Sous vide coq au vin | Recipe by sousvidetools.com

Sous vide coq au vin

COOK TIME: 45 Minutes
PREP TIME: 15 Minutes
SERVES: 4

Ingredients

1 cock or chicken, jointed into 2 breasts (on the bone) with wings attached, and 2 legs
200g button mushrooms
1 bottle (preferably French) red wine, I used a Burgundy
4 cloves garlic, peeled and pressed
10 small onions / shallots
200g smoked lardons in large dice
600mls chicken stock
A few sprigs of thyme
4 bay leaves
Fresh parsley to serve, finely chopped
Mashed potato laced with butter to serve
Sea salt and black pepper
Olive oil
Oil for frying
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
3 celery stalks, finely chopped
Sea salt and black pepper
Unsalted butter
Vegetable oil
A couple of tablespoons plain flour

Equipment

Method

A classic dish is given the Sous Vide twist by our Kitchen Alchemist Hannah who had as much fun sourcing her meat for this dish as cooking it…..

Coq au vin is simple, homely and hearty, great for lazy rainy days and boozy Sunday afternoons with friends. And the homemade article beats the shop bought variety by a country mile, whether sous vide or conventionally cooked.

Now, in me making this recipe I had a lot of trouble getting hold of the required meat. Because (and I’m trying my best to put this politely) there’s just no easy way for a girl to ask her butcher for a cock. There, I said it.

You can imagine the conversation I had with poor Jason at Udale, the man deserves a medal for trying to keep a straight face. But come up trumps he did, and if you can get hold of the same then I’d urge you to do so, though chicken is obviously a perfectly good alternative.

Coq au vin has a ton of provenance and differing takes on how to make the real deal, but at its heart it’s essentially a rich combination of ingredients including red wine, mushrooms, lardons, thyme, bay, onions and garlic. Classic French peasant cooking at its best.

The meat if conventionally cooked is slow braised until the flesh is meltingly tender, the sous vide version cooks the meat gently until it’s juicy and succulent and scented with the rich sauce. Both methods yield excellent results, but the sous vide really is something else — what it does to the meat in keeping it super juicy and delicious is simply outstanding.

Serve it with a ridiculously high butter content mashed potato. Rice or mash it until as smooth and fine as can be, open a bottle of red and get stuck in.

METHOD

Place into a saucepan the wine (save 1 glass), garlic, lardons, stock, bay, carrots, celery and bring to the simmer.
While that’s happening, brown the peeled onions/shallots in butter, and once done, set aside.
Cook the marinade for about 25 minutes until it’s reduced in its consistency and the wine has cooked off — this is very important for SV cooking as alcohol trapped in the bag with nowhere to go doesn’t yield a great result. Leave the mixture to cool.
Preheat your sous vide to 66.6°C.
Salt and pepper the jointed chickens and place them into separate pouches, then distribute the onions and fresh thyme sprigs among them evenly.
Pour the sauce into the bags, evenly distributing it again, and seal them on a hard vacuum (you might want to freeze the liquid first to make sealing it easier, whichever method works for you.
Cook in the sous vide for 12 hours, then remove and chill down.
Preheat your oven to 180°C.
Once cooled, open the pouches and remove the chicken, patting the skin dry with kitchen paper and reserving all the liquid in a saucepan. Remove the thyme sprigs and put on to simmer, adding the last glass of red wine to the pot.
Mix enough unsalted butter into the plain flour until combined and add this to the saucepan, stir until combined and season the pot to taste. Let it sit and simmer until the chicken is ready.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper and place a large knob of butter and some vegetable oil into a frying pan, once it starts foaming add the chicken skin side down and fry for around 6 to 8 minutes, until the skin is colouring golden brown. Move the chicken around in the pan to get all the sides of the skin browned, then finally cook it flesh side down for another 6 to 8 minutes.
Carefully remove from the pan and place skin side up on a baking sheet, and bake in the oven to bring the core temperature up, for around 10 minutes.
Into the pan the chicken has been cooking add another knob of butter and the button mushrooms, fry until browned on all sides.
Serve on top of the buttery mash and ladle over the sauce, finishing with the button mushrooms and chopped fresh parsley.

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Post by Chris Holland

Our Chef Director Chris Holland worked as Head Chef at the prestigious Alderley Edge hotel before joining us. He has a passion for using the best produce and never compromises on quality. Author of our best selling book Sous Vide The Art of Precision Cooking, Chris is a expert on the sous vide technique.During the later part of my school days at Wardle High School Rochdale I always wanted to be a chef . I knew from the very start that my path to work was never going to be academic it was always going to be something practical and hands on.

As a young boy growing up I was inspired to cook with my Grandma who was and still is an inspiration to me . I have memories of helping make the cakes that she always had made for visitors and family alike . She made the most amazing cakes and I loved nothing more than eating the sweet raw cake batter straight from the bowl . We used to fight over who got to lick the bowl/spoon after the cakes were made. My grandma’s philosophy for cooking even on a shoe string budget was always to use fresh and seasonal ingredients either home grown or bought from the market.

School was somewhat of a drag for me as I was itching to learn to become a chef.

I started at Hopwood Hall college as a chef and instantly fell in love with it .To me it was the only real time I excelled in something and this inspired me to really get my head down and put in the hard work. College was the first time I really excelled in something and gave me the opportunity to laugh at the teachers who said I would never make something of my life!!!!

During the three years at college I also took on a part time position in a local hotel working the bar and restaurant first and then the kitchen. These were great days and gave me the opportunity to see how the industry ticks. I learnt a lot from those days both good and bad !! But I have to say I was itching to work only in the kitchen but it was a good insight into the catering world .

After completing college I moved away from Rochdale for a full time roll at one of Cheshire’s most talked about Hotel restaurants The Stanneylands Hotel. This was the school of hard knocks for me as I quickly realised that although excelling at college meant nothing in “The Real World”.

I loved every minute of the 18 hour days 6 days a week on minimum wage . Although difficult I feel that without this grounding I wouldn’t have achieved what I have today. After 18 months of hard graft I left Stanneylands and went with the Head chef to open a fine dining restaurant at Mere Golf and Country Club. The opportunity to work alongside Matthew Barrett was too good to turn down. I learnt so much from the ex-Ritz chef and working in a much slower paced role helped me develop a much better understanding of how to organise and run a kitchen. We were a very small team and teamwork was and still is the only way to go for me.

After 2 years at Mere I got the opportunity to go into The Alderley Edge Hotel as Junior Souschef. The Early days at the Edge were all about learning new styles of cuising which is invaluable in any role as a chef. I got the opportunity to grow and learn all aspects of every section which was inspiring . I was offered the opportunity at the age of 29 (2004) to take the role of head chef. For me this was when I really started to develop my own style of food.

After 9 years at the top winning Cheshire restaurant of the year , Chef of the Year and appearing on GBM amongst many highlights including cooking for many celebrities and famous people I decided to move on into development with Sousvidetools.

The main inspiration for this was to train and educate people . I always had a great passion for education but could never really see myself at a college . The job is super rewarding and I am proud to say we have become the leading light in sous-vide education in the UK . This is something I am very proud of . Food is my biggest passion and this is what keeps me interested the most . I love to travel and try out other countries cuisines. I am constantly inspired by ingredients and the pursuit of getting the best out of them without destroying their natural flavour .It is super important to me to continue to try and be at the forefront of the food scene this is what inspire me and the team to keep driving forward .

Technology is now widely used in the industry and I am super proud to say we have been a big part of spreading that message.

I am very lucky to be in the position I am and the drive to constantly improve our training and links to the next generation of young budding hospitality chefs.

TI feel that my experience over the last 25 years really enables me to get close and educate the “next generation” of chefs .

The industry which I love is really struggling to bring through new recruits and if I can help that process I will be immensely proud.

The food seen in the Uk has improved dramatically over the last ten years and I feel this will continue with the correct education. What happens next only fate will tell us...

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