le blog de tranny

Quite the heavy meal for a hot summer evening, huh? I did have my reasons though…

The first is that I got off work early that day, so I was feeling a bit more ambitious than usual. A gift from Paul had also just arrived in the mail that day — my very own copy of How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. As I was flipping through the pages of my new toy, his recipe for Coq au Vin popped out at me as an opportunity to do two things I don’t do very often — cook with wine and make chicken taste good. Let me just say that I think Mark Bittman is great. I really appreciate a cookbook author who tries to keep things simple. I must admit though, that for fear that MB would cut corners, I ended up referring to this recipe, from Simply Recipes, quite a bit. The two recipes differ only slightly — what appear as unique, ordered steps in the Simply Recipes recipe are in some cases consolidated into one step in Bittman’s version.

I was feeling pretty inspired to make this a French meal at this point, and for good reason: I had recently discovered La Tartine Gourmande, which immediately became my absolute favorite food blog upon visiting it for the first time. (Thanks for the recommendation, Google Reader!) Her photos are so gorgeous and full of light and her narrative style of writing is so utterly charming! I love the French dialogue and the photos of her baby. Why is it that the best food bloggers (i.e. Smitten Kitchen and La Tartine Gourmande) have the cutest babies? Because they’re well-fed? Anyway I knew we had some potatoes on-hand from the CSA so I decided to try out Mark Bittman’s braised potatoes recipe, which seemed simple enough, with some dijon and herbs to make it a bit French.

In an attempt to mimic La Tartine Gourmand’s style I turned my camera to “nostalgic” mode and played around with photo composition. The effort I put into these photos waned pretty quickly once I got deep into the braise-fest I had set myself up for. Oh Tartine Gourmand, comme vous m’inspirez! I can’t believe I only just discovered this blog three weeks ago!

It felt really weird to blanch bacon, which I did per Simply Recipes’ suggestion. In retrospect, I would not have done this, as the main purpose was to avoid making the dish too salty and I ended up adding a lot of salt back in. This might be partially attributable to the fact that I was using low sodium chicken broth, but I added a bunch of salt to the pot, mmkay.

Oh alright, I’ll stop being a lazy fuck and actually write out the recipe for this meal, because I was referring to two different recipes and because it was damn good. This recipe stuffed five of us to the gills but could’ve easily fed a sixth if I’d made a salad or something.

Coq au Vin
- Soak one package of dried porcini mushrooms in hot water to cover.
- Blanch half a pound (or more) of back bacon for 5 minutes (or don’t).
- Dice the bacon and brown it in a heavy-bottomed pot. Remove the cooked bacon, leaving the bacon fat in the pan.
- Working in batches, add pearl onions and chicken thighs or legs (1-2 per person), excess fat trimmed and skin in-tact, to the pan skin-side down. Brown on both sides. Halfway through this process season with s&p and add 6 whole garlic cloves, peeled.

- Once all the chicken is browned, add any chicken that’s been set aside back to the pan and add 2 cups chicken stock, 2/3 – 3/4 a bottle of Pinot Noir, a package (or at BB, a bag’s worth) of sliced button mushrooms, the bacon, 2 bay leaves, and a shit ton of fresh parsley and thyme. Bring to a simmer. Cover and cook for 30 minutes or more, adding salt and wine to taste. The chicken is done cooking when it’s tender and tastes good.

I don’t care if the following photos are repetitive, because they are effing gorgeous.

- Remove the chicken pieces and keep them warm. Remove and discard the herbs. Drain the porcini, add them to the pot, and crank up the heat. Boil the cooking liquid until it is reduced by three fourths and is pretty thick and sauce-like.
- Turn the heat to low and add back the chicken and 2 tablespoons of butter. Coat the chicken with the sauce as you reheat it.
- Garnish with fresh chopped parsley (which I forgot to do!) and serve with Dijon potatoes.

Braised Potatoes and Carrots with Dijon and Thyme
I’d never thought to braise potatoes until Mark Bittman suggested it to me. What a clever and fool-proof method!

- Peel potatoes and cut them into large chunks. Heat olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot. Add the potatoes and season them with s&p. Throw some chunks of peeled carrot in there if you have any on hand (which I did). Saute the potatoes until they are golden brown, adding more olive oil if necessary to keep them from sticking. Add one small onion, minced, and stir until it softens.
- Add chicken stock and some water to barely cover the potatoes. Add a heaping spoonful of dijon and sprigs of fresh thyme and/or rosemary. Bring to a boil, stirring to keep the potatoes from sticking, then lower to a simmer.
- Cook for 20-25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender, such that you can stab them with no resistance. The broth should be reduced to a nice, thick sauce by this point. Garnish with fresh parsley, if you please.

Bon appetit!