Cozy AF French Chicken Stew

Hey, what's up? Today, I'm going to show you how to make the French chicken stew known as coq au vin. In my house, I call it chicken bourguignon because it basically is. It's a whole bottle of red wine with a bunch of tender meat and vegetables served on starch. It's delicious, it's perfect for cold weather, it's super easy to make, and it only takes about 70 minutes start to finish, most of that time being passive. To get started, I'll need three pounds of skin-on chicken drumsticks. Bone-in thighs would also work, but I like the form factor of drumsticks because I find I can fit more of them into the braising pot, and in my experience, they're a lot less prone to falling apart once they're braised. Next, I'll move these drumsticks over to a large freezer bag, then grab a 750 of drinkable but cheap dry red wine. I'll just screw the top off there and then glug it right into the baggie of chicken. Next, I'm going to push the air out of this baggie, then seal it tight. From there, I'll pop the bag into a bowl, then move it over to the fridge to marinate for 20 to 30 minutes. I wouldn't go much longer than 30 because the alcohol will start to make the chicken meat mealy. 20 minutes later, I've got a bag of purple wine-flavored meat. Yum. And to get it ready to braise, I'll lay all 10 pieces out onto a parchment and sheet tray. And by the way, save that sack of chicken wine because we're going to cook with it in just a second. Next, I'll come back with a paper towel and thoroughly dry off both sides of these drummies, especially on the bottom side. The way I'm going to be cooking these is not traditional, and soggy drumsticks will spoil the whole vibe. Next, I'll load this sheet tray into a 450F oven and roast the drummies for 20 to 30 minutes. While those cook, I'll bust out all of my knife work. First up will be bacon. My preference is bacon that's as thick as possible, and an eighth inch is the best that I could find, but thicker would be better. To prep it up, I'll slice it into quarter-inch thick lardons. Lardon is just a fancy French way of saying chunky little bacon strip. In total, I'll need 150 grams or about four thick slices of bacon. Next, I'll tackle the pearl onions. These little MFs can be a little bit tricky and labor-intensive to get peeled, but the way that I do it that makes it pretty easy is to just cut off a little bit of the stem end, then a little bit of the bottom, and then from there I use my paring knife to make a shallow slit from top to bottom along the side, and then just use my thumbs to peel the outside off like it's wearing a cute little onion jacket. Of course, you could use frozen pearl onions if your grocery store has them. In St. Louis, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Weirdly, fresh pearl onions were the only ones that I could find. Another alternative would be to use peeled shallots. These aren't exactly the same as pearl onions, but if you cut them down into chunky pieces like this, you'll get a similar vibe of braisy onion. Once I've got 225 grams of pearl onions cleaned up, I'm going to take a couple of chunky carrots and cut those down into a large dice. In total, I'll need 225 grams of those as well, and then finally, I'll take a pound of cremini mushrooms and just quarter them. And that's it. Maybe 15 minutes of total knife work, all done while the chicken meat is roasted. Now, to get started on cooking this coq au vin, I'm going to grab a heavy bottom pot and drop it on the stove over medium heat. Once that's hot, I'll add in a long squiggle of olive oil, about two tablespoons, then all of my bacon lardons, and then I'll jump in and stir. From here, I'm going to render this bacon for about 10 to 12 minutes, stirring pretty often. 10 minutes later, when my bacon is looking delicious, rendered, and crisped up like this, I'll move it over to a paper towel lined plate. Oh, and make sure to keep as much of that bacon fat in the pot as you can. Back at the stove over medium heat now, I'll add in all of my quartered mushrooms, a strong pinch of salt to draw out some moisture, and then I'll stir to get these mushrooms frying in that bacon fat. Right away, though, I can see that the bacon glazed up the pot and that that stuff's not going to release before it burns, so I need to deglaze it. For that, I'll add about two tablespoons of water to create some steam, and then I'll come back and scrape it up with a wooden spoon, and then I can start frying these mushrooms without worrying about the bottom of the pot getting burnt. From here, I'll fry these mushrooms in the fat for about five to six minutes, stirring them every minute or so. While those cook, I'll check back on my roasting drumsticks. As you can see, they've taken on a little bit of roasty color, and most importantly, the fat in the chicken skin is fully rendered. In my opinion, searing these drumsticks on the stovetop, like most coq au vin recipes call for, yields a chewy, flabby skin that's not pro. Plus, the process of searing wine-soaked chicken meat is splattery, steamy, and oftentimes rips up the chicken skin without rendering it, like, at all. Alternatively, this oven process renders the skin fully whilst giving us roasted chicken flavor. Plus, we can cook the chicken while we cut and cook the vegetables, so it actually speeds up the overall cook time significantly. Back at the stove, my mushrooms have softened and are just starting to take on some browning, so next I'll add in my pearl onions, my diced carrots, and then a strong pinch of salt. From here, I'll stir to combine, and then just sweat the vegetables with the mushrooms until they've lost a little bit of their moisture, maybe three to four minutes. I'm not looking to caramelize. Next, in goes 25 grams of tomato paste, 25 grams of minced garlic, and then I'll stir it to keep on cooking. Tomato paste makes these tannic wine braises, like coq au vin, more savory and bring some much-needed acidity to balance out the sweetness from the wine, the onions, and the carrots. And once the garlic has had a minute to sizzle up and the tomato paste is a rusty red glazing up the bottom of the pot, it's time to deglaze. So, in goes 75 grams of cognac. I'll stir that in and scrape the pot to get up the roasty veggie bits stuck on the bottom. If you haven't cooked with cognac before, let me tell you, it's pretty great. Ooh, tastes grape-y, or I guess like prunes, and it has a distinct caramelly amaretto. It has like an amaretto flavor. It's pretty dope. It tastes different than wine, and it's gonna bring some woody kind of darkness and a little bit of sweetness. This is pretty sweet, too. Now, once the yak is evaporated and the bottom of the pot is all scraped up, I'll add in 40 grams of all-purpose flour, stir that in, and get a roux going on. I'll give that a minute or two to get combined with everything else. And once it's nice and pasty, I'll add in all of my chicken wine, and then 300 grams of full-bodied chicken stock. When I say full-bodied chicken stock, I really mean 300 grams of water with 25 grams of better-than-bouillon roasted chicken base, and then like three packets of powdered gelatin. I'll spin that up to dissolve, and there we go. This approximates the type of chicken stock that you would make if you spent six hours making it on a Saturday. It's got some body from the gelatin, and it's got lots of delicious chicken flavor from better-than-bouillon, the sponsor of this video. You guys have seen me use better-than-bouillon a lot on this channel, because in my opinion, it's one of the best shortcuts to add flavor to your food. You can mix it into water to make stock, or you can add it directly to recipes to instantly add all-day cooked flavor. Better-than-bouillon makes your food taste so good because it's made from premium ingredients, with the first ingredient across all of their varieties being either meat or vegetables. In my kitchen, one jar easily replaces over 10 cartons of stock, and it can last in the fridge for up to two years. Aside from all their classic flavors like roasted chicken and roasted beef base, better-than-bouillon also makes some slammin' other flavors like veggie, roasted garlic, sautéed onion, ham, and lobster. Of course, you can stock up on all of the major flavors of better-than-bouillon in the soup aisle of most grocery stores, but you can also head to better-than-bouillon.com to have access to all of their flavors. Just use my promo code BRIAN at checkout to get free economy shipping within the U.S. on two or more jars. You guys, this is honestly one of my all-time favorite products for the home cook. I use it all the time, and I hope you give it a try. Now, once my chicken stock and wine are in the pot, I'll come back and add all of my rendered crispy bacon. From there, I'll bring the whole pot up to a simmer, then carefully snug up my chicken into that broth. Make sure to get the drumsticks as submerged in this slightly thickened liquid as possible. Next, I'll grab the roasting tray and then drizzle in any of the resting juices that might have accumulated. These little drippies taste like grapey rotisserie chicken, and you don't want to miss out. Lastly, for a little herbal flavor, I'll add in two sprigs of thyme and two bay leaves. Before I drop this in the oven, I'm going to top it with something called a parchment lid. This will allow for reduction, but keep the stuff on top from sticking out of the liquid and getting browned and dried out in the oven. To make this parchment lid, I just folded a sheet of parchment four times over itself until I've got a fan shape like this. Then I cut a little bit off the tip, then I cut the outside of this thing five inches from there. When I unfold it, I've got a 10-inch round thing with a hole in the middle. Very easy. Now, to braise this thing, I'm going to lower the pot into a 350F oven and braise for 40 to 50 minutes. This time will vary depending on the size of your drumsticks and how hard you roasted them earlier on. 45 minutes later, I'll pull this pot out of the oven and check this chicken to see just how tender it is. Texturally, I want something that's soft and shreddable, but still firm enough to have some texture. Dark chicken meat can become kind of mushy if you over braise it. So be careful. Now, to finish this dish, I'm going to move this chicken to a plate so that it can rest and then I'm going to reduce the cooking liquid. For that, I'll move it over to the stove and then bring the whole thing up to a simmer. I want to reduce this cooking liquid by about 30%. If I served it as is, it would be very flavorful, but loose and it wouldn't coat the chicken nicely. So about 10 minutes later, when I check back, you can see this is transformed from just a plain old braising liquid into a velvety, smooth wine sauce. Now, the final step is to taste the sauce for seasoning. A little bit more sparkle. It's good though. It's very robust. It's got a nice wine flavor to it, a little bit of sweetness, and it's super meaty. And once this coq au vin sauce is all seasoned up, I'm going to move my tender chicken back into the pot carefully. This meat is quite shreddable and I'd prefer to keep it boned up for now. Next, I'll come back and baste these chickens up a little bit to make sure that they're glazed and served with enough of that inky chicken flavored wine sauce. Now, before I serve them, I'll need to quickly boil some egg noodles. I'll just drop those into boiling water for about seven minutes, then reserve about a half cup of starchy pasta water, drain off the noodles, then throw the pasta back on heat. And then for 200 grams of dried egg noodles, I'll add in 50 grams of starchy water and 100 grams of cold butter. From here, I'll just stir that pasta vigorously while tossing it to glaze it up with the sat v butter sauce. If you just added butter to straight up boiled noodles, you'd have kind of greasy pasta and that's not pro. Now, to serve this thing, I'll drop a tender piece of chicken drumstick onto some of my buttered noodles, then a big spoonful of mushrooms, carrots, and pearl onions. And that's chicken and wine, or coq au vin. It's very simple and very satisfying. This dish hits very similar to beef bourguignon, but takes way less time to get right. This one is about 60 to 70 minutes start to finish, where beef bourguignon can be four to 24 hours, depending on how far you take it. If you guys want to go all in on brazy winter meats, then here's a link to that beef bourguignon video. I hope you check it out. I hope you make this coq au vin. And what was I going to say? Oh yeah, let's eat this thing!