Category: holiday dinner

Coq au Vin, is the perfect French meal for a romantic dinner at home

Coq Au Vin

Coq au Vin, is the perfect French meal for a romantic dinner at home. Growing up, this meal was one of my favorites. My dad, who discovered cooking in his 40’s enjoyed making this one. He got so much pleasure out of presenting such an impressive meal. It never disappointed me or anyone else. He always had regular Sunday Dinners in the dining room with lots of wine and neighbors who crashed. He planned the menu all week. It is a wonderful memory.

The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken.

– Julia Child

Coq au vin is a French dish of chicken braised with wine, lardons (which is small cubes or strips of fatty bacon or pork fat), mushrooms, and optionally garlic. A red Burgundy wine is typically used, though many regions of France make variants using local wines. I used an Edna Valley Cabernet Sauvignon for this one and it was wonderful. I do usually use a burgundy but this is what I had on hand and it worked perfectly.

It takes some time to make, but it is not hard to do. It takes a lot of pots and pans and a lot of steps. As long as you pay attention and don’t miss any of the steps it is relatively simple. The result is impressive and it is even better the next day. Seriously, does it get any better than chicken, mushrooms, onions, bacon, and wine? This is most definitely a Sunday Dinner

So I will give it a shot for my first official Sunday Dinner in a while. We will set the dining room table, pour some wine and have a traditional Sunday Dinner for this one.

It is better the next day!!!

Allergens- Gluten (if you substitute flour with corn starch it can be gluten free), garlic

If you are interested in more foodie content, please check out the Recipes page of my blog Sunday Chefs for more tried and true family recipes and restaurant reviews.

Coq Au Vin

The traditional French Coq Au Vin, which is basically a chicken in red wine sauce, is so impressive but not that hard to make. There are just a lot of steps, but not hard steps. The final product is so worth it.
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Prep Time 4 hours
Cook Time 1 hour
Course: dinner, Main Course
Cuisine: French
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1/4 lb. butter
  • 12 tiny pearl onions
  • 1/4 lb. bacon strips cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 4 lbs. cut up chicken With bone, but I do add in a few pieces of boneless chicken also.
  • 1/2 lb. white mushrooms sliced
  • 1 clove garlic diced
  • 1/2 cup flour can substitute corn starch to make gluten free
  • 2 1/2 cups Chicken Stock
  • 1/3 cup brandy I tend to add a little more, I am heavy handed
  • 1 1/2 cups red wine A good burgundy works best and yes I usually add more than this.
  • 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1/2 tsp. Herbs de Provence
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Method
 

  1. Heat 4 tbsp. butter in heavy pan (I use a french dutch oven).
  2. Add bacon and cook until crisp. Remove bacon from pan and put aside for later.
  3. Add onions and cook until lightly browned. Remove and put aside for later.
  4. Add the chicken to the pan drippings and cook until well browned on all sides. Now set the chicken aside also.
  5. Add mushrooms and garlic to pan, cook until mushrooms are wilted. Remove from pan.
  6. Add remaining butter to pan drippings. Remove pan from heat and gradually stir in flour (or corn starch) until golden brown.
  7. Slowly add chicken stock, stirring constantly until well blended.
  8. Return to heat, stir until sauce thickens.
  9. Add brandy, red wine, thyme, Herbs de Provence and bay leaf.
  10. Add chicken and veggies (If needed transfer to a deeper pot). Cover and bring to a boil.
  11. Reduce heat, simmer 30 minutes or until chicken is fork tender. Season with salt and pepper. Remove bay leaf.
  12. Alternative Final stage: Add to roasting pan and cover. Cook in 400 degree oven for 40 minutes until chicken is fork tender.
  13. Another alternative: You can eat it after the chicken is cooked through. I prefer to cook it low and slow sometimes. I put the cover on my dutch oven and put it in oven at 250 degrees and cook all day. Or you could put it in a crock pot at this time and cook all day. The leftovers are even better the next day.

Notes

Serve over mashed potatoes, egg noodles or even rice. My favorite is egg noodles or rice for a gluten free alternative. 
It is even better the next day!
Allergens: Gluten (but can be made gluten free), Garlic 

Fresh Popover Recipe

Fresh Popover Recipe: A Family Tradition

Having a fresh popover (also called Yorkshire Pudding) with your meal is an experience that takes a meal from good to great. This Fresh Popover Recipe is not something I can take credit for, my daughter Amanda is the genius baker here. She has been working on it for a year or so and finally perfected it. Popovers or Yorkshire Pudding are usually reserved for special occasions, but they have been put on a regular rotation in our house. I would recommend this recipe to anyone.

As a child my family would take us to Anthony’s Pier 4 restaurant in Boston, MA and I still remember the popovers they served. I am sure they served other food, but as a kid going out to dinner with their parents, there was nothing better than a hot popover. The popovers made that restaurant my childhood favorite. Another place to get a great popover to this day is the Beverly Depot restaurant in Beverly, MA. The whole restaurant is great, not just the popovers. As a child, I never thought a fresh popover made at home would be so easy and accessible. My daughters’ efforts and this fresh popover recipe will have our family making memories for years.

This Ultimate Fresh Popover Recipe, otherwise known as Yorkshire Pudding elevates any meal from good to great.

Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.

-James Beard

She originally made the popovers in a muffin tin, then we bought a popover pan and that was a game changer. It took a while for her to get the height. But this time she sprayed the pan with olive oil spray and chilled the batter beforehand and that seemed to make the difference. Popovers, with only five ingredients that you most likely have in your home are easy, inexpensive and a joy to behold!

I do not have Celiac disease, but I am gluten free just because I feel better when I am. There are a few things that I will cheat with and this is one of them. I cannot resist. However, I do NOT recommend cheating if you do in fact have Celiac Disease. If you are interested in some of our other favorite recipes, please check out the Recipes page of my blog Sunday Chefs for more tried and true family recipes and restaurant reviews.

Fresh Popover Recipe

Otherwise known at Yorkshire Pudding, a fresh popover elevates every meal
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Prep Time 40 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Servings: 12 servings
Course: Appetizer, dinner, Side Dish
Cuisine: American, British
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/3 cup Warm milk
  • 1 1/3 cup Sifted flour
  • 6 Eggs Room temperature
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 2 Tbsp Canola oil

Equipment

  • 1 Popover Pan or muffin tin
  • 1 Muffin Tin or popover tin

Method
 

  1. Preheat oven to 375°
  2. Combine milk, flour, eggs, salt and canola oil in bowl and mix until combined.
  3. Chill mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  4. Warm popover pan or muffin tin in 375° oven for 10 minutes.
  5. Remove pan from oven, spray with olive oil spray (I am assuming any oil spray would work, but we like the olive oil spray).
  6. Add mixture to muffin/popover tin and cook in oven for 40 minutes.
  7. Best if served immediately… Enjoy!

Notes

Allergy information: Contains gluten and eggs.

Keeping it bubbly! – Trick to keeping Champagne and Prosecco bubbly

Smile…. There’s bubbly

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The easiest trick to save that leftover bubbly. Whether it be Champagne, Prosecco, Cava or even sparkling cider.


We like to celebrate things in our house. So it is not unusual for us to have a bottle of Champagne or Prosecco in the fridge. You never know when you will need to make a quick toast or have a Mimosa or an Aperol Spritz. But, we are not big drinkers so we tend to have some leftover and there is nothing worse than flat champagne. Well of course there are worse things, but you get the picture.

I used to work at a French company back in the day and after work on Friday’s we would buy bottles of champagne (good champagne) and celebrate the end of a good week.  That was a great job! There were a lot of tipsy train rides home but we were young and not driving, so who cared. My boss, who was French and grew up in champagne country taught us a trick to preserve the bubbles so you could finish the bottle the next day.

It’s very simple…… Put a spoon in the bottle and put it in the fridge…..That’s it!!!  It is so simple and it works. Thanks Thierry! This holiday season, I was telling someone and they did not believe me so we tested it…. and I was right. Everyone was extremely impressed.  My daughter even tried it with Sparkling Cider and it worked. It is a great tip, that you will probably never have to use…..because who has leftover Champagne or Prosecco or Cava!

I make Prosecco disappear, what’s your superpower?

-Unknown