Coq au vin

I'm back!

My mother who hardly cooks and has never liked it, had one culinary dish up her sleeve that stands out in the olden days: coq au vin. Totally uncustomarily, she spent hours on this delicacy. Meanwhile my dad took us kids out, and we'd return to the great smells of the Sunday meal. While my mom is still trying to extract this recipe from her files, I've already found a recipe in De keuken van ons moeder - The kitchen by our mom cookbook, by an 80-year old mom called Mieke Noels.

Coq au vin

Serves 6

100 g smoked bacon
100 g salted bacon in strips
fresh silver onions
butter
olive oil
3 kg chicken breasts and legs (with carcass and skin)
black pepper and salt
nut meg
1/2 glass of cognac
about 3/4 liter red wine
6 dl chicken stock
3 bay leaves
3 sprigs of thyme
corn starch (dissolved in water)
250 small white mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon sirop de Liège (regional specialty, a dark brown jelly from apples and pears, in color and sweetness comparable to molasses)

Note: the book has a tip from Mieke about this syrup.

Fry the bacon in a large pan with the onions, butter and olive oil. Remove from pan, and put the chicken in to brown the pieces on all sides. Season with pepper, salt, nutmeg.

Add the cognac and flambé the chicken. Wait until the flame has been extinguished, and cool with wine and chicken stock until the chicken is almost immersed. Add the bacon and the onions, bay leaf and thyme. Let this simmer for about an hour on low heat, covered. The surface is only allowed to barely ripple. The chicken is ready when the meat drops from the carcass. Bind with the dissolved corn starch.

Fry the mushrooms in garlic with parsley in butter, and add to the coq au vin. Finish the coq au vin with sirop de Liège. Adjust the seasoning.

Serve with salad, baguette, fresh Belgian fries or croquettes and if possible baked apple.

Note: I skipped the flambéing part. In lieu of the much coveted small silver onions, I had to resort to using regular onion.