Legendary chef, author, and television personality, Julia Child, has been posthumously introduced to new generations and reunited with her devoted fans through the July 30, 2009 release of the movie, Julie & Julia, starring Academy Award-winning actress, Meryl Streep. Since the movie’s release, Child’s best-selling 1961 book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has reemerged as a fixture in the Top 10 best-selling books in the United States.
A graduate of Smith College and Le Cordon Bleu, Julia Child’s professional focus was teaching French cooking to the American people through her book and long-running television series. In the Foreword to Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Child wrote: “This is a book for the servantless American cook who can be unconcerned on occasion with budgets, waistlines, time schedules, children’s meals, the parent-chauffeur-den-mother syndrome, or anything else which might interfere with the enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat.
One of Julia Child’s most favored and delectable recipes, found at pages 263-265 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, is Coq Au Vin (reproduced below). As legend has it, this French fricassee traces its roots to Julius Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul in 51 B.C. The popular dish consists of pan-seared chicken stewed in a sauce of red wine, cognac, chicken stock, tomato paste, mirepoix, and parboiled lardons, and then served with the sauce strained of all of its vegetables accompanied by sauteed button mushrooms, pearl onions and parsley potatoes. One of the first things likely to strike readers about this recipe is that it is rather involved, but as Julia Child explains in the Foreword to her book: “[T]he recipes are as detailed as we have felt they should be so the reader will know exactly what is involved and how to go about it.” Consistent with this design, Child’s recipes are sequentially compartmentalized by ingredients and their cooking instructions rather than the common cookbook practice of placing all ingredients upfront followed by a full recipe-this allows for step-by-step, simplicity in cooking.
Beneath is Julia Child’s Coq Au Vin recipe, endorsed and reproduced in full:
COQ AU VIN
[Chicken in Red Wine with Onions, Mushrooms, and Bacon]
This popular dish may be called coq au Chambertin, coq au riesling, or coq au whatever wine you use for its cooking. It is made with either white or red wine, but the red is more characteristic. In France, it is usually accompanied only by parsley potatoes; buttered green peas could be included if you wish a green vegetable. Serve with it a young, full-bodied red Burgundy, Beaujolais or Cotes du Rhone.
For 4 to 6 people
A 3- to 4-ounce chunk of lean bacon
Remove the rind and cut the bacon into lardons (rectangles ¼ inch across and 1 inch long). Simmer for 10 minutes in 2 quarts of water. Rinse in cold water. Dry.
A heavy, 10-inch, fireproof casserole or an electric skillet. 2 Tb butter
Saute the bacon slowly in hot butter until it is very lightly browned (temperature of 260 degrees for an electric skillet). Remove to a side dish.
Dry the chicken thoroughly. Brown it in the hot fat in the casserole (360 degrees for the electric skillet).
½ tsp salt. 1/8 tsp. pepper
Season the chicken. Return the bacon to the casserole with the chicken. Cover and cook slowly (300 degrees) for 10 minutes, turning the chicken once.
¼ cup cognac
Uncover, and pour in the cognac. Averting your face, ignite the cognac with a lighted match. Shake the casserole back and forth for several seconds until the flames subside.
3 cups young, full-bodied red wine such as Burgundy, Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, or Chianti. 1 to 2 cups brown chicken stock, brown stock, or canned beef bouillon. ½ Tb tomato paste. 2 cloves mashed garlic. ¼ tsp thyme. 1 bay leaf
Pour the wine into the casserole. Add just enough stock or bouillon to cover the chicken. Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, and herbs. Bring to simmer. Cover and simmer slowly for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the chicken is tender and its juices run a clear yellow when the meat is pricked with a fork. Remove the chicken to a side dish.
12 to 24 brown-braised onions, page 483. ½ lb. sauteed mushrooms, page 513
While the chicken is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms.
Salt and pepper
Simmer the chicken cooking liquid in the casserole for a minute or two, skimming off fat. Then raise heat and boil rapidly, reducing the liquid to about 2 ¼ cups. Correct seasoning. Remove from heat, and discard bay leaf.
3 Tb flour, 2 Tb softened butter, a saucer, a rubber spatula, a wire whip
Blend the butter and flour together into a smooth paste (beurre manie). Beat the paste into the hot liquid with a wire whip. Bring to simmer, stirring, and simmer for a minute or two. The sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon lightly.
Arrange the chicken in the casserole, place the mushrooms and onions around it, and baste with the sauce. (*) If the dish is not to be served immediately, film the top of the sauce with stock or dot with small pieces of butter. Set aside uncovered. It can now wait indefinitely.
Shortly before serving, bring to simmer, basting the chicken with the sauce. Cover and simmer slowly for 4 to 5 minutes, until the chicken is hot through.
Sprigs of fresh parsley
Serve from the casserole, or arrange on a hot platter. Decorate with sprigs of parsley.
Source(s):
Beck, Berthhole, Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking
