Coq au Vin
I followed a recipe from Cooks' Illustrated November & December 2006 issue. The recipe was developed to simplify the classic French bistro menu for home cooking while keep it rich and complex. And it worked! Serving the stew with simple mashed potato as the recipe suggested, J and I loved the dish very much.
One minor change was onion. The recipe used frozen pearl onion. Interestingly I had never bought pearl onions in my life either frozen or fresh. I grabbed one small box from the freezer at a store. When I was going to thaw them at home, I screamed. It was "in cream sauce." An unfortunate (but common for me) mistake. Therefore I used two small yellow onion instead. In fact J was happy because he was not a big fan of pearl onion. Good for him!
The recipe calls for one bottle of medium-bodied red wine. That was a reason I made the stew. There were four opened red wine bottles and each was about quarter full.
