Retro-Chic Memory Bank – Coq au vin
This dish was staple fare at dinner parties in the Seventies, being trotted out in a show of how international and sophisticated the host was. Ironic, eh – this is what France considers peasant food.
Cockerel is almost impossible to buy in the UK unless you rear chickens and so it was mainly made with chicken both then and now. When it’s good, it’s great – slow cooked, achingly tender chicken bobbing with button mushrooms in a rich reduced sauce heavy with wine and garlic.
I have a real soft spot for Coq au Vin.
I as often use a white wine as in the Nigel Slater adaptation, Coq au Riesling, than I do a red. But the basics don’t change – chicken, shallots, mushrooms, wine, garlic. And the result is just as delicious.
As I look out of the window at the driving snow I’m thinking that any peasant out in this weather would certainly welcome a large bowlful of this.
As would I.
I was about to right a comment about how you have triggered another memory when my eye caught on your tags – chicken, cow au vin?
Coq au vin is definitely a staple in our peasant house, lol. Or sometimes Coq au champagne if TC is feeling different
Pheasant or peasant
Definitely peasant. But I guess you could make it with pheasant as well – why not? Pheasant au Vin?