Coq au Vin Redux

You know that thing where you think you can cook a recipe because you did it before so you must know how to do it again without Googling it? You don’t? So you remember how to boil an egg? It’s 3 mins of course.

Actually maybe its 4 mins….See, those that cook can easily get trapped in the ‘Valley of Indecision’. That deep, dark area where you start second-guessing the amount of flour, the exact proportion of water and milk, the number of seconds to leave that fillet steak frying in butter…

So this is what happened when we had Coq au Vin with Croissant. Coq au Vin with Croissant? What kind of messed-up tomfoolery is that, I hear you yawn at your PC/laptop/mobile device. Well it’s what it says on the tin;

You make a Coq au Vin, and then you stick some croissant on it. Easy. Except this version didnt’t turn out exactly as I remember it.

Yes this is Coq au Vin…

Previously, on Happiness Stan I made this. And I wanted to see if the kids liked it so I made it again. But I didn’t follow the recipe from last time. Last time it looked like this…

…Kind of neat. Tidy. Ordered. This time it looked like this…

It looks similar to the original but like it’s been injected with crystal meth. It’s Coq au Vin on steroids. It looks a bit freaked out. Where did I go wrong? Why didn’t it look a bit more polished, mysterious even? The new version looks like a mad… well a mad casserole of bread.

Anyway lets work out how we got here. You will need these things:

These things include:

3 chicken supremes (breasts with the bone in)
1/2 pound streaky smoked bacon
1 glass red wine
a glug of brandy or cognac
2 carrots
1 large onions
1 tbsp mustard
3 cloves black garlic (see below)
3 large mushrooms
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 pint chicken stock
2 tsp cornflour
1/2 tbsp dried mixed herbs
salt and pepper
2 packs jus roll croissant pastry (you didn’t think I was going to make those from scratch?)

First you need to brown the chicken in a drop of oil, skin side down, in a casserole or dutch oven. Set aside.

Then add the chopped bacon to the pot…

…and fry until the water evaporates and the fat renders…

Add the black garlic.

Black garlic has a sweeter, caramelised taste, produced by heating garlic bulbs at a low temperature for a long time. It sort of melts during the cooking process.

Add in the vegetables and fry for a few mins to soften…

Add back the chicken. Add the tomato paste, chopped tomato and red wine…

Add the remaining ingredients (except the croissant of course) and bring to a simmer.

Pop in the oven at 170 centigrade and cook for an hour and a half. As you reach the last 1/2 hour of cooking make the croissant cobbler by removing the pastry from the tub. It kind of bursts out and I like that.

Unrole and pinch the joins together…

Role each square up and cut into three chunks. Now place each one, end up on top of the chicken…

Wash over the pastry with some egg and put back in the oven for the final 1/2 hour until golden. Now last time I baked the croissant on a sheet and then just popped them on top and that was the big difference…