Coq au vin du dimanche
A farm chicken browned and then long-simmered in red wine with bacon, pearl onions, and mushrooms. The festive dish of the modest bourgeois table, best prepared the day before.
A farm chicken browned and then long-simmered in red wine with bacon, pearl onions, and mushrooms. The festive dish of the modest bourgeois table, best prepared the day before.
When I invited my friends, I did not seek to show off — a good rooster, an honest wine, and patience. Brown the pieces well until they take color, then moisten with wine and let it cook slowly: the sauce should coat, not flood. I used to bind it with a little blood in the old days, but a spoonful of beurre manié works just as well. Prepare it the day before, believe me from experience: it gains depth, like a canvas left to rest before you return to it.
- •Farm rooster, cut into pieces — one (meat)
- •Full-bodied red wine (Burgundy) — one bottle (cooking liquid)
- •Belly bacon — a thick slice (fat and flavor)
- •Pearl onions, button mushrooms — a handful of each (garnish)
- •Butter, flour — a little (thickening)
- •Bouquet garni, garlic — to taste (aromatics)
Coq au vin du dimanche
A farm chicken browned and then long-simmered in red wine with bacon, pearl onions, and mushrooms. The festive dish of the modest bourgeois table, best prepared the day before.
Why this dish? Ozenfant entertained painters, theorists, and friends from L'Esprit Nouveau around his table. Coq au vin, a dish for elaborate Sunday meals, was the quintessential convivial dish for a Frenchman of his generation hosting without ostentation.
When I invited my friends, I did not seek to show off — a good rooster, an honest wine, and patience. Brown the pieces well until they take color, then moisten with wine and let it cook slowly: the sauce should coat, not flood. I used to bind it with a little blood in the old days, but a spoonful of beurre manié works just as well. Prepare it the day before, believe me from experience: it gains depth, like a canvas left to rest before you return to it.
Ingredients (period version)
- Farm rooster, cut into pieces — one (meat)
- Full-bodied red wine (Burgundy) — one bottle (cooking liquid)
- Belly bacon — a thick slice (fat and flavor)
- Pearl onions, button mushrooms — a handful of each (garnish)
- Butter, flour — a little (thickening)
- Bouquet garni, garlic — to taste (aromatics)
Ingredients
- Chicken thighs and drumsticks, free-range — 8 pieces (meat)
- Full-bodied red wine — 75 cl (cooking liquid)
- Smoked bacon lardons — 150 g (fat and flavor)
- Pearl onions — 12 (garnish)
- Button mushrooms — 250 g (garnish)
- Butter — 40 g (thickening and cooking)
- Flour — 2 tbsp (thickening)
- Garlic, bouquet garni — 2 cloves, 1 bouquet (aromatics)
Method
- The day before, marinate the chicken pieces in wine with the bouquet garni and garlic.
- Drain and thoroughly dry the meat, reserve the wine. Brown the lardons, then the pieces in butter.
- Sprinkle with flour, stir, then moisten with the marinade wine. Add the bouquet garni.
- Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour 30 minutes.
- Sauté the pearl onions and mushrooms separately in butter, add them at the end of cooking.
- Adjust seasoning, thicken if necessary with beurre manié. Serve with steamed potatoes or garlic-rubbed croutons.
How it was made : Coq au vin, an old regional dish revived in the 1920s-1930s, became the symbol of French bourgeois cuisine. A real rooster was used, requiring long cooking; today free-range chicken replaces it. The traditional blood thickening is often abandoned in favor of beurre manié.
The contemporary twist : Present it on the plate in a purist composition: one piece, three aligned pearl onions, a comma of sauce — a 'purist' plating worthy of a page from L'Esprit Nouveau.
Sources : Curnonsky, La France gastronomique · Ali-Bab, Gastronomie pratique, 1907
Amédée Ozenfant · Charactorium