Clafoutti and Coq Au Vin

My favorite (cooked) meal in the world is Coq Au Vin (a French chicken dish) served with white rice, dessert and a good bottle of wine. It's not necessarily the most healthy meal but making it makes me feel so alive and happy. I used to cook it as an act of service to my family. And it still is. The preparation is extremely time consuming. Lots of cutting with your hands, can't sub with a food processor. But this time was special because I decided to try a new cooking method. Would this effect the outcome of my act of service? Oh dear. Here we go.

On this day, in 2011, there is no reason to spend 24 hours cooking a stew. With the invention of the slow cooker it's a no-brainer. SO, I made coq au vin in my slow cooker and guess what?! It was just as good as when I slave over the hot stove for hours on end. Act of service-check. This is the trusty slow cooker I recommend:


The recipe I used can be found on Whole Foods website
Taste the wine (red or white) before you use it. Make sure that the flavor works for you. I tasted from 3 bottles before I found the right one. :)

You may hear that original recipes call for a rooster. This is so old school and would only offend a French person if you were to use a rooster. Chicken is the acceptable and preferred replacement. There are some pretty funny stories behind the rooster though. Some say it was a way for neighbors to get rid of annoying roosters in a "astuce" way because, of course, you would invite your neighbor over for dinner and forget about the whole thing. Ha!

For dessert I attempted an old French recipe, clafouti. It worked brilliantly, even with the extra large mound of berries I added to each ramekin. They came out bubbly and puffy just like a souffle. Such a good feeling when you pull out a pan of puffy desserts. Who'da thought?