Never made this before, yet I felt coq-ey (see what I did there) enough to deviate from the "classic" recipes. It's basically Beef Bourguignon (which I made recently) only with chicken. If I did this wrong, it's A-OK by me, cause this came out mindblowingly fantastic. Plan on at least a couple hours on your feet doing prep.
- 4-5 lbs. chicken legs and boneless thighs*
- 1 lb. pearl onions
- 1 white onion
- 8-10 cloves smashed garlic
- 1 lb carrots, rough chop
- 1 lb. mushrooms, sliced laterally in quarters
- sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 liter good Burgundy wine
- Half a pound bacon
- Dale's Liquid Seasoning
- tomato paste
- salt and pepper
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch in water
*if ever there was a time to spend the $$ on free range organic chicken, this would be it. You're already spending a bunch, now is not the time to cheap out, and in this meal you will notice the difference.
The night before, prep and marinate the chicken: Salt and pepper the thighs and throw them in a gallon ziploc. Shuck the skin off the drumsticks and trim with scissors. Season them as well and toss in the bag with 2 bay leaves, a couple sprigs of thyme, 4 smashed garlic cloves, and pour in enough wine to cover half or 3/4. We gonna need most of the wine for the stock so go easy or get more wine :) I added about a cup of Dale's seasoning, shook the bag and put in the fridge, shaking every few hours.
Next morning, put the chicken out to warm up. Brown a pound of bacon bits. Reserve about 1/4 of the grease for the mushrooms. Fry the chicken in the rest of the oil in loose batches, about 4 minutes per side. Quarter an onion and put in bottom of crock pot on low, and dump the chicken in as you go. Set a timer for 5 hours. Add half the bacon bits to the crock pot and save the rest for something else. It is possible to over-bacon this, so just half.
Reduce the rest of the wine in a pan by a third and dump into crock pot.
To the crock pot add 2 bay leaves, a bundle of thyme tied with string, 4-5 cloves smashed garlic, 1-2 tablespoons tomato paste thinned with water. Hold off on seasoning because you won't need much. When this all finishes out, it really needs nothing more. We seasoned the marinade and there's plenty of salt in the bacon. I did add a little pepper, but go gentle.
Clean out the skillet and fry the mushrooms long and slow, about half an hour until you hear angels sing. Add to crockpot.
My crockpot is full, so I'm going to finish the onions and carrots on the side. Trim the tips off the pearl onions and make a little "X" on each tip, and toss in half a pan of boiling water for 1 minute. Drain and squeeze, the skins should pop right off. Back into the water for about 5 minutes until they float. Drain and set aside.
Peel and chop the carrots and boil about 15 minutes till tender. I tend to undercook vegetables and pasta, because I'm going to be freezing the finished meal in single servings and the reheating process will be sure they're all tender. Drain and set aside.
Cook 1 lb. pasta on the al dente side (you'll see why later), drain and lube with your lipid of choice. I used pappardelle and vegan butter. I go ahead and put about a fist sized pile of pasta into quart ziplocs, about 10 servings and set aside.
And wait.
THAT was a lot of work! Pour a glass of wine, clean up your mess, go take a shower and every so often, go take a lil taste of the crockpot broth. Ooooooh yeah.
At the three hour mark I was starving. I went in for an early sample. Hey, there's room to add the rest of the veg, I'll wait till the end to do that and add a tablespoon of cornstarch in water to thicken.
After about 4 hours I tuned off the heat. There's plenty of carryover heat in my ceramic pot and we were up to 165F by the first hour or two. It's done when it's falling apart and you won't need a knife. Some folks go 6 hours.
It's the 5 hour mark. Things have changed! It's totally fallapart, and so much more tender than two hours ago. The broth is dark and rich. Now just to let it finish cooling, and skim the fat from the top. There was quite a lot between the chicken itself and all that baconfat frying.
Bagging up, to the pre-dispensed bags of pasta, I divided 1-2 pieces of chicken per, with 3-4 carrots, 3 onions, 5 mushroom slices and about 1/2 cup of broth. The bacon and mushrooms tend to go to the bottom, so I distributed those evenly between serving bags, and did the same with the remaining broth. Get them into the freezer immediately so the pasta doesn't drink up the broth.
This came out to be about $5 per serving, which is WAY more than I like to spend, I aim for $1-2 meals. It's worth the expense and the work. Also, when we ponder value, consider the value of heating up your lunch meal at work and it's a five star dish like this. You will feel so good and satisfied that afternoon, and you'll be anticipating it all morning. Makes me a better worker. At least happier. Five bucks well spent.
I can't even describe how fantastic this tastes. Everything is perfect and balanced and my tummy is super happy and hair is standing up on the back of my neck. It's PERFECT. It was meant to be. Not saying this will happen to you, but my eyes actually welled up with tears of joy. It. is. that. good.
I get a Saturday afternoon food coma-nap now. Right now, life is really good. What a meal! Happy dreams.
Afterthoughts: We used skinless here, because I'm not a fan of braised chicken skin, but am a big fan of a nice outer browning. Skin-on just globs off, IMO. My thought was, next time reserve the skin and fry it into cracklins, and sprinkle as a garnish.
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