Culture

Arich, wine-based sauce slowly tenderises chicken drumsticks as it bubbles away with garlic, thyme, bacon and mushrooms. As you may deduct from the name, the dish is of French origin, translated as “rooster with wine”. The name has been subject to numerous “coq” jokes in our flat, a sign of the maturity of fourth-year undergrads in this day and age. Its full-flavoured deliciousness will really warm you up on a cold night. This recipe is adapted from my dog-eared, banana-cake-batter-smeared edition of the Edmonds Cookery Book, which is many years old but much loved.

Ingredients

For the main affair

• 25g butter
• 5 rashers of shoulder or middle bacon, chopped
• 8-12 chicken drumsticks (use two per person)
• 2 small brown onions, peeled and diced, or 6 shallots, peeled and quartered
• 8-10 button mushrooms, halved
• 2 cups of red wine
• 2 TBS tomato paste
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed with the back of a knife
• 2-3 tsp dried thyme
• Cracked black pepper, to taste

For the beurre manié

• 25g butter
• 2 TBS white flour

Method

01 Melt the first measure of a butter in a large, deep saucepan. Add the bacon and fry for a few minutes. Remove the bacon from the pan, and set aside. Keep the butter in the pan as you add and remove ingredients as it will absorb the smoky flavours of the bacon and so forth.

02 Add the drumsticks to the pan and cook a few minutes each side to brown them. Do this in batches if you are using a larger quantity of chicken. Don’t worry if some of the chicken sticks to the pan – once you add the wine it will lift off. Remove the chicken from the pan, and set aside.

03 Add the onions or shallots to the pan and cook until clear. Return the bacon and chicken to the pan. Add the mushrooms, red wine, tomato paste, garlic, thyme and pepper. Give it a gentle stir to disperse the tomato paste. Use whatever variety of wine you wish. My selection criteria is essentially: (1) Is it red? (2) Is it $6.99 per bottle or less? If the answer is “yes” to both questions, you’re set.

04 Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat so the liquid is at a gentle simmer. Cover, and cook for 45 minutes. If you are using a larger quantity of chicken, it’s best to rotate them around the pan once or twice to ensure they cook through, in case the liquid doesn’t quite cover them.

05 Just before the 45 minutes is up, prepare your beurre manié. Typically the flour would be kneaded into soft butter, but I find zapping the butter in the microwave until melted, then whisking the flour through works just as well. Remove the chicken from the pan, add the beurre manié to the coq au vin, stirring, while you bring it to a gentle boil. Turn the heat back down to a simmer, return the chicken to the pan and cook for a further five minutes. The purpose of the beurre manié is twofold. Firstly, it allows the sauce to thicken without causing lumps as the flour particles are bound up in the butter. Secondly, it is an excuse to add more butter to make the dish that extra bit richer. Happy days.

06 Serve as is, with toasted bread to soak up the sauce, or atop mounds of rice or mashed potato.

Photography by James Stringer