One of the drawbacks of being a food writer is that I rarely get the opportunity to cook favourite recipes because I’m forever dreaming up new ideas or refining classic dishes. Coq au vin is a special exception; I absolutely love chicken cooked in red wine with onions and mushrooms, carrots and bacon, and make it regularly.

I don’t always call it coq au vin, because it’s usually a cheat’s after-work variation on that theme, sometimes made with white wine, but making the dish properly for lots of people, taking care with the shopping and the preparations, and the presentation of the dish, is immensely satisfying.

There are similarities between boeuf à la Bourguignonne and coq au vin. Both are old Burgundian recipes, theoretically made with red burgundy, in which the meat is gently stewed with bacon, onion and aromatic seasonings, then finished with whole small onions and baby mushrooms. Carrots, which I like to add in the final stage of cooking so they retain a fresh flavour and slight bite, are a variable. For this version I used little Chantenay carrots — they might have been designed for the dish.

Many recipes specify marinating the meat in the wine with sliced onion, garlic and a bouquet garni, but I rarely bother, preferring to make it 24 hours in advance so the flavours have a chance to mature. I’ve given up on jointing a whole chicken for the dish, instead preferring to buy free-range chicken leg portions. They are big and the muscles well worked. This isn’t laziness, but because I think that the long, slow cooking of the dish suits the denser texture of leg meat. Breast, which many people think they prefer, can end up fibrous and uninteresting.

Like most fine stews, coq au vin and boeuf à la Bourguignonne are assembly dishes, when a number of ingredients are cooked individually and then all together. For coq au vin, the chicken is dusted with flour, then browned in bacon-flavoured oil before it’s simmered very gently with slippery-soft onion, wine, stock and seasonings. The flour thickens the liquid and the chicken will be tender but not falling off the bone. The little onions and mushrooms are cooked gently in butter, the carrots quickly glazed, then all are added for the last 30 minutes of cooking.

I usually finish the dish with a little chopped parsley and hold back the bacon to make a crisp garnish, but another attractive idea is to fry triangles of bread until crisp and golden, then dip the edges in chopped parsley.

I like coq au vin with peas, by which I mean frozen petits pois. When I make the dish in the summer and autumn months, I serve it with boiled new potatoes. In the winter, it’s good with my special baked potatoes. Halve a potato lengthways, etch with a wide lattice, paint the surface with vegetable oil and bake in a hot oven until the lattice is gaping and very crusty.

Coq au vin
Serves 6
Prep 1 hour plus 24 hour chilling
Cook 2 hours

Ingredients
6 free-range chicken leg portions
Flour for dusting
2 garlic cloves
1 celery rib
2 bay leaves
Few sprigs thyme
3 large onions
3 tbsp vegetable oil
200g dry-cure smoked bacon lardons
2 tbsp brandy or whisky
1 bottle decent, full-bodied red wine
500ml chicken stock or cube dissolved in 500ml boiling water
About 30 small pickling onions or shallots
300g small button mushrooms
300g Chantenay carrots
50g butter
25g flat-leaf parsley

Method
Working on one chicken leg at a time, hold the drumstick in one hand and the thigh in the other and stretch the joint apart. Slice through the stretched skin and snap the joint downwards so the bone pops up. Cut through the joint. Trim away excess skin and pockets of fat. Repeat with all the leg portions. Dust the chicken thoroughly in flour, shaking off excess. Crack the garlic with your fist. Halve the celery rib and make a bundle with the bay leaves, thyme and garlic, tying with string or cotton. Halve the large onions through the root, trim the ends, remove the skin and slice very thinly across the halves.

Choose a large sauté pan, heat 2 tbsp oil and cook the lardons, gently at first, increasing the heat as the fat runs, until crisp. Scoop on to a fold of kitchen paper to drain. Stir the onions into the bacon-flavoured oil, season with ½ tsp salt and cook, stirring occasionally, for at least 15 minutes until very sloppy.

Scoop the onions out of the pan into a large Le Creuset-style casserole dish, draining back as much of the oil as possible. Increase the heat and brown the chicken joints, a few at a time, adding extra oil if needed, transferring to a plate as you go. Return all the chicken to the pan, pour over the brandy and set alight. When the flames have died down, add the wine. Bring to the boil, while agitating and stirring to loosen the flour from the chicken to thicken the wine.

Lift the chicken from the pan into the casserole. Add the herb bundle to the pan and simmer for a few minutes until the wine is slightly reduced. Tip the contents of the pan over the chicken. Top up with the hot stock so that the chicken is submerged. Bring to a simmer, then adjust the heat so the surface merely ripples. Drape a large sheet of greaseproof paper over the pan, letting it sag over the stew surface. Cover with the lid, trim the paper and leave to cook for 1 hour. Leave overnight.

While the chicken cooks, place the small onions in a spacious bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for a couple of minutes, drain and then trim and peel; this makes the job quick and almost fume-free. Wipe the mushrooms to remove any dirt. Trim and scrub or scrape the carrots.

Melt the butter in a lidded pan that can accommodate the onions in a single layer. Stir in the onions and cook, covered, over a very low heat, shaking the pan occasionally, for about 30 minutes until tender to the point of a knife and hardly coloured.

Scoop the onions out of the pan to a plate. Return the pan to a high heat, add the mushrooms and toss briefly until damp looking but before they weep. Scoop on to the onion plate. Add the carrots to the pan and stir-fry in the buttery juices for a few minutes.

About an hour before you are ready to serve the coq au vin, lift off the greaseproof paper (watch out for a condensation puddle). Reheat gently and when the surface is rippling, discard the herb bundle and add the carrots, onions and mushrooms, stirring to submerge. Cook for 30 minutes.

If liked — I do — carefully transfer the coq au vin to a shallow serving bowl-cum-platter so that you can admire your work. Serving will also be easier. Garnish with chopped parsley leaves and crisp bacon.

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