It’s National Red Wine Day! And what says Red Wine more than Coq a Vin?
Not much. So that’s what I have for you today.
Even though the DiS1972 recipe doesn’t call for Burgundy specifically, I did a little research and discovered that Coq a Vin is traditionally made with Burgundy. Hence, I made a point of buying an actual-honest-to-God Burgundy for this braise.
Yep, I hauled my cookies all around town (I went to multiple liquor stores) and ended up with these two–(one for drinking, one for cooking) both of which said BURGUNDY smack dab on the labels:
But c’mon, you know that what I was really looking for was this:
Ah, generic Paul Masson California wines!
As a child I thought those carafes were so damn FANCY. Look at the embossed glass!!! If they still made Paul Masson wines in the carafe–or Paul Masson wine at all (it was discontinued in 2018)–I’d be buying it all the time…and doing my best Orson Welles impression.
Now to start with DiS1972 Card No. 135!
I want to start off by mentioning the potatoes because I assembled them before I moved on to the rest of the meal. I went rogue and used sweet potatoes. I never think about twice-baking a sweet potato, but apparently on this particular day I did. And it was a solid choice.
For the potato filling I killed a half-used carton of ricotta and mixed it with salt and hot honey. The topping was a mix of parmesan and cinnamon. The whole sweet/salty/hot combo was a winner.
Now onto my notes (from January 8–!!!)
6:20 begin with chicken and vegetable prep. Using 1 shallot, 4 oz of pearl onions, 1/2 lb mushrooms, 2 cloves garlic, and 6 drumsticks.
6:42 chicken is browning. Shallot already cooked. Now peeling pearl onions.
Can I mention how much I love pearl onions? I mean, anything in miniature is awesome and I remember sitting with my college roommate in the faculty dining room (Schatz) eating peas with pearl onions. They were so good for some reason. What an odd, fond memory.
I also hate pearl onions because they are such a bitch to peel. Even with the boiling method, they’re still difficult to get out of their jackets. Slippery little bastards.
7:00 lid on and simmering.
Taking this moment to clean the kitchen.
I guess I will put the potatoes in the oven on low to heat up.
7:37 take the lid off. Going to cook off some wine. Put crescent rolls in oven.
7:50 dinner is served!
OK, those notes weren’t much of anything.
So I want to point out how different my Coq au Vin looks from the DiS1972 one. What sort of red wine did they use to achieve such a light color? A mystery.
This dinner was pretty good! It may not be as good as James Beard’s Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic, but it was really good.
Did the choice of wine make much of a difference in the finished dish? Probably not (well, except, perhaps for the burgundy hue); but I can go to sleep at night knowing that I aimed for authenticity with Card No. 135
Because we sure as hell know that Marjon Promotions, Inc. didn’t.
Here’s the Coffee Creme dessert–I assume that I made the dessert the night before because: gelatin.
(Ignore my haphazard chocolate shavings).
These were great. 100% would eat again. They were layered like a Jell-O 1-2-3.
And now, by obligation, I have to share Drunk Orson Welles, AGAIN, because goddamnit–NO WINE WILL BE SOLD BEFORE ITS TIME.
Poor Orson 😕. That’s what my parents lamented when these commercials aired. Was considered very sad at the time. However now, groundbreaking! All celebrities hawk something-somewhere.
Using drumsticks for this seems perfect + the coffee dessert looks fantastic. Am obsessed w mushrooms lately.
*those carafes •were• cool in the day— especially for serving orange juice!
Found what those takes were edited and re-recorded-in-post into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb1KndrrXsY Oh my, what a difference a day makes!
Your Coq au Vin looks fabulous — and the correct color. (I remember Jack from Three’s Company talking about his “cocovan” all the time.) I have a gallon jug of nondescript Burgundy in the pantry (either Gallo or Carlo Rossi — I’m too lazy to get up to check) that gets used for cooking. It’s good enough, as we don’t drink much wine anymore.
This commercial claims that Chablis was America’s most popular wine. Do you think that’s true? If so, what the hell happened to it?
From the 60’s-80’s, French wine was generally much higher regarded than US wine, so US wine manufacturers used names of French wine growing regions to market their wines, because those names were familiar. So Burgundy and Chablis are regions, not grape varietals. Chablis are a type of Chardonnay, but it came to just represent any white wine in the US. And as US wine production became much better in quality and consumers became much better educated about wine in general, the wine makers switched to using the names of grape varietals for wines, like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. For this reason, and also that in the past the name Chablis was associated with cheap table wines in the US, the name fell out of favor here, although Chardonnay wine from the Chablis region of France is still very much in production. It’s a more mineral, acidic and dry Chardonnay varietal. So was white wine the most popular in the US? I would guess that yes, it was and it may still be, although red wine has gained popularity here in the past 20 years or so.
Chablis was big in the 70s for sure, though it feels like white zinfandel took over in the 80s. I definitely remember those carafe trios — they and bottles of scotch tended to show up under Christmas trees.
Frozen pearl onions would have been just fine, there’s no way in Napa that I would have the patience to peel fresh. God bless you for doing so.
Your Coq au Vin looks authentic, I don’t know what the heck Marjon was doing. Look for frozen pearl onions next time, they’re out there and they’ll make your life much easier. Also, I used to love those Paul Masson commercials and wished I could hurry up and grow up so I could drink all the fancy alcohol that was featured on TV.