Tour de France '20 - Stage 20: Lure to La Planche des Belles Filles.
Another day in the Franche-Comté, home of the most delicious morel mushroom, which is celebrated in this region's take on Coq au Vin. Rather than the traditional Burgundy version of the dish which calls for red wine, this classic employs a nice vin jaune (similar to dry fino sherry) along with cream to round out this silky, rich (yet subtle) sauce. If you can’t find vin jaune, you can simply mix 2 parts of a chardonnay with 1 part dry sherry.
Speaking of substitutions, morels are pricey. Morels are infinitely even more pricey when you decide you’re absolutely going to cook a dish, using morels, a few days before you need them. If price is of no concern to you, I got them for about $70/lb (including shipping) from Northwest Wild Foods in 2 days time (shipping timing depending on what day-of-the-week you order them and price depending on supply/demand. As I type this, a few weeks after making the dish, the price is now [gulp] $180 before shipping!). I lucked out and ordered them on the last day that I could receive them in time for my Tour de France “deadline”. If you don’t want to shell out the big bucks for morels, you can swap in oyster mushrooms as they’re similar in taste, but they just don’t look as cool...and won’t be regional specific, but that’s ok as I’m the inquisitive weirdo that decided to only cook regionally correct items in conjunction with the Tour de France. You’re just here to read self-deprecating food posts and get some good recipes!
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Coq au Vin Jaune with Morels
Adapted from French Regional Food, Joël Robuchon & Loïc Bienassis
1 chicken cut into 8 pieces
¼ cup flour
1 stick of butter + 1 tbsp
1 ¾ cups vin jaune (or 1 ¼ cup chardonnay and ½ cup dry sherry)
4.25 cups cream
14 oz morel
1 cup wild rice
1 ¾ cups chicken broth
Thyme
Preheat the oven to 400; rack in lower third. Melt the stick of butter over medium-low heat in a dutch oven. Meanwhile, liberally season the chicken with kosher salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in flour, shaking off the excess and lightly brown all of the pieces. Cover and transfer the pot to the oven and cook for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, in another pot, combine the remaining tablespoon butter, wild rice, broth, a ¼ cup of water, and ¼ tsp salt over high heat. Once brought to a boil, cover the pot and cook over low to medium-low heat, maintaining a light simmer, for 50 mins. Let steam, covered and off-heat, for 10 minutes.
After the chicken has been in the oven for 20 minutes, place the pot back on the stove and remove the chicken to a dish. Turn the heat to medium-high and add the wine to deglaze any bits from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Once boiling, add the cream and morels (if using frozen morels, drop them straight in the pot without thawing - if using dried morels, drop them straight in as well, no need to reconstitute beforehand - if using fresh morels, consider yourself damn lucky!), stir to incorporate and bring to a boil. Then nestle the chicken into the sauce, skin-side up and lower the heat to maintain a simmer, uncovered, and cook until chicken reaches 165 degrees, about 30 minutes.
Set chicken aside in a casserole dish. If the sauce is still too loose (you’re going for a creamed-gravy texture) raise the heat to medium and continue to cook down until desired consistency is reached. Taste for any additional seasoning needs and add in some chopped fresh thyme. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve with the prepared wild rice.
Copyright 2020, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.