Tour de France '20 - Stage 15: Lyon to Grand Colombier.
Au revoir, Lyon, but not before I speak about two of your dishes! It was Sunday: time for a relaxing, low key meal for a low key day. It's more about who is at the table, talking about life, and forming a bond. Chicken is standard Sunday fare, but this Poulet au Vinaigre adds a "joie de vivre" (zest of life) to the standard bird. The red wine vinaigrette and fresh diced tomatoes and herbs really make this dish sing. I paired it with a Lyonnaise style onion soup, which has all the ingredients of your standard French onion soup, but is more like a pineapple upside-down cake since the bread and cheese are on the bottom and soak up everything, including a final touch of egg yolk and port!
Poulet au Vinegar (Chicken with Vinegar)
Don’t let the name scare you or throw you off. The vinegar simply heightens the flavor and does not overtake the dish. Most importantly, the photo of this dish was staged in a cast iron skillet for aesthetics. You should never use/cook vinegar in a cast iron pan. I prepared the chicken in a 12” stainless skillet/frying pan.
Chicken, cut into 8 pieces
4 tbsp butter
2/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 medium-sized tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
Parsley
Melt the butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Season your chicken with kosher salt and black pepper. Lightly brown on all sides, starting skin-side down, for about 8 minutes, until a deep golden color is achieved. Add the vinegar and wine and bring to a boil. Toss in the tomatoes, with a little salt. Cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Check the temperature of the chicken breasts after about 15 minutes and remove all pieces from the pan as they reach 165 degrees. Raise the heat to medium high, adding in 2 gloves of minced garlic, and simmer for a few minutes until the sauce tightens up. Dress the chicken with the sauce and minced fresh parsley.
Lyonnaise-style Onion Soup
adapted from Essential Pepin, Jacques Pepin
This is not the familiar, eye-pleasing, gooey-cheese-topped, long-laboring French Onion Soup. It comes out more like a puree and for what this lacks in looks it makes up, ten-fold, in flavor. This serves about 8 people. You’ll want to slice the baguette into several ¼ inch slices (as many as you’ll need to fill the individual bowls for people you are serving) and reserve the remaining loaf.
Baguette
3 tbsp butter
3 onions, sliced ¼-inch thick
8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
½ cup shredded Gruyere
2 egg yolks
¼ cup port
Preheat the oven to 400. Melt the butter over medium heat and saute the onions with some salt for about 20 minutes until dark brown. Meanwhile, bake the slices and reserved loaf for about 10 minutes. Once the onions are browned, add the stock and bring to a boil for 20 minutes. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup (or carefully transfer to a blender and return to the pot), cover and place in the oven and continue cooking for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, place a toasted baguette slice into the bottom of a bowl and top with a sprinkle of cheese. In another bowl lightly beat the egg yolks and stir in the port.
When the soup is done baking, stir in the egg yolk/port mixture and transfer to the prepped bowls, topping with more cheese. Serve along with the remaining baguette for dipping.
Copyright 2020, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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