Cooking Question - Coq Au Vin

[jyl]

Quick question for the cooks here.

I started making a coq au vin on Saturday, to finish and serve Sunday. So, chicken was browned and immersed in the red wine along w/ various aromatic veggies etc, all in covered pot in the refrigerator. Then I found out guests not coming until Tuesday. So have left chicken in wine in pot in fridge, now it is Monday and it will stay there until Tuesday afternoon.

Question - any reason I can't take it all out of fridge and finish up on Tuesday? Will the flavour be too wine-y? Will the dish be unsafe?

[RWebb]

it should be fine if the guests are in-laws



you might call up the OSU agr. ext. people for your county - they have all the food safety info

[onlycafe]

unsafe? no.
too winey? are your guests paying for the meal? maybe they are too whiney. get new guests.
it will be great.
never complain.... never explain.

[Dottore]

It will be just fine.

Did you put the mushrooms in already, or are you putting these in at the end with the fried bacon and onions?

If the mushrooms are already in there I would fish them out because they get bitter and may spoil the flavour. Otherwise you should be OK.

Really hard to feck up a Coq au vin.

[ronin]

almost identical to Sauerbraten. only the base is different (vinegar instead of wine). I would agree that it should be no problem. if anything, the continued marinade may make the meat quite tender after cooking

[Jamie79SC]

My favorite Coq au Vin recipe was written by a chef who says that it MUST sit for a few days and reheated. He claimed that at the restaurant they prepared it on Mondays and Thursdays to be served reheated for the rest of the week.

Relax, open a fine Bordeaux, and enjoy!

[jyl]

Mushrooms, little onions, etc will be added on the day of consumption. All the aromatics currently in the wine with the chicken will be discarded.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by jyl

Mushrooms, little onions, etc will be added on the day of consumption. All the aromatics currently in the wine with the chicken will be discarded.

Well then, relax. It will be O.K.

[jyl]

The coq au vin was quite good. Sauteed the mushrooms and pearl onions with bacon, garlic and butter, deglazed with scotch whisky, added that liquid to the wine as it was reducing.

Two things I'll do differently next time:
- I don't see the point of browning the chicken before marinating it in the red wine. Seems like this adds pointless effort. Maybe I could get even more wine-chicken penetration without that step.
- Could have used more wine, and reduce it down further, for a more concentrated flavour.
- Traditionally I guess this is served over flat noodles, but I think wild rice would be better.

I guess there is a repeat engagement coming in the near future.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by jyl

The coq au vin was quite good. Sauteed the mushrooms and pearl onions with bacon, garlic and butter, deglazed with scotch whisky, added that liquid to the wine as it was reducing.

Two things I'll do differently next time:
- I don't see the point of browning the chicken before marinating it in the red wine. Seems like this adds pointless effort. Maybe I could get even more wine-chicken penetration without that step.
- Could have used more wine, and reduce it down further, for a more concentrated flavour.
- Traditionally I guess this is served over flat noodles, but I think wild rice would be better.

I guess there is a repeat engagement coming in the near future.

You must NOT skip the browning step. Otherwise the chicken pieces will look awful (particularly if you've retained the skin) and will not have the "seared outside/soft inside" feel that you're trying to achieve.

Coq au Vin is a great dish to do in your crockpot BTW. It needs to be slow cooked to develop the flavours. In France this dish is traditionally made only with tough old roosters (hence the name) - so slow cooking is really an essential part of the recipe.

Slow cooking in turn means you need to start with lots of wine, and have this greatly reduced over the cooking process. That's how you get the thick, textured sauce.