Coq au Vin

***I promise this post will not be graphic, unless you consider looking at the chicken you buy at the grocery store graphic***

Saturday was the day we became true urban farmers. In keeping with our farming theme of the day we stopped by this liquor store to get our Pinot Noir. I don't know what the legalities are, but the only alcohol they sell in grocery stores here are 12-packs of beer--not quite what we needed for Coq au Vin. Also we stopped here, because I really wanted to take picture of the marquee. Hil-arious. And kind of scary.

Since we are not experienced in buying alcohol, Jeremy picked out a wine based solely on its label. See the monkeys? Did you catch the name of the wine? Say it out loud if you didn't catch it yet. . . yeah classy.

Surprisingly, none of our friends showed up to help us slaughter our rooster. We tried to do the whole thing without much fuss, tried to be as quick as possible, and tried to do it when the boys were distracted and not looking on.

Jeremy and I did OK with the whole process, but in the end my squeamishness demanded that we remove all the skin from the meat so I could be sure all the feathers were gone. We ended up with something that looked pretty similar to what you get in the grocery store. (Rainbow Bright was about the same age as broiler/fryers that they sell in the grocery store.) It just took 4 hours longer than a trip to the grocery store.

The skin was too hard to remove from the wings, so those went in a plastic bag in the freezer along with the carcass to make homemade chicken broth some other time.

We used Alton Brown's recipe for Coq au Vin. It is a two day process in itself, so we began Saturday evening.
Sunday dinner was, I would say, a success. (aka. no one started gagging upon taking the first bite of Rainbow Brite)

It's funny to me that we in America think of Coq au Vin as a fancy french dish that they serve in restaurants, but really it is peasant food. Peasants are the ones that couldn't afford to waste even the tough old meat on an old rooster. So they mixed it all up with a lot of strong flavors and then cooked it for a really long time to try and make it tender.

So, I wouldn't say the dish was my favorite. It seemed very heavy, but I may have liked it more in the winter time, when heavy dishes taste so cozy. Jeremy says he wants to make it again some time-but with storebought chicken, so I guess we'll see. That would be assuming that I'll ever eat chicken again! More on my thought about that subject in a few days.