March 08, 2021

Coq Au Vin


Recipe by Chef Nick Kubitz
Pairing
Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 4-6 Chicken Thighs
  • 2 Cups Red Wine
  • 4 Cups Chicken Stock
  • 4 Strips Bacon (1/2 Inch Sliced)
  • 1 Small Yellow Onion (Julienned)
  • 2 Stalks Celery (1/4 Inch Sliced)
  • 4 Carrots )Peeled & Biased Sliced)
  • 3 Cloves Garlic (Minced)
  • 2 Cups Cremini Mushrooms (Cleaned, Halved or Quartered If Large)
  • 12 Cipollini Onions (Peeled)
  • 3 Tsp Fresh Thyme (Picked & Chopped)
  • 2 Tbsp Chives (Fine Chopped For Garnish)
  • 2 Tbsp Tomato Paste
  • 3 Tbsp Unsalted Butter (Room Temperature)
  • 3 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
  • 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 2 Bay Leaves
  • 1 1/2 Tsp Fresh Cracked Black Pepper
  • Kosher Salt To Taste

Instructions

  • This recipe takes 2.5 hours, plus over-night marinating.

  • Season both sides of chicken thighs with a little kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, and let them sit in the refrigerator uncovered for 1 hour.

  • Whisk together red wine, chicken stock and bay leaves. Add seasoned chicken thighs to wine mixture and let chicken marinate over-night.

  • Remove chicken from marinade and pat dry. Set chicken marinade aside for future use.

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

  • In a large Dutch oven, on high-heat, add the sliced bacon. Cook the bacon until crispy and then remove from the pan. Lower heat to medium and add chicken to the hot bacon grease, skin side down. Let the chicken sear until browned and crispy, about 8-12 minutes. Flip the chicken and sear the other side for another 5-8 minutes, and then remove the chicken and set aside. Turn the heat up to high and add julienned onion, half the carrots, the celery, 1 Tsp fresh thyme, fresh cracked black pepper, and a large pinch of kosher salt to the pan. Sauté ingredients until vegetables are softened and browned, about 15 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and sauté for another few minutes, then stir chicken marinade into sautéed vegetable mixture and bring to a boil. Next add the chicken, skin side up, back into the pan and cover with a tight fitting lid. Put Dutch oven into the preheated oven and braise the chicken until tender, about 1-1.5 hours.

  • When the chicken is tender, remove from the pan and set aside. Strain the liquid and set aside. Discard whatever is left over.

  • Mix together the flour and softened butter by pinching it together with your fingers to form small pearls, to make beurre manie. Set aside.

  • Place Dutch oven back on the stove and turn to high heat. Add the olive oil to the pan, and when oil is hot, add the cipollini onions, mushrooms, the rest of the carrots, 2 Tsp thyme, fresh cracked black pepper and a large pinch of kosher salt. Sauté the ingredients until tender and browned. Add the chicken cooking liquid back into the pan, and bring to a boil. Whisk in beurre manie a little at a time until cooking liquid thickens. Stir in cooked bacon and add the braised chicken back to the thickened cooking liquid. Let simmer for a few minutes for flavors to meld. Add kosher salt if needed to adjust seasoning. Serve Coq Au Vin with some pommes puree and garnish with chopped chives. Enjoy with LangeTwins Jahant Woods 02 Teroldego!

Chef Nick Kubitz

Our partnerships with talented chefs always start with the wines. When planning for any event, we consider the wine first before we move on to the challenge of asking our team to develop a meal that reflects a unique synergy. We are grateful to have a homegrown guy as one of our ‘aces’ in the kitchen. He is definitely a man who demonstrates a unique sense of tasting, pairing, and creating food recognizing the efforts made in the vineyard to produce our fabulous varietals.

At first glance, Chef Nick Kubitz looks like he should be a bouncer at your favorite club - big, burly, gritty but with a quiet confidence that owns the room. And actually he has clawed his way to the top with those jobs while earning his culinary management and hospitality degree at the Art Institute of California, San Diego. The past decade has found him trying his hand at a BBQ restaurant, managing a food truck, and working alongside Michelin starred chefs in San Francisco.

Kubitz has developed a passion for the best and freshest ingredients that San Joaquin County has to offer, and his past experience of overseeing a large kitchen in a San Francisco tech company allowed him to harness and integrate the tastes of ingredients from around the world to satisfy the many cultures of that particular employee base.

And he is not one to shy aware from pressure – Kubitz has twice joined us at the world-renowned Aspen Food and Wine show creating a series of private food experiences to tease guests away from the main tent headliner chefs. His knowledge of Lodi wines, the appellation, and terroir all layer into the choices he makes in the kitchen to offer what we would consider a ‘perfect pairing’.

We sit up nights trying to figure out how to shackle Kubitz to our kitchen – we block his calendar every chance we get, but support his dream of owning a unique fine dining company called Range – a place that will showcase the range of his talents and experiences.

You’ll find unique crafted recipes from Kubitz within this blog, give them a try and send us your thoughts and of course, a photo of the final product!

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