While most of us as city dwellers don’t usually have roosters to ‘dispatch’, a lovely free-range chicken will work perfectly.  Perhaps it should be called Chick au Vin, but that reminds me more of lunch with my gal-pals than a recipe.  This recipe is a family favourite, perfect for freezing, wonderful to make into a pie, and easy for a long, casual winter Sunday lunch. 

You will need a heavy casserole dish, frypan and a small saucepan for this dish.

Ingredients 

1 number 16 chicken (or 1.6kg of chicken pieces)

100g pancetta or guanciale

2 tbsp butter

12-16 baby onions or shallots

1 carrot diced

2 stalks celery diced

300g button mushrooms cut into 1/4

6 garlic cloves

½ tablespoon of tomato paste

½ bunch thyme

3 bay leaves

1 bottle pinot noir

¼ cup cognac

500mls chicken stock

Plain flour

Salt and pepper

¼ bunch flat leaf parsley chopped

 

Method

In the morning of, or better still, the day before cooking, bring the pinot noir to a boil to burn off the alcohol and allow it to completely cool

Cut chicken into pieces, rinse, dry, and marinate in the red wine overnight

The next day take the chicken out of marinate and pat dry or pop it into the fridge to dry out, reserve the marinade

Cut the skin off the pancetta or guanciale and slice the flesh into lardons

Place the lardons into a small saucepan of water and simmer for 10 minutes

Remove the lardons and dry well then fry the lardons in the butter in a frying pan (which is large enough to sauté the chicken) until rendered.  Once rendered set the lardons aside and keep the fat. 

Flour the dried chicken pieces, season them well, and brown them in the leftover butter and rendered fat of the lardons.  Once all the chicken is browned place in a deep, heavy casserole pot. Add a little more butter to the frypan and sauté the diced carrots and celery add the tomato paste.   Place the lardons into the casserole, and add the reserved wine marinade, pour in the cognac - throw caution to the wind and flame the cognac.  Mind your hair and eyebrows (trust me they take a while to grow back…).  Add the cooked carrots and celer and the bay leaves to the casserole dish, and then enough chicken stock to just cover the chicken. Place a lid on the pot and simmer for 30 minutes or until the chicken is just cooked. 

Meanwhile, place the baby onions or shallots into a small saucepan and boil for about 20 minutes – you still want some texture but it removes that awful raw oniony flavour.  Sauté the mushrooms and thyme in butter and season well.  Set aside.

Once the chicken has cooked remove and set aside.  Check the sauce for seasoning, adjust, and reduce until syrupy but not too thick – it will stick nicely to a spoon once it is ready – then add the chicken back into the pot to reheat, and add the onions, mushrooms, and thyme.  Sprinkle with the finely chopped parsley.

This is a dish served at the table.  I think golden brown duck fat roasted potatoes are perfect, and steamed beans never go astray.  But a light bitter salad of greens with a simple vinaigrette would be wonderfully fresh.