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The chef patron had learned to make this dish in France, he understood its roots. At least several of the guides thought so. I once worked in a restaurant that, at the time, was considered to be the best in the land. There are few things quite so enjoyable as a model dish cooked with sincerity and respect. Yes, let's be inventive, letting a recipe breathe to suit our ingredients and our current fancies, but let us also respect time-honoured recipes. Even then, you might find that some upstart chef has added his own signature. To mess around with it would be to misunderstand it, to somehow downgrade it.Īpart from the odd time-warp brasserie, you will be hard-pushed to find coq au vin in Paris, let alone in Dijon. Where I am the first to say we should cook to suit ourselves, our intuitions and appetites, I also believe that a classic recipe should be just that, a classic. You know, make a patently French recipe with Australian wine or swap a herb or a vegetable to suit what you have available. There is a branch of cookery that says you can mess around with a classic recipe and it won't matter. In other words, a sound recipe that makes all the right noises. The sort whose juices you mop up with bread and a plain, garlic-scented salad. The sort of good-natured food that will fit in with us rather than us having to plan our day around it the sort to eat off plain white plates on a paper tablecloth. Yes, it is a fancy name for a chicken stew, but made with a gamey, strong-boned bird, some aromatic bacon, juicy little mushrooms and a bottle of half-decent wine it is as good a weekend lunch as you can get. This does not mean that our cooking should stand still, it is simply that it annoys me when a good dish is tossed aside in favour of the here-today-gone-tomorrow recipes that come at us like confetti in a gale.

It's absurd, of course, that a dish that has stood the test of time and lined a million happy bellies, is sidelined in favour of something whose charms will rub off within a month or two, but it happens to the best of them. Serve with crusty bread.Sadly, sometimes recipes fall out of favour, buried under an avalanche of new and passing fancies. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and the reserved bacon.Add the onions and mushrooms to the coq au vin. Continue to cook until all the vegetables have softened, 5-8 minutes.

Uncover, add the quartered mushrooms, and increase the heat to medium-high.

Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 15 minutes, shaking the skillet often to move the onions around. Add the pearl onions and a pinch of salt and sugar.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil and butter in a large, preferably nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.

Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 1 hour, until the chicken is tender and the sauce has thickened.

Return the chicken and half the cooked bacon to the pot.

Stir to incorporate, then bring to a boil and cook until the liquid is reduced by half, about 15 minutes.

Add the reserved marinade, including the bouquet garni.

Pour the brandy into the pot and cook, scraping up any browned bits at the bottom of the pot, until the liquid has evaporated, 2 minutes.

Then, sprinkle in the flour and cook for another minute, until incorporated.

Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 3 minutes, until darkened and fragrant.

Cook until the vegetables are softened and lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Add the carrots, onion, sliced mushrooms, and garlic to the pot.