She's a tough old bird.

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Coq Poule au Vin.

This version comes from one of the Frugal Gourmet books, as opposed to the more traditional recipe I made here from Mr. Bourdain.

2 T olive oil
1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced
4 garlic cloves, crushed (Ha! I used... more.)
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
2 T bacon, diced (I used house-cured)
1 fryer chicken, 3-4 lbs (I used an old laying hen from Soul Fud)
1 cup brown stock
1 cup dry red wine
1 bay leaf
1 tsp thyme
salt and pepper
1/4 cup minced parsley
2 T brandy
roux: 3 T flour cooked in 3 T butter

Heat a large frying pan and add the olive oil, onion, and garlic and saute until tender. Add the mushrooms and saute over high heat until the mushrooms are barely tender. Remove from the pan and deglaze with a little of the wine. Pour the pan drippings over the onions and mushrooms and set aside.

In the same pan, saute the bacon until clear. Remove the bacon from the pan, leaving the fat. Set aside the bacon and cut the chicken into serving pieces. In small batches, brown the chicken in the bacon fat. Place the chicken and bacon in a large kettle and add everything except the roux. Bring to a simmer and cook until tender, about 1 hour. Add the onions and mushrooms and continue to simmer while you prepare the roux. Lightly brown the flour in the melted butter and stir this mixture into the cooked chicken and sauce. Stir until the sauce thickens. Serve over a grain to soak up the yummy sauce.

What worked: Less work than the traditional, and the roux thickened up well in place of using chicken blood. Still tasty; using house-made turkey stock helped I'm sure.

What didn't: Old hippy chickens are still tough. This one needed marinating in wine overnight to tenderize. After an hour simmering, it was still extremely chewy.

Will I make it again? Probably not, although I might adapt a couple bits from this into the Bourdain recipe.

Comments

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, a recipe calling for a fryer just isn't going to work so well with an old laying hen. Fryers are very young birds; retired hens are the opposite. I think you need 2 or 3 hours to get them tender... This recipe would probably work quite well with a cockerel of 6-8 months age.

I have a document, or a link to one, offering tips on cooking with heritage chickens, if you're interested.

[aastg.livejournal.com]

When you roast a chicken, does your poulterer actually have roasting chickens, or do you have to make do with a fryer?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

The hippy chickens we get from Soul Fud Farms are excellent roasters.