Coq à la bière

I love when the new cooking magazines arrive in the mail every month. I get the kind of excited feeling that I also get at Christmas. I am giddy when I see the latest issue in the mailbox, and I can't wait to get up to my apt. and drop whatever I was doing to read through them. I flip through the issue excitedly as I wait for the elevator, making mental notes as to which articles I want to read first. When I get upstairs, I dump the rest of the mail on the table, plop down on the couch and devour the magazine cover to cover. When I'm done, it's just like Christmas...I get depressed. Waaah, now I have to wait for next month's issue.

The October 2003 issue of Saveur magazine arrived yesterday and true to form I read through the issue in record time, even picking out a recipe to make for dinner, a version of Coq au Vin that uses German beer. The recipe looked easy enough, and a quick inventory showed that I had all the ingredients on hand...sort of. I did have have to improvise a teeny bit but that’s part of the fun, oui?

Two tablespoons of vegetable oil went into a large skillet that was set on medium high heat. When that was hot enough I put 4 chicken thighs and 5 drumsticks (errm, what chicken did that come from?) that had been washed, patted dry with paper towels and pre-seasoned with salt and pepper into the skillet to brown for 5 minutes on each side. I should note here that the recipe called for 4 WHOLE chicken legs, thighs attached but I did not have this. I had the package of thighs and the package of legs from the five legged chicken so that's what went into the skillet. After the chicken was browned on both sides, I removed it from the skillet and set it into the pot that would eventually stew everything to yummy goodness. Draining the skillet of fat I then proceeded to cook 5 strips of bacon that I had chopped into small pieces until it was nice and crispy, that too went into the soup pot, bacon drippings and all. To the stock pot I added 3 tablespoons of flour, about 10 large white mushrooms that had been chopped, 4 chopped carrots, 1 chopped onion, 2 ribs of celery, chopped, a handful of parsley, chopped, 4 allspice berries, (the recipe called for Juniper berries but I didn't have any so I substituted the allspice), 2 whole cloves, 1 large bay leaf, 2 bottles of German Wheat Beer, (I didn't have any German Wheat Beer but we did have some Bass Pale Ale, so I used that), 1&1/4 cups of chicken stock (I had a horrible accident with the stock spilling it all over the place and making a glorious mess, luckily there was enough to complete the recipe), a dash of paprika, and salt and pepper to taste...WHEW! I stirred everything together, brought it to a boil then reduced the heat and let it simmer on the stove with the lid slightly off the pot for about 2 hours. I served it with waxy potatoes that had been peeled, quartered and boiled just like the recipe suggested.

This was yummy, and surprisingly NOT heavy at all. I don't know how the recipe would have turned out had I had the right ingredients; I'm thinking perhaps it would have been a little richer and more intensely flavored. The picture in the magazine showed a darker richer looking broth whereas my broth was quite a bit lighter. The flavor of this stew was subtle but nice and the chicken was fall-off-the-bone tender. The potatoes made it a hearty meal and maybe next time I'd omit them using a good crusty bread to sop up the juices instead. All in all a good, not so difficult to make, weeknight meal.

Written by Deb on September 10, 2003 10:03 AM