This week’s Cook the Book Fridays recipe from David Lebovitz’ My Paris Kitchen is a classic – coq au vin. Chicken (or chicken pieces) is braised in wine with bacon, mushrooms, garlic along with a handful of carrots and onion. Pearl onions are added towards the end. It’s a delightful dish that makes your house smell amazing and, though it sounds complicated, it really isn’t. Something I didn’t realise is that traditionally, this dish is thickened with a little chicken blood but, thankfully this recipe is not!
David’s recipe is actually another David’s recipe (the fabulous David Leite of Leite’s Culinaria) and he has the genius idea to thicken the dish with a slurry of cocoa powder that you add in right at the end. I was skeptical but the cocoa does not add any “chocolate” flavor, rather it enhances the rest of the flavours and makes them sing.
This recipe takes a while to prepare since you need to marinade the chicken pieces in the red wine overnight (I used 8 chicken thighs since that’s what I had on hand) but apart from a little work to brown the chicken, it’s a pretty hands-off dish. A wonderful dinner party dish since you don’t need to stand over the stove. David’s recipe calls for cooking this on the stovetop, covered for around an hour but I have this weird thing about having stuff on the stovetop for too long so I popped it in the oven for around 50 minutes at 375˚F. I was hoping to reduce the broth a little as I found it pretty liquidy but even uncovered in the oven it retained a lot of the liquid. It IS, however, the perfect dish to mop up with a bit of baguette (which I’ve been working on for the book lately…). AND, bonus? It’s even better the day after (or the day after that!).
Get the recipe for David Lebovitz’s coq au vin on p177-178 of My Paris Kitchen.
Purchase My Paris Kitchen for yourselves on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store closest to you) Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository then join us over on Cook the Book Fridays!
Please note: The product links from Amazon and The Book Depository in this post are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you) which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!
Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “My Paris Kitchen” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing do. All opinions 100% my own.
Save
Save
Save
Save