Coq au Vin

Mmmm...chicken and a bottle of wine. A winter classic.

This is from my beat-up French cookbook. You can certainly find more complicated recipes for coq au vin, but this one does the job fairly simply.

Coq au Vin

2 T. olive oil

4 oz. bacon, cut into matchstick strips

12 pearl onions (do yourself a favor and buy them frozen), peeled

1 rooster (ha!) or chicken, cut up and sprinkled with salt and pepper

3 T. brandy/Cognac

2 T. flour

3 sprigs thyme

2 bay leaves

1 bottle cheap red wine (Shiraz would be good)

2 T. butter

1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Toasted bread (brush sliced bread with melted butter or olive oil and toast at 350 for about 7 minutes)

Get out your big Dutch oven or covered skillet--it needs to hold a whole chicken and a whole bottle of wine.

Heat the oil in the pan and then cook the bacon in the oil. It sounds crazy to cook bacon in extra fat, but it keeps you from getting burned bacon bits on the bottom of the pan. When the bacon is cooked, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and brown the onions in the fat. When they're browned, remove them and brown the chicken. When the chicken is nice and brown, pour the brandy in the pot. If you like fire, flame the brandy. If you fear the flame like I do, just let the brandy cook down, scraping to get all the good stuff off the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle the chicken with the flour, then put in the thyme, bay leaves, bacon, onion, and wine. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat so that it's gently bubbling. Don't put the top back on--you want that wine to reduce. Let it cook that way, perfuming your kitchen, for about an hour.

About 15 minutes before you want to serve this, get out a medium skillet and melt the butter in it (you could melt a bit extra and use it for your toast) over medium-high heat. Sauté the mushrooms and garlic until the mushrooms are tender and most of their liquid has cooked off. Add the mushrooms to the chicken, which should be tender and purple. Serve with something green and the toasted bread. Wear a beret. Play accordion music. Go on strike.