coq au vin, kinda

aka tender chicken and mushrooms in a delicious sauce

Coq au vin! We’re getting fancy — What To Cook style — this week.

Coq au vin is a classic French dish in which chicken and mushrooms are braised in red wine (traditionally Burgundy). It was made popular in America by Julia Child’s Mastering The Art of French Cooking.

I actually frequently use MTAOFC as an example of what What To Cook is *not.* Julia Child was heralded for making cooking more approachable for home cooks — but approachable recipes looked a lot different in the 1960s than they do today. Have you ever read one of the recipes in that cookbook? DANG, they are lengthy! Each dish requires a million pots and pans. And her coq au vin recipe was a 3+ hour endeavor!

So here’s how I took the fundamentals of coq au vin and turned it into an actually approachable weeknight recipe for busy people who like to eat good food but don’t have 4 spare hours to spend on dinner:

1. We’re using boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or thighs), and we’re cubing them up. The chicken gets so incredibly tender this way, and it cooks so much faster than the traditional bone-in chicken used in coq au vin. It’s also just easier to serve and eat, and much easier to cut up for kids, if that’s something you have to do.

2. We’re using white wine. It makes the dish much lighter and fresher for a casual meal. If you don’t drink the rest of the bottle while you’re cooking, freeze it in 1/2-cup portions for the next time you need wine for risotto, farro-to, my one-pot crispy chicken and orzo, or to make this again!

3. We’re tripling the typical amount of mushrooms because we love vegetables!!! Yes, there are mushroom subs for you haters in the subs section after the recipe. But like, are you sure?! They’re so good!

4. We’re adding spinach because we try to eat greens at every meal, right guys? They make our bodies and our brains feel so good! We’re adding enough spinach that it’s like we had a side salad, but all we had to do was stir it into the dish we were already cooking! This is a great health hack. Spinach can be stirred into so many stews and sauces and one-pot meals flawlessly.

Some people (snobby people) would argue that this recipe “isn’t coq au vin” but ya know what? It’s chicken cooked in wine. It’s coq au vin. Kinda.

Let’s discuss mushroom cleaning.

Many people have been fed the fake news that mushrooms cannot be washed using water, and have to be individually rubbed clean with a cloth. DON’T FALL FOR THIS! I don’t know who started this dirty (har har) little rumor, but it is not true — mushrooms do not absorb water like sponges.

So throw them in a colander, rinse them off under running water, and proceed!

PS - Yes, you still have to wash mushrooms even if you buy them pre-sliced. (Not saying I always do, though!)

coq au vin, kinda

Serves 4

Cook time: 45 minutes (15 minutes active, 30 minutes inactive)

Tools:

• Chef’s knife

• Cutting board

• Large heavy bottomed cooking vessel such as a 12-inch cast iron skillet, a Dutch oven, or my favorite, a braiser

• Grill (if grilling your bread) or sheet pan (if broiling it)