Following on from my boeuf bourgignon post, here’s another classic recipe. Coq au Vin is in fact just boeuf bourgignon but with chicken. Discuss. Seriously, sometimes I wonder why we keep looking for new ideas when the classic, tried and tested recipes are so good; I mean, there’s a reason they’ve been around for so long. It has not escaped my notice, by the way, that the two I mention here are French.

If you Google “Coq au Vin” you will find many different ways of making it but the ingredients don’t vary much. I based mine on Delia’s recipe. Good old Delia: she provides clear instructions and retains all the essential elements without sacrificing flavour. And because we are Aga cooks, we can be relaxed about the cooking time and leave our dish bubbling gently in the simmering oven for longer than the 40 minutes – 1 hour most recipes recommend. Chatting about this in my “I love my Aga” Facebook group, there was discussion about how to thicken the sauce. You could dust the chicken pieces with flour first, but I rather like the method I give here which is to whisk in a butter and flour paste at the end.

I don’t know if anyone uses the cock bird to make this dish anymore. In fact, I don’t know if it would be possible to get hold of one. A chicken, jointed into 8 pieces has become traditional here and I confess that when I made this recently, I just used good quality chicken thighs I bought from Waitrose.

Coq au Vin

Serves 6

Ingredients

• A 2kg chicken jointed into 8 pieces or 8 good quality, large chicken thighs, bone in and skin on
• Salt and pepper
• Butter and olive oil
• 225g unsmoked streaky bacon, chopped
• Button onions or shallots, 2-3 per person, peeled and left whole
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• A couple of sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• Approx. 500ml red wine
• 225g mushrooms, sliced thickly
• A butter and flour paste (beurre manié) made by mashing 1tbsp soft butter with 1tbsp plain flour
• A handful of chopped, fresh parsley

Method

• Season the chicken pieces
• Melt the butter with the oil in a frying pan on the simmering plate and add the chicken pieces, skin side down. Transfer to the floor of the roasting oven for 5-10 minutes to brown
• Take it out, turn the chicken pieces over and return to the roasting oven floor for a further 5 minutes or so
• Remove the chicken and put it in a casserole that has a lid
• Add the onions and bacon to the frying pan making sure they’re coated in the fat and fry until coloured (on the roasting oven floor again)
• Tip the onions and bacon into the casserole and add the garlic, thyme, bay and red wine, which should not cover the chicken completely
• Bring this to simmering point on the boiling plate and then put the lid on the casserole and place it in the simmering oven for two to three hours, turning the chicken pieces over halfway through. If you want it to cook more quickly, I reckon you could put it in the baking oven or maybe even the roasting oven, but I did not try this so I can’t vouch for it
• About 30 minutes before you want to eat, add the mushrooms
• Remove the chicken, bacon, onions and mushrooms and keep them warm
• Place the casserole on the simmering plate and when the wine is bubbling, whisk in the beurre manié and let it simmer until the sauce is thick and glossy. Taste for seasoning
• Return everything to the sauce, sprinkle over the parsley and serve