from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Coq au Vin
Photograph
courtesy of jeffreyw
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreyww/7847026330/
Coq au Vin began as a large meal prepared on holidays or for family celebrations, and it would have been enough for ten or more diners. The cockerel used for the traditional Coq Au Vin was a big, old cockerel that's a rooster in North America, a cockerel that has ceased to make the ladies happy weighing at least five kilos (11 lbs).. A French restaurant serving Coq au Vin Traditionnel today may have to settle for a somewhat smaller bird, but it will still be enough for eight or more diners. When considering ordering Coq Au Vin, look for a restaurant offering a "Coq au Vin Traditionnel, " the traditional Coq Au Vin.
Out of work cockerels headed for the pot are large birds. Even today, most mature French cockerels weigh over two and a half kilos, over five pounds, with some up to 50% more. These will be free-range birds, so they will be tasty, but need a lot of cooking, or they will be stringy. Preparing a cockerel for the pot requires marinating the bird in red wine, often with an added Eau-de-vie, for a particular flavor for at least 24 hours. When the marinade has done its work, the dish will be allowed to cook very slowly, along with more red wine, herbs, and extra chicken broth. When the meat is nearly hanging off the bones, vegetables, mushrooms, and bacon for flavor will be added, and twenty minutes later, the dish may be served.
Coq au Vin comes with many distinctive tastes:
Coq à la Bière – A cockerel
marinated in beer, not wine;
usually, this dish is made with a bière brune, a brown beer. To the
beer marinade will be adding a local Eau de vie and often crème fraiche. The use of beer
makes this dish sound as if it originated in Belgium, but it will also be on
the menu in the old regions of Alsace and Lorraine, which supply over 50% of
France's beers.
Coq au Champagne – Here in
the Champagne growing
region, the local restaurants will bring their version of Coq Au Vin to the
table. If an eau-de-vie is used in the marinade along with Champagne, theirs
will be Marc de Champagne (French Marcs are the French take on the Italian
Grappa brandies). Outside of Champagne, similar dishes will be on menus with a
local Crémant sparkling wine. Locally, the only wine
to accompany this dish is Champagne.
Coq au Riesling - This is coq au vin
from the Alsace. The crisp, dry, and fruity Alsatian white Riesling AOP white
wine will make this dish a tasty and different experience.
Coq au Vin de
Bourgogne – The region of Burgundy with so many great wines and so
many excellent dishes a la bourguignonne always had a local version of Coq Au Vin
for family festivities and festivals. When the dish came to the restaurants,
the chefs had many excellent red wines for the diners to choose from. The wine
you choose to accompany your traditional Coq au Vin de Bourgogne should also be
red. However, If you prefer white wine, consider the Crémant de Bourgogne, Burgundy's wonderful
sparkling white wine.
Coq au Vin
Photograph courtesy of Neeta Lind
https://www.flickr.com/photos/neeta_lind/2048138042/
Coq au Vin de Chanturgue or Coq au Vin, Auvergnat - Coq au Vin de Chanturgue is almost universally accepted by
French chefs as the first restaurant version of Coq Au Vin.
Every wine-growing area of France will claim that they invented
Coq Au Vin, and despite the paragraph above, they are all probably correct.
Long before the first restaurant came to Paris experienced French farmer's wives
would have arrived at tasty solutions for old and out-of-work cockerels. They
would use the marinating powers and flavor of red wine. The region of the
Auvergne, in the center of France, produced the earliest restaurant version of
Coq Au Vin, and that was in the mid-19th century. Visit a restaurant in the
Auvergne today that offers Coq au Vin de Chanturgue, and you should have a meal
close to the original.
Today, the Auvergne is not well-known for its wines. Nevertheless,
until the late 1800s, the Auvergne was France's third most prestigious
wine-growing region after the wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Then came
phylloxera, a root-eating aphid that attacked and destroyed untold numbers of
the best vines all over France and destroyed the Auvergne wine industry. Much
of the French wine industry was saved by importing from the USA and the Middle
East phylloxera-resistant rootstock; however, in the Auvergne, many vintners
gave up. A few carried on, and you can visit and try their traditional wines,
including the Vin de Chanturgue, and review wines added in the last fifty years.
If
you are planning a trip to the Auvergne view their English
language website:
https://www.france-voyage.com/travel-guide/auvergne-territoire.htm
Also, download copies of the maps for the Route
de Vins d’Auvergne,
the wine road of the Auvergne and the Route
de Fromages
de Auvergne, the cheese trails
of the five famous cheeses of the Auvergne. These maps are in French but easily understood
using the Google and Microsoft translate apps.
Coq au Vin Jaune – Coq au vin made with the famous Vin Jaune, the yellow wine, from the Jura. Jura is a department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and borders Switzerland to the east. Vin Jaune is made using the Savagnin grape and aged for a minimum of six years and three months in oak barrels. The wine tastes somewhat like a dry sherry, though it is not fortified by added alcohol as sherry is.
Vin Jaune from
the Jura.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/farehamwine/14874763437/
The requirements for a genuine Coq au
vin.
With Coq Au Vin so much in demand, that has created problems keeping to the original recipe. One hundred and fifty years ago, all chickens were raised free-range for both meat and eggs. The chickens raised as free-range hens were supplied a cockerel to maintain order in the flock. Today, there are far fewer free-range hens, creating a collateral shortage of suitable old cockerels.
The meat of a free-range cockerel has a much stronger flavor than any chicken. That, along with the wine chosen, is the secret behind the taste of a real Coq Au Vin. When coq au vin left the farms and began to be served in restaurants, it quickly became a popular dish and has remained so for over 150 years.
A cockerel strutting his stuff to impress the ladies.
Photograph
courtesy of svklimkin
https://www.flickr.com/photos/svklimkin/35655283910/
With Coq Au Vin so much in demand, that
has created problems keeping to the original recipe. One hundred and fifty
years ago, all chickens were raised free-range for both meat and eggs. The
chickens raised as free-range hens were supplied a cockerel to maintain order
in the flock. Today, there are far fewer free-range hens, creating a collateral
shortage of suitable old cockerels.
The meat of a free-range cockerel has a
much stronger flavor than any chicken. That, along with the wine chosen, is the
secret behind the taste of a real Coq Au Vin. When coq au vin left the farms
and began to be served in restaurants, it quickly became a popular dish and has
remained so for over 150 years.
Recipe for a large chicken in the style of Coq au
Vin.
Photograph
courtesy of Cookipedia
Ordering Coq Au Vin or
chicken stew.
If you order coq au vin and are served a
bowl with a small chicken, about enough for a meal for four, then I am sorry,
but that is not Coq Au Vin, modern or traditional. It may be an excellent stew,
but it will just be a small and tasty chicken stewed in wine! In France, there
are self-confident chefs who keep to the traditions and offer a large chicken
as a Fricassée de Poulet, Façon Coq au Vin, a chicken stew
prepared in the manner of Coq Au Vin. These chefs are not embarrassed to tell
it like it is, and the price charged will be that of a well-prepared chicken
stew but not a traditional Coq Au Vin.
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright
2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2023 ©
Connected posts:
Cuisine Bourguignonne and the Dishes … à la Bourguignonne .The Cuisine of Burgundy.
The Fourme d'Ambert AOP; One of the Auvergne's VerySpecial cheeses.
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