Coq au Blue Nun

I bought this bottle of Blue Nun as part of a prank for a few wine-loving friends who were around long enough to remember the brand being the de facto standard bearer of German wines in the late 70s and early 80s – no, I still wasn’t legally allowed to drink then but I did remember having a sip or two when I was a kid. We ended up not opening that bottle to drink that evening – rightfully so – and it’s been sitting around at home since. Guess the joke was on me. 

Not wanting to drink that off on its own but not wanting to waste the bottle either, I decided to use that as a cooking wine. And to stay with the “theme” of frugal ingredients, I used mostly items that I could find in local wet market and turned that into something inspired of French-style cooking. I did post something similar a few years back but this is a modified version of the Coq au Vin Blanc, the white wine chicken stew.

Using a cheap supermarket quality wine which is much racier in sweetness and acidity – that’s what Blue Nun was known for – I balanced that with a splash of double cream at the end, both as a thickening and balancing agent. Local chicken was used, and it’s of the common Longgang Chicken breed known for its higher fat ratio and rich meat flavor. Legs, thighs and wings were carved and cooked in the stew bone-in, and the breast meat was minced and turned into meatballs. No French porcini mushrooms but instead it’s the Korean oyster mushrooms readily available in almost every local supermarkets. The stew worked fine as a simple dinner with pasta, rice or just a bowl of steamed potatoes or loaf of bread.

Coq au Blue Nun

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

• One whole chicken
• A bottle of white wines (Blue Nun Riesling for me)
• 100g smoked back bacon – thinly sliced and cut into small chunks
• 200g mixed mushrooms – regular button mushrooms work, and I chose the Korean oyster mushrooms. Gently cleaned with dirt removed, halved or cut into thick slices.
• ½ cup of yellow onions, sliced
• ½ cup of leeks, cut into thick strips. I like more white than yellow parts. 
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons of flour 
• 2 tablespoons of panko flakes (breadcrumbs)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup of double cream
• Handful of parsley, as garnish
• Salt and Pepper, of course

Steps:

1. First, the chicken. Rinse, carved the thighs, legs and wings along the joints into 6 pieces and set aside. The whole breast meat was cut into chunks. (For the rest of the carcass, I turned it into chicken broth which I saved for some other use)

2. Mix the chicken breast meat with 1 tablespoon of flour, 2 tablespoons of panko flakes, 2 cracked eggs and pinch of salt. Put the mix into a grinder and mince until smooth. Form into golf ball-sized meatballs and pan-fry with oil until the cooked through and the surface slightly charred. Set aside or leave in the refrigerator for the time being

3. In a cast-iron deep Dutch Oven pot and in medium heat, cook the back bacon (with or without extra oil – depending on how fat your bacon was). Add the onions, leeks and mushrooms and cook until all were softened. Remove all ingredients from the pot and set aside, leave the oil in. 

4. Turn up the heat slightly, put the chicken parts in and brown them on all sides. Put the rest of the ingredients (bacon, onions, leeks and mushrooms) back into the pot, pour in the bottle of wine and add in the bay leaves.

5. Bring the liquid to a light simmer and turn down the heat to the lowest possible setting (best to put a diffuser underneath if you are using a conventional stove to avoid food getting burned) Cover with a lid and cook for 2-3 hours. Check occasionally to make sure nothing got stuck at the bottom of the pot and there’s enough stew liquid to cover the ingredients. 

6. Remove the bay leaves, transfer the chicken parts, bacon and mushrooms into a dish and cover. For the remaining stewing liquid, skim the fat on top, reduce by turning up the heat to medium-high and cook for 15-20 minutes. 

7. Heat butter in a small sauce pan and once the butter was melted and began bubbling, add in the 2 tablespoon of flour and quickly mix. With pan still on the stove, watch until the mixture turned slightly brown and thickened into a roux. Remove the pan from heat. 

8. Add the roux and the double cream into the casserole pot – that will thicken the liquid into gravy consistency. Put that chicken parts, bacon, mushrooms and the chicken meatballs (which we cooked earlier) into the casserole and cook for another 10 minutes. Thicken with butter or flour if necessary, and season with salt and pepper. Finish with chopped parsley on top as garnishes. 

9. Serve with whatever you like. That’s a good hearty dinner for up to 6, or save some for the next day – didn’t people say stew always taste better the next day?