Oo la la... a classic coq au vin

Coq au vin is a firm favourite in our family (possibly something to do with the wine) and my mum often makes it when we all go to France together. It's also a great dinner party dish, partly because it can be made in advance, and tastes just as good, if not better the following day. Last Friday we had friends round for dinner, the perfect excuse to try this out for myself.

The recipe is adapted from a classic cookery book from the 60s - Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking - a present from my Auntie Katherine (just - the inscription inside the front cover suggests it was a difficult one to give away!).

This is also a great excuse to show off our herb garden on the balcony at the back of the flat, where I picked the fresh thyme:

Ingredients: (for at least 4 people, with leftovers)

1 bottle of French red wine

1 carrot

1 stick of celery

1 small onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 bay leaf

A bunch of thyme

About 20 button mushrooms

1 tbs butter

5 rashers of streaky bacon

2 tbs plain flour

6 boneless skinless chicken thighs

2 chicken legs

About 20 shallots / baby onions

Some brandy

Method:

Elizabeth David suggests preparing the wine sauce separately before adding to the browned chicken and veg to cook, then taking everything out again to thicken the sauce at the end. After a bit of reading around, I decided to do half a job and make the sauce separately but thickened it all together at the end. I suspect my mum just chucks the lot in a pan and has done with...

- Make the sauce by adding the carrot, celery, onion, 2-3 crushed cloves of garlic, a bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme to the red wine in a large pan. Simmer for about 15 minutes until reduced by half.

- Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes then strain the sauce and keep the mushrooms aside

- Prepare the shallots by soaking in boiling water for 10 minutes to loosen their skins, then peel but leave whole

- Cut the bacon into small pieces and add to a casserole with some butter

- When the bacon starts to colour, add the shallots and caramelise. When they'd done, remove from the pan, leaving the fat for the chicken.

- Coat the chicken pieces with flour and season with salt and pepper

- Add the chicken to the pan and brown all over - in batches if the pan isn't big enough.

- Put everything back into the pan - the browned chicken, bacon, shallots and mushrooms - and pour over a small glass of brandy and set alight, scraping the bottom of the pan for all the tasty sticky bits.

- Add the strained red wine sauce, another clove of garlic and some thyme leaves and simmer gently for about an hour, by which time the chicken will be falling from the bone.

- To thicken the sauce, mix together a tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of flour and add to the pan in small blobs.

Serve with bread fried in beef dripping if you must - I went for mashed potato and green beans. As I was so excited when we had guests over (ie a bit tipsy) I didn't take a photo of the finished dish plated up, but just to prove it makes a hefty portion of leftovers, here's what I had for tea on Monday:

More from Elizabeth David soon - in the meantime, let me share with you her opinion of Petit Poussin, which is more of a scolding than a recipe...