Coq au vin chicken pie

Posted by petra08 on November 28, 2013 · 2 Comments 

Each season has it’s own charms and winter arriving, with cold weather and dark evenings are truly inviting for slow cooked stews and casseroles. They are full of flavor, guaranteed to give you that warm and lovely feeling whilst eating it. This time I looked at a classic, Coq au Vin, chicken cooked in red wine. Classics are classics for a reason but I could not resist making some changes.

This dish is usually cooked with a nice full bodied red wine, such as a shiraz or a cabernet sauvignon. I used my normal cheap red wine (usually the cheapest red I can find on the supermarket shelf) and I have to say it worked beautifully.

Coq au Vin with a slight twist

Preperation time 15 minutes 

Cooking time 1 hr 5 mins

Serves 4 

Ingredients

• 4 chicken legs
• 1 bottle of wine
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup calvados
• 4 streaky, smoked bacon rashes
• 2 carrots
• 4 shallot onions
• 2 celery sticks
• 1/8 head of savoy cabbage
• 1/2 dl soy sauce
• 3 tbsp fruit vinegar
• 4 garlic cloves
• 3 bayleaves
• 4 dl or 2 cops of chicken stock
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 4 spring onions
• 1 box of button mushrooms
• salt & pepper to taste
• corn flour to thicken the sauce

Cut up the bacon and set aside. Take the skin of the chicken and unless it is done separate the drumstick from the thigh. Set aside until you are ready to start cooking.

Slice the celery and the spring onion, separate the green from the white on the spring onion, use the green with the parsley to garnish and add that fresh bite in the end. Peel and cut the carrot in to chunky sticks. Peel and quarter the shallot onions. Cut out the core and slice the cabbage. Peel the garlic cloves and brush clean and quarter the mushrooms if they are big. Chop the parsley and set aside with the spring onion greens.

In a pot fry the bacon and when it is getting crispy and it has released some fat remove it and brown the chicken in the bacon fat. Once it has browned remove the chicken and add the calvados and get the brown bits of the bottom of the pan(lots of flavor). Add a little chicken stock if it starts to evaporate. This will smell wonderful. Add the chicken, bacon, the shallot onion, the bayleaves, the carrot, the mushrooms and the celery to the pot along with the whole bottle of wine, the soy sauce, the vinegar and the chicken stock. Mix and let simmer un covered for 30 minutes. Skim when necessary and taste to make sure the flavors are right. Crush the garlic and add this and the cabbage and let simmer for another 30 minutes. When the chicken is cooked and the flavors have come together mix corn flour with a little cold water and thicken the sauce, I used about 4 heaped tbsp corn flour to get the right consistency.

I served the coq au vin with bulgar wheat and a sprinkle of the parsley and the green from the spring onions.

As it was only the 2 of us eating there was quite a lot left over. I took the meat of the bones and put it in the fridge. The next day I needed something fairly quick for dinner and the left over coq au vin would be perfect. I took some puff pastry from the freezer and decided to make a chicken pie. I scooped the left over coq au vin in to ovenproof individual portion dishes. I made a lid from the puff pastry, added it on top and gave it an egg wash brush and a sprinkle of black sesame seeds before cutting a hole for the steam to escape and baked it until the filling was bubbling and the pastry puffed up and crispy.

We ate this with a crunchy feta cheese salad and it was a great dinner, full of vegetables and the chicken tasted even better the day after!

Coq au vin is usually made from a whole chicken but I prefer the dark meat and for the longer cooking time it was great. The calvados added a depth of flavor and richness. It was a very light dish and perfect for a large group, just add more chicken. I can imagine it being wonderful with mash potatoes or just crusty bread and a salad as well as bulgar wheat.

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Filed under Allotment/Veg, Bulgur Wheat, Cabbage, Celery, Garlic, Herbs, Main course, Mushroom, Onion, Recipe, Red, Spring onion, Wine · Tagged with chicken pie, Coq au Vin