice little
sweat on them if you will. This looks fantastic. And now we want to make a
roux so add in your flour. It's gonna mix with the
fat and this is gonna help thicken up our braising liquid and also make it like a nice gravy. Once the flour is coated
all over the vegetables, I'm gonna add it with the
rest of that Beaujolais wine. Got about two cups or
so, that should be good for this, plenty of flavor. It will immediately thicken up and you will notice it right away. Just like this, almost looks
like a crazy thick gravy. And now I'm gonna add in a combination of chicken stock and beef stock. You can use one or the other,
just chicken, just beef, take your pick. Traditionally it's veal stock. That's really hard to come by. Now I'm gonna season it up well with salt and pepper. Remember this is our braising liquid. So taste it. Make sure it tastes delicious. Now add in our bouquet
garni, which looks awesome. It'll be very easy to fish out of there when it's done cooking. And then what you want to
do is simply add the chicken in there and make sure it fills up. I know you had to do it
in batches, like I said, but you'll be able to
sort of stack it on there. No problem at all. I'm gonna transfer burners
'cause the one I cooked it on was super high and hot. This back one is nice and low. Go ahead and add the lid on there. And what we wanna do is cook it for in between 75 and 90 minutes total. Those culinary skills been tested yet? We are almost finished. We wanna quickly saute up some mushrooms and those pearl onions
and put them in there. This is gonna add a lot more flavor. And then we're gonna add
another thing in there, but first let's saute
those off really quick. In a large saute pan,
over medium high heat, we're gonna add and just
a little bit of olive oil. Now go ahead and add in
those sliced mushrooms. We wanna sort of brown these up real well, add in the pearl onions as well. All at the same. No problem. And again, we're just sautéing these. We wanna get a golden brown on these. We do wanna cook these most of the way because we're doing this about 15 minutes before our coq au vin is done cooking. Once they are brown, like
this, looks fantastic. We are gonna add them
right to that coq au vin. So go ahead and transfer it over there. Move the lid off and then
add the mushrooms in there. This looks fantastic. It's smells super, super good, you guys. And then I like to sort
of mix everything in there using the spoon, just sort
of move some things around. And last but not least, don't you dare forget that cooked bacon. Going to add an incredible
amount of flavor in here. Obviously also incredibly classic as well. Now what we're gonna do at
this point is just remove it from the burner and you know
what time it is, my friends. Even if I'm in a new kitchen, it's time to plate this up in slow mo. I'm going to add the chicken
to a nice shallow bowl. I think it's a good presentation because you've got a lot of liquid here and sometimes it can run off a plate that's why I choose to use a bowl here. Now go ahead and grab a huge scoop of the braising liquid
and those vegetables. Dump it all over the top. And then we're just gonna finish it with some whole parsley leaves. You could chop it up too. And man, oh man, check out this beauty. (upbeat music) So delicious and such a fantastic meal to serve up to friends or
family, even a special occasion. Maybe even you're doing Thanksgiving, you don't wanna do a whole turkey. Coq au vin is where it's at my friends. Be sure to subscribe to my channel. Definitely, I mean, definitely check out this video. It was made for you and you'll love it. We'll see you on there. (upbeat music)
