Easy Coq au Vin

This is a French dish, and I will pronounce it hear for you: "coke o van" (however, you want to anticipate the n in van, like the n is in your throat, but don't pronounce the n.) Coq au vin began as a dish when the country folk of France had their rooster, and when he could no longer crow, this was the end of his life, but a good one, because he was bathed in wine and good vegetables! Here we are 2009, and most of us don't live in the country and/or have a rooster crowing us awake at 4:30 in the morning. So, I have simplified it, and instead of using our new Le Creuset dutch oven, I used our new 6 quart crock pot, that is oval in shape, rather than a narrow cylinder pot. Le Creuset says this can be done in a few hours, crock pot says 8, I say 6 hours, first two on high, last 4 on low...you decide what is best for your schedule.

Ingredients:

8-10 baby new potatoes (yellow in color, not red)

3-5 slices of bacon, chopped (or chopped prosciutto is fine as well)

2-3 boneless chicken breast fillets

2 large carrots, sliced in medallions

1 bushel green onions, chopped

1 carton baby bella mushrooms (found near the salad bags in your grocery store)

1 small bag of frozen pearl onions, found in grocer's freezer department (or you could chop a medium white onion)

1 1/2 cup Burgundy wine (I couldn't find this so I used Mouton Cadet Bordeaux-it has to be red!)

1 cup chicken broth (Kitchen Classics is best)

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp sage

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp sea salt

*note: season to taste, you might want to add more spices as you cook

Directions: The cooking can be done many ways, I used 4 recipes to create this one, and it worked fine for me! In a skillet on medium-high heat, brown bacon with green onions. You want the onions to sweat, so if med-high heat is too much, and you find your onions are burning, not browning because of bacon, lower it immediately! Once bacon is well cooked and onions are translucent and soft, discard into a bowl lined with paper towel, however KEEPING the bacon grease in the pan-this is what you brown the chicken with. Season the breast filets with the spices, mix the spices in a bowl if you wish, and sprinkle/rub over both sides of the breast. Add in the breast filets to the still hot skillet, maybe a splash of olive oil if needed, however, you don't want to cook them thoroughly, just make them goldeny brown on outside, they are absorbing the bacon drippings and onion flavoring at this point-a few flips per minute might do the trick. You might want to bring the heat a tad up doing this, make the pan sizzle a bit to really make the chicken have a crust and look a beautiful golden color.

Turn your crock pot on, add in carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, pearl onions, add in the chicken, top everything with the bacon and green onion mixture, and add in the chicken broth, stir it all up. Set your crock pot to high for 2 hours. Stir occasionally to make sure all ingredients are coated with the broth, like once per 1/2 hour. After 2 hours, add in the wine, mix all ingredients again, and now you will put your crock pot on low for 4 hours, again stirring every 1/2 hour. Mixing the wine now and the bacon scented broth, this is when you are where you want to be, it smells divine! Do not worry if your mushrooms look black, by the way, they are not burnt, this is how they look when cooked and absorbed with wine.

About 2 hours before the last hour, taste the broth. Should be really savory. This is when, per your palette, you decide if needs more salt, pepper, a dash of this and that. If taste is a bit bitter, add in a table spoon of dijon mustard, and a splash more of the wine in the last hour-this is what I did, as I always have dijon on hand (psst, I suggest you do the same).

In the end you should have a really hearty stew type of dish. Chicken will be so tender you can shred it with forks, and maybe do this the last 1/2 hour to let the juices mingle with the chicken that has been soaking for about 5 1/2 hours, it will be totally tender and juicy!

Serve up in a bowl, if you wish to have more of a stew, and have some bread on the side to help soak up the juices-we had a whole grain sliced artisan loaf from our grocer's baker, which we will use for sandwiches this week. Baby ciabatta rolls work fine as well if you have them available in singles, or a pack for the whole family.

This is simple. Other recipes call to flambé the chicken in cognac before adding to crock pot: I will not temp this until I have a stainless steel kitchen! It is a beautiful dish, although a crock pot, and should be watched every 1/2 hour, it is simple. I would not leave this to cook and leave your house for 8 hours, like other crock pot recipes suggest, but is very manageable and is very cheap, in my opinion. You can research and find recipes if you're serving to 6 or more guests, but this for even 2 people, made enough for us both to have left dinner tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy this. Bon appetit!!