Red Fusion (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} redfusion) wrote,@ 2004-09-19 11:21:00 |
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Is My Blog Burning? 8: Lift Your Spirits High
This month's edition of IMBB is hosted by There's A Chef In My Kitchen, and the theme -- as you could guess from the title -- is Food With Alcohol.
Originally I had planned on making my version of coq au vin, but Scout is sick and isn't up to it, and I'm not going to make that just for the sake of a blog entry. So I'll talk about it below, but understand that I didn't actually make it this weekend.
What I did make, to make up for it, is a variation on the panna cotta I'd made a couple days ago:
Chocolate Cream Liqueur Panna Cotta.
This is boozy. I mean, really, this is like a pudding version of Jello shots (which I've never liked). After all, all it is is slightly diluted cream liqueur thickened with gelatin.
For two servings:
About one ounce dark chocolate, the good stuff.
1/2 cup heavy cream.
3/4 cup chocolate cream liqueur. You can use Godiva's, you can use Bushmill's or Bailey's, what have you. I used Just Desserts' Chocolate Chip Cookie.
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon cold water.
This is as simple as pie, if pie were pudding. I suspect you can -- and maybe should -- make this drunk.
Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let sit for a minute or two. It doesn't take long.
Meanwhile, heat the chocolate and cream together over medium heat until the chocolate has started to melt. Add the gelatin, and stir until everything is fully dissolved. Add the cream liqueur, turn off the heat, and stir well. Pour into serving bowls and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.
Don't plan on driving.
*
Coq Au Vin
(This is taken more or less from my cookbook.)
I'm not a fan of coq au vin -- chicken with wine -- as it's usually made, and it turns out neither is Jeffrey Steingarten, who spends one of his essays in It Must Have Been Something I Ate tracking down a more authentic coq au vin -- one that uses the "cock" of the name, not a younger chicken such as is usually substituted these days.
I like the idea of coq au vin, in that I like the flavors of chicken and wine together, but I don't like chicken stewed in wine. So this recipe is nothing like authentic.
But repeat after me, the second rule of cooking: authenticity is an ingredient. You can build a meal around it. You can use it to accentuate other ingredients. It can be a comfort or an exoticism, it can make or spoil a dish. But it's only necessary when you decide to make it so.
I use chicken thighs for this, but used to use leg quarters -- I just don't like the drumsticks as much as I used to. Breasts work if you really insist on white meat, but it's much easier for it to dry out and the meat is fairly bland.
For the wine? Honestly, I don't have any hard and fast rules for it. I don't drink non-sparkling wine very often, and when I do, I don't often drink red. The reds I cook with tend to be Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet; for whites, I usually use Pinot Grigio or Riesling. Any of those wines will do. Yes, you can use either red or white, honestly. You don't want anything too tannic, if it's red; and you don't want anything super-sweet like ice wine if it's white (but you wouldn't be wasting ice wine like this anyway).
Never use "cooking wine," of course, as I'm sure twenty other IMBB'ers are pointing out as well.
So what do we have other than chicken and wine?
Potatoes and onions. The starch of the potato thickens the "sauce" that results from the cooking; the onions contribute their sweetness and savory flavor.
So here we go:
Preheat the oven to 375.
Coat the skin of one to two chicken thighs per person, or whatever other chicken you're using, with the seasoning blend at the end of the recipe. Let sit for five minutes and sear the skin in a cast-iron pan just big enough to hold the chicken in a single layer. When the skin has begun to crisp, remove the chicken, turn off the heat, and make a single layer of potatoes and onions sliced to the same thickness. You don't need to separate the onion rings. Red potatoes seem to work best, but go with what you know of your local potatoes.
Put the chicken on top of the potatoes and onions, and pour the wine in until it just barely touched the underside of the chicken.
Bake at 375 until the skin is very very crispy, the potatoes are tender, and the wine has evaporated to leave a sauce behind of chicken juices, potato starch, and reduced wine. It usually takes 45 minutes to an hour. Check once or twice to see if a touch more wine is necessary.
The idea here is that the seasoned chicken juices drip down to flavor the onions and potatoes, while the wine flavors the chicken by steaming it from below, and a sauce forms "in the middle." When moving to a new area, it sometimes takes a bit of experimenting to get the right potatoes for it, but don't leave them out.
Coq au vin seasoning blend:
4 parts green peppercorns
2 parts mustard seeds, brown or yellow
1 part pink peppercorns, optional.
1 part dried thyme.
Toast ingredients briefly in dry pan over low heat, grind coarsely, and combine with coarse salt to taste.
This month's edition of IMBB is hosted by There's A Chef In My Kitchen, and the theme -- as you could guess from the title -- is Food With Alcohol.
Originally I had planned on making my version of coq au vin, but Scout is sick and isn't up to it, and I'm not going to make that just for the sake of a blog entry. So I'll talk about it below, but understand that I didn't actually make it this weekend.
What I did make, to make up for it, is a variation on the panna cotta I'd made a couple days ago:
Chocolate Cream Liqueur Panna Cotta.
This is boozy. I mean, really, this is like a pudding version of Jello shots (which I've never liked). After all, all it is is slightly diluted cream liqueur thickened with gelatin.
For two servings:
About one ounce dark chocolate, the good stuff.
1/2 cup heavy cream.
3/4 cup chocolate cream liqueur. You can use Godiva's, you can use Bushmill's or Bailey's, what have you. I used Just Desserts' Chocolate Chip Cookie.
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon cold water.
This is as simple as pie, if pie were pudding. I suspect you can -- and maybe should -- make this drunk.
Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let sit for a minute or two. It doesn't take long.
Meanwhile, heat the chocolate and cream together over medium heat until the chocolate has started to melt. Add the gelatin, and stir until everything is fully dissolved. Add the cream liqueur, turn off the heat, and stir well. Pour into serving bowls and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.
Don't plan on driving.
*
Coq Au Vin
(This is taken more or less from my cookbook.)
I'm not a fan of coq au vin -- chicken with wine -- as it's usually made, and it turns out neither is Jeffrey Steingarten, who spends one of his essays in It Must Have Been Something I Ate tracking down a more authentic coq au vin -- one that uses the "cock" of the name, not a younger chicken such as is usually substituted these days.
I like the idea of coq au vin, in that I like the flavors of chicken and wine together, but I don't like chicken stewed in wine. So this recipe is nothing like authentic.
But repeat after me, the second rule of cooking: authenticity is an ingredient. You can build a meal around it. You can use it to accentuate other ingredients. It can be a comfort or an exoticism, it can make or spoil a dish. But it's only necessary when you decide to make it so.
I use chicken thighs for this, but used to use leg quarters -- I just don't like the drumsticks as much as I used to. Breasts work if you really insist on white meat, but it's much easier for it to dry out and the meat is fairly bland.
For the wine? Honestly, I don't have any hard and fast rules for it. I don't drink non-sparkling wine very often, and when I do, I don't often drink red. The reds I cook with tend to be Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet; for whites, I usually use Pinot Grigio or Riesling. Any of those wines will do. Yes, you can use either red or white, honestly. You don't want anything too tannic, if it's red; and you don't want anything super-sweet like ice wine if it's white (but you wouldn't be wasting ice wine like this anyway).
Never use "cooking wine," of course, as I'm sure twenty other IMBB'ers are pointing out as well.
So what do we have other than chicken and wine?
Potatoes and onions. The starch of the potato thickens the "sauce" that results from the cooking; the onions contribute their sweetness and savory flavor.
So here we go:
Preheat the oven to 375.
Coat the skin of one to two chicken thighs per person, or whatever other chicken you're using, with the seasoning blend at the end of the recipe. Let sit for five minutes and sear the skin in a cast-iron pan just big enough to hold the chicken in a single layer. When the skin has begun to crisp, remove the chicken, turn off the heat, and make a single layer of potatoes and onions sliced to the same thickness. You don't need to separate the onion rings. Red potatoes seem to work best, but go with what you know of your local potatoes.
Put the chicken on top of the potatoes and onions, and pour the wine in until it just barely touched the underside of the chicken.
Bake at 375 until the skin is very very crispy, the potatoes are tender, and the wine has evaporated to leave a sauce behind of chicken juices, potato starch, and reduced wine. It usually takes 45 minutes to an hour. Check once or twice to see if a touch more wine is necessary.
The idea here is that the seasoned chicken juices drip down to flavor the onions and potatoes, while the wine flavors the chicken by steaming it from below, and a sauce forms "in the middle." When moving to a new area, it sometimes takes a bit of experimenting to get the right potatoes for it, but don't leave them out.
Coq au vin seasoning blend:
4 parts green peppercorns
2 parts mustard seeds, brown or yellow
1 part pink peppercorns, optional.
1 part dried thyme.
Toast ingredients briefly in dry pan over low heat, grind coarsely, and combine with coarse salt to taste.
