I made coq au vin for the first time yesterday and I did not screw it up!

[seaglass]

Well, at least it tasted amazing, I've never had it before so it could be very different from what it was supposed to be. . This is the recipe I used:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Coq-au-Vin-51133420


I had just bought my first Le Creuset pot and this was the recipe to test it out.

I do know how to cook somewhat but had to google what does render bacon mean and how much is a sprig. BTW thank goodness I did find out approximately how much a sprig is since I would have put 4x the amount of rosemary and thyme in.

Probably will not make this very frequently because 1.) it took a long time and 2.) with all that bacon fat it's not very healthy - but wow it was so good and I don't even like chicken!

Clean up of the Le Creuset was so easy - I want more of them! I did notice however that when I was rendering the bacon that it did not seem to be cooking evenly - 2/3 of the bacon would be bubbling away while the other 1/3 was not bubbling. Since these pots are supposed to conduct heat evenly should I assume the problem is with my burner?

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. When I was married in 1973, my wife and I got a set of Le Creuset pots and pans

They have been in regular use since then, and are going strong.

[seaglass]

11. Yep, I sure wish I had bought this pot 20 years ago. At least I'll be able to leave it to my son or

daughter.

[Major Nikon]

2. Here's what you should know about cast iron

Compared to other metals, cast iron does not heat evenly. The advantage to cast iron is the capability of storing large amounts of heat, so that when you put something cold inside it, like drumsticks and thighs, you don't lose all your heat so that you can sear meat efficiently. When cooking with Le Creuset, or pretty much any type of cast iron on the stove, it's a good idea to heat it up before you start cooking. This means leaving it on the burner on a low-medium setting with the lid on for about 10 minutes or so. Alternatively you can preheat them in the oven, and if you need to warm up your oven anyway, it's good idea to put the pan in the oven while it's warming up. Even with that, the edges will still be cooler than the middle. The reason is because the sides are wicking away some of the heat.

As far as rendering bacon goes, it's a good idea to add a 1/4 cup or so of water at the same time you add your cut up bacon. Eventually the water will all boil away, but in the mean time it will help render some of the fat out of the bacon which helps keep it from burning prior to this happening. Naturally you also will need to stir the bacon every minute or so to keep it cooking evenly.

[Warpy]

3. Water to the bacon will also coat your kitchen in a fine grease spray

I prefer to use low to medium heat and just let it hang out and do its thing. It takes a bit longer but then I don't have to clean everything around the stove and I hate cleaning.

Yes, that comes from experience.

I'll agree about preheating the pot, even on the stove top. Once it's hot, it's going to stay that way, which is why it's superior for things like soups, stews and deep frying.

As for a sprig, that's generally in the eye of the beholder. I usually see it as the first stem I have to break off rather than pinch off for small quantities of food and the whole stem you get in one of those chintzy little herb packages in the supermarket for large quantities. There are usually at least 2 stems in the box. If you don't mind seeing leaves in the food, you can also strip those off and leave them in rather than fishing a sprig out. The sprig makes for easier fishing while delivering the flavor.

That's the great thing about cooking, it never comes out the same from person to person and we all have our prejudices about how it can be done. Fat will render out of bacon whether you put water in the pan or not, use high heat or low. I've just learned to use it by itself to reduce cleaning up after and to use low heat to reduce the chance of burnt bacon and a grease fire.

Tl,dr: Rendering: to heat a high fat foodstuff to liquefy the fat and separate it from the solids

Sprig: your guess is as good as mine, but usually the first woody stem of herbs like thyme and rosemary to feed 2-3 or the whole stem for a vat of food to feed a crowd

[Major Nikon]

4. I just use a lid or a splatter screen

Unrendered animal fat of any kind is mostly water that will evaporate and find it's way to every other surface eventually if not contained.

[seaglass]

9. Warpy, I initially thought a sprig was the main branch with 4 or 5 branches attached. The recipe

called for 6 sprigs of rosemary so that would have been too much. I had a bad experience with rosemary when I was first married so I was paranoid about using too much and ruining the dish. In the end I am not sure that I used enough because I couldn't taste thyme or rosemary individually, I assume they just added to the overall flavor.

I used lower heat to render the bacon because I didn't want it to burn and was unfamiliar with the pan.

[seaglass]

8. That's good to know about heating the pot up, does that go for enameled cast iron too? The manual

that came with the pot said that it is not ideal for dry cooking so I would be hesitant about that. I do have non-enameled cast iron frying pans which I have heated in advance for corn bread but even then I think there was some oil in the pan.

[Major Nikon]

12. That's the way I do mine

With enameled cast iron you don't want any oil in the pan while preheating as you might stain it, and you don't want to use too high of a setting (which is true for all cast iron).

[elleng]

5. Have had Le Creuset for 40+ years,

but don't think I've ever made coq au vin. Courageous of you!

Problem could be with burner.

[seaglass]

17. The recipe was pretty easy, just time consuming. :-) n/t

[cbayer]

6. Congratulations. That's a great dish to have under your belt.

Always a go to for company because pretty much everyone loves it.

I suspect the heat distribution problem is either your burner or that your stove is on an angle of some sort. Did you try it on other burners?

[seaglass]

16. Thanks! I did not try of any other burners but will the next time I use the pot. My daughter

and husband especially loved this and were mad I threw out the day 3 leftovers.

[SheilaT]

7. Sounds delicious,

and the recipe doesn't look all that hard, although I'm often too lazy to do that much work.

What, if anything, did you serve with it?

[seaglass]

10. It was great and not hard at all, just took a lot of time. The first night I only had

biscuits with it. When I reheated last night I had mashed baby red potatoes and a salad. No one could eat the salad because the chicken dish was too rich.

If I do make it again I think I will try for boneless chicken - not sure if I can get legs or thighs and drumsticks without bones. By day 2 when I reheated, all the chicken had come off the bones so it was like a chicken stew but there were random small pieces of bones in it which made it a pita to eat.

[SheilaT]

13. It's possible to get boneless thighs,

but I think they are usually skinless, which strikes me as a good thing since I wouldn't personally want the skin in a dish like that.

Don't think I've ever seen skinless drumsticks.

[seaglass]

14. I am sure the bones and skin and fat add flavor but I would rather do without. I am a squeamish

eater and normally drain off or manicure off all animal fat and do not eat animal skin. If I make it again I would try with boneless skinless chicken and drain off some of the fat from the bacon.

[SheilaT]

15. It's important to recognize that the reason so many old recipes

call for the amount of fat they do, is that back then any meat was likely to be much drier than the same meat is today. Unless you're out hunting wild game.

In my family there's a tradition of draping the Thanksgiving turkey with bacon, which comes off a few hours into the baking process, and this turkey bacon is delicious. Although then you have to contend with the bacon grease at the bottom of the pan when you go to make gravy. It finally dawned on me that this probably started with my grandmother, who came here from Ireland around the turn of the 20th century, and I'm guessing the turkeys available over a hundred years ago did not have anything injected into them to make them moist, as the ones today do.

So yeah, if I decide to try making coq au vin, I'd use the bacon for flavoring, but pour off most of the bacon fat.

[Glassunion]

18. It is one of my favorite dishes.

I have several different ways of making it, and have found that I do not have a favorite.

If you would like to go old school and dig up a more rich flavor, replace the supermarket chicken with a sexually mature rooster (hence the "Coq" in the name). They are hard to come by as they are a pain in the ass to raise (they fight with other roosters). But well worth it.

If I understand correctly, this rustic dish was a great way to make an older, tougher chicken taste better.

Some variants to the recipe that I do... But not all at once.
- Sub the 12oz of bacon with about 8 oz of Pancetta and 4oz of andouille sausage.
- Replace one of the cups of the wine with a 1/4 cup of Cognac
- Simply swap the chicken stock with beef or venison stock (homemade is best)
- In the last 1 hour of cooking add some roasted pearl onions and halved cherry tomatoes
- Put some leeks and parsnips in the mix.
- Try different types of mushrooms. Roasted Shitakes were quite good. Just don't roast them too long, they will disappear.
- Try adding a 1/4 cup of brown sugar to it.