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🇫🇷 Dinner · France
Coq au Vin
Coq au vin is Burgundy in a pot — an old farmhouse rooster (the original coq) braised for hours in the same red Pinot Noir the family drank, with smoky pancetta, glossy pearl onions and browned mushrooms. The dish was lifted out of the countryside by Escoffier into the codified French repertoire and travelled across the Atlantic on Julia Child's television apron, becoming the icon of French home cooking abroad.
Rich in protein
Filling and nutritious
Traditional recipe
Authentic taste
Ingredients 6 servings
- 1 whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
- 200 g pancetta or bacon
- 250 g button mushrooms
- 200 g pearl onions
- 1 bottle red Burgundy wine
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 carrots
- Thyme, bay leaf
- Butter, flour, salt, pepper, parsley
How to make it
- 1The night before, joint the chicken into eight pieces and submerge in red Burgundy with bay, thyme, a halved onion and a few peppercorns; cover and refrigerate overnight so the wine penetrates the flesh and the marinade takes on the bird's perfume.
- 2Next day, lift the chicken out and pat each piece bone-dry — wet skin will not brown, which is the cardinal sin here.
- 3Reserve the marinade.
- 4In a heavy cast-iron pot, render diced pancetta until crisp; lift it out and brown the chicken in the rendered fat in two batches, skin-side first, until each piece is mahogany.
- 5Set aside.
- 6In the same pot, sweat finely chopped onion, garlic and carrot, scatter a heaped spoonful of flour over and stir for a minute, then pour in the reserved marinade and a ladle of dark chicken stock, scraping every brown trace from the bottom.
- 7Return the chicken and pancetta, bring to a gentle simmer, cover and cook on the lowest flame — or in a 160°C oven — for sixty minutes, until the meat is tender but still clings to the bone.
- 8While it cooks, sauté the pearl onions in butter until amber and the mushrooms in a separate pan until deeply browned — never together, or they steam each other.
- 9Slip both into the pot for the last fifteen minutes, taste for salt, finish with a knob of cold butter swirled in off the heat and a shower of parsley.
- 10Serve with mashed potato or buttered noodles to catch every drop of sauce.
Tip: Marinate the chicken in the wine and aromatics overnight; the longer marinade is what gives coq au vin its colour and depth.
Nutritional info
per serving (~350 g)
Calories 420 kcal
Protein 32 g
Carbs 18 g
Fat 20 g
Fiber 3 g
Estimated nutritional values.
Pairs perfectly with
🥖 Crusty baguette
🍷 French red (Bordeaux or Burgundy)
🧀 Aged cheese platter
🌿 Fresh herbs
