Coq au Vin Mousseux
Ingredients
Instructions
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Prep Your Ingredients
In a large dutch oven, cook bacon over high heat until brown and crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon an let drain on a paper towel. Reserve the oil in the dutch oven and reduce heat slightly.
When doing oblong cuts on vegetables like carrots and parsnips, it sometimes helps to square-off the round edges. This will help you keep a consistent thickness to ensure even cooking. -
Crisp the Bacon
In a large dutch oven, cook bacon over high heat until brown and crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon an let drain on a paper towel. Reserve the oil in the dutch oven and reduce heat slightly.
Finding slab bacon is a real key to this dish. You can use regular sliced bacon, but it's just not the same. -
Brown the Chicken
Season chicken with salt and pepper then, working with 2-3 leg quarters at a time, add chicken skin-side down to the pot. Fry in pot until skin reaches a deep golden brown. Flip over and brown the bottom. Transfer to baking dish and continue with the next batch.
As a rule of thumb, you should always pat your chicken dry before seasoning and frying. Traditionally, Coq au Vin is made with a whole chicken parted into 8 pieces, but I think leg quarters are far superior for this type of dish. As this is essentially a stew, breast meat will become dry and flavorless over the extended cooking time. Leg quarters, with their oils, will become tender and succulent. Plus, if your market is like mine, you can often find this cut for under $0.60 p/lbs making this an extremely economical dish. -
Cook Vegetables and Deglaze
Add parsnips and onions to dutch oven. Cook until browned and slightly softened. Add prosecco to deglaze pan and scrape-up any frond. Add bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Bring to boil.
At this point, you might want to divide the broth and vegetables into a second dutch oven. It will keep your chicken from overcrowding and will help shorten the time it takes to reduce the liquid. -
Poach Chicken
Return leg quarters and bacon to dutch ovens (divide quantity between two dutch ovens if using the recommendation above). Reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for 90 minutes.
If your chicken isn't mostly/fully covered by the broth, you should really use a second pot. -
Reduce Broth
Remove chicken to a baking dish and cover to keep warm. Remove and discard thyme sprigs and bay leaves. Increase heat to high and bring broth to rapid boil. Reduce until broth begins to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in crème fraîche (see recipe) and about 3tbsp of chopped dill. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
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Serve
Serve chicken in wide bowls (pasta bowl, etc). Spoon broth and vegetables over chicken. Garnish with dill sprigs.