Crock Pot Coq Au Vin

Submitted by Outta Here

"A variation on the classic French dish."

 

• Ready In: 30hrs
• Ingredients: 13
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 4 -5 lbs chicken (or just thighs)
• 1 1⁄2 liters red wine (Burgundy is best)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 garlic cloves
• 8 ounces bacon
• olive oil or butter
• 10 frozen pearl onions
• 8 ounces button mushrooms
• 2 carrots
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• salt and pepper

directions

1. Peel and slice garlic cloves. Cut chicken into pieces, or use thighs. Put in large bowl with bay leaves, thyme, and garlic. Pour enough wine over chicken to cover. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in refrigerator overnight.
2. Dice bacon. Fry until crisp. Remove to paper towel. Saute mushrooms in bacon drippings, adding oil or butter if needed, until they begin to brown.
3. Remove chicken from marinade, reserving marinade. Pat chicken dry with paper towel. Brown chicken pieces in oil or butter, on all sides.
4. Peel and slice carrots into 1/2 inch pieces. Put onions and carrots in bottom of crock pot. Add chicken, mushrooms and bacon . Stir tomato paste into 2 cups of wine marinade (with garlic pieces and bay leaves) and pour over all. Discard remaining marinade. Cover and cook on low setting 6 hours.
5. Remove chicken to platter and keep warm. Stir cornstarch into 1/4 cup water and add to sauce. Turn to high and cook until thickened. (You may want to use more cornstarch, depending on how thick you want gravy.) Stir in salt and pepper to taste. Return chicken to pot and serve with mashed potatoes or rice.

Reviews

[DianaEatingRichly]

I made this in my Instant Pot and it was AMAZING! I browned the chicken in the bacon fat after the mushrooms, and used 15 baby carrots cut into 1/2 inch chunks. Rather than slow cooking, I cooked it on the poultry setting for 35 minutes. Once it was done, I did a quick release of the steam. I pulled the chicken out and doubled the cornstarch, then boiled it on the sautee setting until it was thick. Really wonderful flavorful dinner once I doctored it up with enough salt and some chopped parsley.

 

[altitudemama]

Good, not great. There's no depth of flavor. I followed the recipe as instructed, and attempted to add more layers, using the bacon fat to sauté the mushrooms and the chicken, adding more salt, pepper and spices. But the flavors seemed muddled to me. Also, I used skinless, bone-in chicken thighs (yes, leaving the chicken skin on would have added more flavor, but I didn't want the extra fat) and, after leaving in the crockpot for the required time, all the meat fell off the bones (which is a good thing) leaving all the bones floating around in the mixture (which is not a good thing). I think next time I would sautéd garlic and chopped onions in the bacon fat (and maybe some celery), add more thyme, some chicken stock, and even some cognac or brandy. It's a lot of prep for a crockpot recipe too, which would have been OK had the outcome been more flavorful, but it wasn't my favorite.

 

[LaineyGirl24]

The base flavors of this recipe are good but it just didn't work in the crockpot. The sauce never thickened up even after adding 3 times the corn starch and waiting another hour. I ended up pouring the sauce into a pan and boiling it for 10 mins on there. Of course I now had too much corn starch so it got super thick. Next time I will just make this on the stove.

 

[Peachie Keene]

This was a superb dish! I used bonless/skinless chicken. If you go that route don't over work yourself by cutting the chicken into pieces - talk about a pain in the neck! The chicken falls apart beautifully on its own :) DH can't stand onions, but these pearl onions won his heart, they are definitely the star of the show. Instead of measuring the Burgandy wine, I just poured it over the chicken. Big mistake! I ended up not having enough marinade. Ooops! Don't do this at home kids ;) We served this over brown rice and topped it with some hot sauce (cause we simply can't get enough. Ha!). Will definitely be making this again!

 

[bluemoon downunder]

I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved. Apart from omitting the tomato paste (personal taste preference) and using some of MarraMamba's The Simplest Tomato Sauce Ever (Marcella Hazan) 273976 in its place, and doubling the garlic, I made this exactly to the recipe. Simple to make and a great end result. Loved the wine in this recipe. An enthusiastic response from those who ate it. Made for New Zaar Stars Tag. Thanks for sharing this recipe, mikekey!