Coq Au Vin - Can we improve on Alton Brown's recipe - I think not.

Alton Brown, wow. What a guy. For me, he is the pinnacle of culinary excellence. He is all that I aspire to be...lol. Watching his episode, Crazy for Coq Au Vin, on Good Eats, I knew I had to make this dish. That was a couple of years ago. Since then I have made this dish several times, and made a few small changes here and there. Have I improved it? I don't think I could do that. But what I have done is made it my own. I have tried variation of this dish, from fairly classic to quite modern takes on this dish. And I keep coming back to Alton's. His take on Coq Au Vin is fairly classic, but he keeps it very easy. I encourage you to make it your own too. This classic dish calls for Burgundy wine, which is a French wine made from the Pinot Noir grape, and is region specific to France. You can save quite a bit of money and buy a local, or Californian bottle of Pinot Noir. If I don't get a local Missouri wine, I like the Kendall Jackson Pinot Noir. The differences in wine make a huge impact on this dish, because you are going to basically marinate the chicken overnight in a ton of wine, so get a wine with flavors you like. Don't cook with it if you wouldn't drink it is the rule of thumb. I also like to add Cognac near the end for a little added richness.

The Ingredients:

Pearl onions, like 30 of them little suckers.
4 chicken thighs and legs, or 1 large stewing chicken, cut into serving pieces. I have also used a mix of thighs and breasts, but be careful that the breasts do not get dried out.
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
8 ounces salt pork, cubed - like bacon but even more fatty and tasty good!
12 ounces button mushrooms, quartered
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 and a half bottles good quality red wine, preferably pinot noir. Good quality doesn't mean expensive. I wouldn't pay more than $12 bucks a bottle.
1 Small bottle of Cognac, preferably good quality VSOP - also around $12 bucks here.
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 medium onion, quartered
2 stalks celery, quartered
2 medium carrots, quartered
6 cloves garlic, crushed
6 to 8 sprigs fresh thyme - I use lemon thyme, because thats what growing in my herb garden.
2 bay leafs
2 cups chicken stock or broth.

The Cooking:

Sprinkle the chicken on all sides with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the chicken pieces, a couple ,at a time, into a large (1 or 2-gallon) sealable plastic bag along with the flour. Shake to coat all of the pieces of the chicken. Remove the chicken from the bag and place on a metal rack.

Cut off the root end of each pearl onion and make an "x" with your knife in its place. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil and drop in the onions for 1 minute. Remove the onions from the pot, let them to cool, and then peel. The onions should just pop right out of their skin. Set aside.

Add a couple of tablespoons of water to a large, 12-inch saute pan over medium heat along with the salt pork. Cover and cook until the water is gone, and then continue to cook until the salt pork cubes are golden brown and crispy, about 10 minutes. Remove the pork from the pan and set aside.

In the same pan, using the remaining fat, add the onions, season, and then saute until lightly brown, approximately 10 minutes. Remove the onions from the pan and set aside. Next, brown the chicken pieces on each side until golden brown, working in batches, don't crowd the pan. Then put the chicken into a large cast iron dutch oven, or a large roasting pan.

Add the mushrooms to the same saute pan, adding the 2 tablespoon of butter if needed, and saute until they give up their liquid, approximately 5 minutes. Store the onions, mushrooms and pork in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Pour off any remaining fat and deglaze the pan with approximately 1 cup of the wine. Pour this into the Dutch oven along with the chicken stock, tomato paste, quartered onion, carrots, celery, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf. Add all of the remaining wine. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Place the chicken in the oven and cook for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, or until the chicken is tender. Maintain a very gentle simmer and stir occasionally.

When the chicken is done, remove it, put it in a heatproof container, cover it, and place it in the oven, turned off or set on 125 to keep your bird warm. Strain the sauce with a colander and remove the carrots, onion, celery, thyme, garlic, and bay leaf. Return the liquid to the pot, add about half of the bottle of cognac, drink the rest, and then place over medium heat. You could flambe here if you wanted to, I however don't. Why waste good alcohol? Now you want this to reduce by about a 1/3. Depending on how much liquid you actually began with, this should take a half hour up to 45 minutes. We want a nice thick sauce.

Once the sauce has thickened, add the pearl onions, mushrooms, and pork and cook for another 15 minutes or until the heated through. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Reduce the head, add the Chicken, let simmer for 3-5 minutes and then serve. Alton suggests serving over egg noodles; I like garlic mashed potatoes, or potatoes browned in duck fat. Maybe add some bacon wrapped asparagus. Whatever you like!

Note: If the sauce is not thick enough, you can add a mixture of equal parts butter and flour. Take 1 tablespoon of each and knead it together. Whisk this into the sauce for 4 to 5 minutes.

Have fun with this recipe. It takes a little time, but oh my, is it ever worth it! Serve with Pinot Noir. Now I have had people ask for a merlot when I serve this, refuse them at all cost! Ha.
Make it your own and have fun with it. People ask me to make this all the time! You will love it! Thanks AB for introducing such great classic recipes to the masses!

DIY Balloon Wine

Balloon wine, oh my. Where do I start.
Balloon wine, is generally not fine wine. But balloon wine can sure hit the spot on these hot summer days. And it is a good place to jump into wine making if it is something you are interested in, and it is pretty easy. I have made six batches, each one better than the one before it. You have complete control over your wine. Not only the flavor but the quality of the wine itself all depends on the decisions you make.

First off you need a large glass jug. I use one of the large Carlo Rossi jugs. It needs to be sterile, so I let it soak filled with fairly strong bleach water. I also sterilize my utensils.

Once rinsed out clean, I add three containers of concentrate grape juice. Here is one of the first decisions you need to make, what kind of juice do you want to use. I have used anything from Welches Concord, to a White Grape with Rasberry and Apple. You could mix and match if you wanted to. Or you could buy concentrated grape juice intended for wine making and step the quality of your wine up a little bit.

Now normally if you are making juice, you add three containers of water for each container of juice. When making wine, add two containers of water per container of juice. But don't add it just yet...

The next decision comes in the form of how sweet do you want your wine to be? This will determine how much sugar we will add. A cup of sugar will produce a very dry wine. I have used up to 3 cups and got a fairly sweet wine. You could use more if desired. I brought my six cups of water to a quick boil, for sanitation, and then added my sugar to the water, so it mixes a little easier as well. Then add this to your juice now in the jug.

Mix. You can stir or shake(with the lid on). Let it cool for a few minutes.

Add your yeast. I have used Fast Acting bread yeast, just one packet of Fleischmann's does the trick. Or you could get real wine yeast and again step up the quality of the wine quite a bit.

Now take a balloon that will fit over the opening of the jug, and don't inflate it, but poke a few holes through it with a needle. As the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol, aka, fermentation, Co2 is produced as a waste product. The gas will expand and cause your balloon to swell. The holes will let the Co2 out of the jug, and the internal pressure will keep oxygen from coming back in side. Or you can use a bung and an air lock and again step up the quality of the wine considerably.

Now store the wine in a warm dark place for a couple of weeks. Once the balloon starts to fall back over, the fermenting is done. Strain with a cheese cloth, or siphon the wine into a new jug. You could drink it now, or you could let it age for a while. I prefer to age mine a little. I have drank it as soon as two weeks later with much improvement. And I have let a jug age up to six months with a great improvement in flavor. You can age in the jug or you can bottle individually.

As you can see, you have many options and choices when it comes to making Balloon wine. The flavor and the quality is all up to you. Anyway you do it, have fun with it!

I won, I won!

So yesterday, Amy of Cooking With Amy, had a contest for a free book, The United States of Arugula, by David Kamp. It is all about how we became so obsessed with FOOD! To enter the contest you had to know some food trivia! And I won a free book!

The Questions were:
1. The characteristic orange-pink color of salmon is due to a chemical relative of the carotene pigment that colors carrots
True or False..

Which is True.

2. The olive tree was most likely cultivated
a) 5,000 years ago
b) 2,000 years ago
c) 1,000 years ago

Jesus gave his famous Sermon on the Mount, from the Mount of Olives more than 2000 years ago.. so they had to be older than that!

3. Sake is best drunk
a) As young as possible
b) When aged

Young, there is not much aged Sake out there on the market, because I believe it only has about a 6 month shelf life before the taste starts to go.

4. Surimi in Japanese means
a) Fake fish
b) Fishcake
c) Minced fish

Minced fish, its like a paste almost. Surimi means puree or slurry. It's how they make Krab Legs here in the US.

5. Bean curd was invented in Japan
True or False

Nope, that was invented in China actually.

6. The word sausage comes from the Latin word
a) Cure
b) Salt
c) Stuff

The latin word is botulus, or salus, meaning Salted or Preserved, just like a Cure.

7. Eggs are what percent of a hen's weight?
a) 5%
b) 3%
c) 1%

3%, I took a wild guess at that one.

8. Which is richer?
a) Pound cake
b) Butter cake

Definitely Pound Cake.. Some of the old recipes call for as much as a POUND of Butter!


I have to say Thank you Amy! It was a fun quiz and I am really excited about reading this book!

Chicken and 40 Cloves..

Who doesn't love Garlic?

I was watching Good Eats last night, and it was the "In the Bulb of the Night" episode, where Alton is teaching Vlad to cook with garlic. The last recipe was Chicken and 40 cloves, which I have been meaning to make for the longest time. I had totally forgotten about this recipe! My interest was peaked again, I have to make this dish.. and I have to make it soon! Here is the recipe. I hope I can make this tomorrow night and post some pictures of how it turns out!

What a Great Weekend.

My weekend was awesome! I traveled to nearby St. Louis to visit a group of my friends. Namely Matt and Tasha, who have been living in Costa Rica for the last three months. Check our their site, it's pretty cool.


We all met up at The Tap Room, which boasts Schlafly beer, and was the very first brew pub in Missouri; opening in 1991. There was a group of around 20 of us. We waited for quite a while to get seated. The manager came up to us and said that there was no way he could seat all of us at one table. It was Saturday night and they were packed. They wanted to split us up between three different tables; located in three different spots. We were not happy. We asked our waiter if we could pull some tables together. He said that the other servers would not be happy, because we would be pulling the tables out of their territory and into his and it could result in a fist fight. I asked him if felt pretty good tonight, if he was up for a fight. He laughed and respond, "I was born ready for a fight". I liked this guy already! We got a couple of tables together and the majority of us got to set together. About 5 of us did have to set at another table.

I got to enjoy the Sampler pack of beer, which is 6 5oz servings of Schafly beer. Five of their regular beers and one seasonal. I really enjoyed the Pilsner, which is golden with a medium-body and is brewed with German and Czech hops. I has a very smooth bitterness and lots of aroma. I also enjoyed the Oatmeal Stout, but it was pretty heavy for a warmer summer night. The Summer Kölsch was my favorite. It is very light-colored and very well-balanced. It is just a great refreshing ale!

I had the Fish & Fries, which was a battered Icelandic cod filet fried in a Hefeweizen batter. It was served with fries and tartar sauce. The fish was awesome, fat and juicy, full of flavor.

Sunday afternoon we ventured to the Blumenhof winery, located in Dutzow Missouri. Dutzow is the oldest German settlement in Missouri, established in 1832. Blumenhof first started in 1979 and served the first vintage in 1986. They produce everything from dry whites to sweet reds, and I got to try them all.

Probably their best know wine, the Devil's Den Red, made from Cynthiana grapes fermented and aged in stainless steel, was one of my favorites. It's tastes like port! Very deep and complex. Sweet but not too sweet. Velvety and smoky smooth. It is wonderful, but just a tad to heavy for drinking on a hot July day. I also loved the Femme Osage, made from the Traminette grape. Very floral. I could taste pineapple, citrus, and pear. It was very balanced, very crisp, and very refreshing! Matt and I split a bottle and enjoyed the acoustic guitar performance. We sang along to an AC/DC melody we begged for. It was a good time. Both of these wines were under $13.00. I did not particularly enjoy the Chardonel, which I usually love anywhere I go. That buttery flavor, that makes Chardonel, was just not there.

Overall I really enjoyed Blumenhof Winery. They make very good award wining wines that are very reasonable. Their most expensive bottle is the Vignole, coming in at $14.47.

So I had a great weekend. I got to hang out with many of my old friends, I got to enjoy great beer and good food, and some excellent wines. I cannot think of a much better way to enjoy a weekend.

My Dream....

My dream is to one day own a winery, incorporate a bistro with my winery, and even brew my own beer there. I know it sounds pretty crazy right? But that is why it is a dream. It gives me something to aspire to! Until then I have to keep making my balloon wine, using my Mr. Beer kit, and whipping up creations in my little kitchen. I am by no means a chef, or a master brewer. I am a lover of food and drink. I watch Food Network and the Travel Channel food shows constantly. I am always cooking something and struggling to make it halfway gourmet. I love to visit the area wineries and breweries. I love food and drink. By writing this blog, I hope to add fuel to my dream. By writing about these things that I love so much, I hope to infuse my dreams into my everyday life. I hope you enjoy read about it as much as I enjoy devouring it.