Full disclosure: This recipe for Coq au Vin à la Chartres is based on the classic and wonderful recipe by Julia Child in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. For several years, I thought her recipe was the quintessential and unrivaled version. That is until a Sunday morning trip to Chartres to visit the cathedral. After the visit, my partner and I went to a lovely family-style restaurant nearby. We ordered the coq au vin. An entire copper kettle of the dish was brought to our table. We were both in a state of rapture after the first taste. The sauce was an extremely deep and dark mahogany color, and the flavor was so rich and satisfying that it left us both transfixed.
I have no idea how this dish was prepared, but I’ve spent many years trying to duplicate it. With Ms. Child’s recipe as a starting point, I began using every technique I knew for deepening the color of the sauce and intensifying the flavor—for it’s the sauce that makes the difference. After much trial and error, I believe I’ve come as close to the Coq au Vin à la Chartres masterpiece as I am capable of doing.
I won’t pretend that this recipe isn’t a lot of work. However, there are many nice things about it. The dry marinade and the stock should be made the day before serving. And the rest of the dish can be prepared hours ahead of time and reheated just before your dinner. This way you can spend time with your guests, rather than last-minute slaving over a hot stove. Also, any leftovers reheat quite well.
You can, of course, simplify it greatly be omitting the dry marinade, using commercially bought stock, and eliminating the onions. You’ll still have a perfectly good dish, but I can guarantee that it won’t equal the sublimity of the full recipe. The sauce is the major factor here, and your sauce is going to be only as good as the stock you create. If you’re having a large gathering, you can use two chickens. Just increase the dry marinade mixture, and use a whole bottle of red wine. So here is my Coq au Vin à la Chartres, named in honor of the French country town where it was born.
Dry Marinade
Buy a whole chicken that contains a neck and giblets. Remove the back, and have the remainder of the chicken cut into 10 pieces: 2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 wings, 4 pieces of breast. The 2 breast halves should be carefully cut in half, so the pieces are of nearly equal size. If you cut the breast yourself, do it carefully, disturbing the skin as little as possible.
Mix together a marinade of salt, pepper, thyme, and powdered bay leaf. Rub the mixture into all 10 pieces of the chicken. Place in a casserole and refrigerate uncovered overnight. This tenderizes the chicken and gives it a darker color.
The dry marinade.
Brown Chicken Stock
Dry the chicken back, neck, and giblets, and any other chicken parts you may have on hand. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large kettle, and brown the chicken back, parts, and giblets very thoroughly. (Browning everything very well is key to this recipe.) Remove to a side dish.
Brown the back, neck, and giblets.
The following is a trick I learned in a master class from Christian Delouvrier, the chef of the great New York City restaurant Lespinasse. It adds both color and intensity to any chicken stock.
Cut the onion and the tomato in half. Heat a small skillet (with no oil), and when hot place the onion and the tomato cut-side down.
Caramelizing tomato and onion.
Cook until the bottoms are brown and caramelized, but not burnt. Remove from the pan.
The caramelized tomato and onion.
Deglaze the pan with 1⁄3 cup of water and reserve, straining out any blackened parts.
Roughly chop the carrots and the celery. Brown them in the large kettle where the chicken parts have been browned. Pour out the browning fat.
Brown the carrots and celery.
Add 4-6 cups of beef broth to the carrots and celery, plus the reserved deglazing liquid from the tomato and onion. Bring to the simmer, and add the browned chicken parts, and the caramelized onion and tomato. Skim off any accumulated fat globules. Make an herb bouquet by tying together with kitchen twine sprigs of parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a bay leaf. Bury the herb bouquet in the broth. Add some peppercorns.
All the stock ingredients.
Simmer slowly for 3-4 hours partially covered, leaving a small opening. Taste for saltiness. When you have rendered every bit of flavor from the chicken and vegetables, strain the liquid into a large bowl, pressing down on the vegetables to extract all liquid. Place the bowl in the refrigerator. When the fat has risen to the top, skim off the fat with paper towels, and return to the refrigerator.
This should all be done the night before you make the chicken.
Brown Glazed Onions
Small white onions are a nuisance to peel. Here’s the easiest method: Bring a large part of water to boil. Drop the onions into the boiling water for about 10 seconds. Drain, and run cold water over them. Carefully trim off the top and root portions. Slip off the skins, trying not to disturb the layers. Pierce a cross in the root ends of the onions so they cook more evenly.
Heat 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet. When hot add the onions, rolling them gently in the hot fat for about 10 to 15 minutes, until they are nicely browned.
Browning the onions.
Pour in 1⁄2 cup of the brown chicken stock you made and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add another herb bouquet of sprigs of parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a bay leaf. Cover and simmer gently for 40 to 50 minutes, until the onions are tender but have not lost their shape. Set aside. These may be cooked hours in advance.
Chicken
Remove the chicken from the refrigerator, and bring to room temperature. Dry the mushrooms and slice. (I like to wash and dry the mushrooms the day before and allow them to dry at room temperature overnight. This helps to remove excess water, so that they brown more nicely. It also tends to give the mushrooms a more hearty, earthy flavor, resembling wild mushrooms. Don’t try this in hot, humid weather because the mushrooms will quickly develop mold).
Air drying mushrooms.
Heat 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large Dutch oven, add the mushrooms in 3 or 4 batches, until they are nicely browned, about 4 minutes.
Browning the mushrooms.
If you try to cook all the mushrooms at once, they won’t brown well, and they just exude a lot of liquid. You may need to add an extra tablespoon of butter and oil between batches. Remove the browned mushrooms with a slotted spoon to a plate and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Cut the chunk bacon into small lardons, about an inch long and 1/4-inch thick, and dry them. (Julia Child blanches hers first, but I find this superfluous and taste diminishing.) Add 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the same Dutch oven, and brown the lardons. They should be well browned, but not crispy. Remove to a side dish and set aside.
In the same Dutch oven, you should have enough fat left over. If not add a little more butter and oil. When very hot, dry the chicken pieces thoroughly and brown them very well on all sides, turning frequently. They should be deep golden brown when you remove them to a side dish. Discard the browning fat.
The browned chicken pieces.
Return the chicken and the bacon to the Dutch oven. Cover and cook slowly for 10 minutes, turning the chicken occasionally.
The chicken and bacon lardons.
Uncover and pour 1⁄4 cup of cognac or brandy into the pan with the chicken. Avert your face, and ignite the cognac. Shake the casserole back and forth until the flames subside.
Flambé the chicken in cognac.
Add 3 cups of red wine and about 2 and one-half to 3 cups of the brown chicken stock into the Dutch oven. Also add any liquid from the glazed onions and the mushrooms. There should be enough liquid to just cover the chicken. Stir in tomato paste, currant jelly, the 2 mashed garlic cloves, and another herb bouquet of sprigs of parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a bay leaf.
The simmering ingredients.
Cover and simmer slowly for about 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the chicken to a side dish.
When the liquid has cooled and the fat has risen to the top, skim paper towels across the surface of the broth until it appears fat free.
Degreasing the sauce.
Return the Dutch oven to the heat and boil uncovered, reducing the liquid to about 3 cups. Correct the seasoning, and remove the herb bouquet.
Blend 3 tablespoons of softened butter with 4 tablespoons of flour, making a beurre manié. Bring the sauce to the simmer and add just enough of the beurre manié to make the sauce thick enough to lightly coat a spoon. Return the chicken to the sauce, and add the mushrooms and the onions. If serving immediately, baste the chicken, mushrooms, and onions with the sauce until all are hot.
The completed coq au vin.
If not serving immediately, set aside uncovered where it can wait indefinitely. Just before serving the Coq au Vin à la Chartres, bring it to the simmer, basting the chicken, onions, and mushrooms with the sauce. Then cover and simmer 4 to 5 minutes until everything is hot.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve. Coq au vin is traditionally served with parsley-buttered potatoes, and peas. Here I use spinach rather than peas.
Be certain to serve with plenty of crusty French bread, which your guests will want to use to mop up every bit of the sauce.
Serving the coq au vin.
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