Alex McKay’s Braised Chicken Thighs in Red Wine  - 11^th August 2012

As usual, I couldn’t help fiddling  with it.  Also I didn’t have enough time to do the marinade, but with a long slow cook it seems superfluous anyway.  Here is my  version.

Oven on to 150°C Fan

1 bottle red wine	4 chicken thighs
10ish black peppercorns	6 small shallots, whole, peeled
1 coffeespoon fennel seeds	8 cloves garlic, whole, peeled
1 coffeespoon coriander seeds	1/8” thick slice of parma ham, cut into thin strips
1 coffeespoon pink peppercorns	Olive oil
Strip dried orange peel	1oz butter
¼ coffeespoon cinnamon powder	1 dessertspoon flour
A few dried mushrooms	2 good pinches of sugar
A couple of chopped sundried tomatoes
2 bay leaves and/or some dried thyme

Boil all the ingredients in column 1 till reduced by 1/3^rd

In a frying pan, gently brown the chicken in oil with the skin side getting twice as much as the bottom for about 5 minutes.  Add the shallots, garlic, ham, butter and sugar and cook for another 5 minutes.  Remove chicken, shallots and garlic to a casserole in which they will comfortably fit.

Add the flour to the pan and cook slowly for 3 minutes, stirring and making sure that there are no lumps, then add the wine and spices etc.  Bring to the boil, pour over the chicken, then add enough water to bring the level to just over the top of the chicken.  If there is enough wine, still add ½ a wineglassful of water.  Put it into the oven, uncovered for 2 hours at least.  If you have more time, cook for longer at a lower temperature; 3 hours at 130°C Fan, 4 at 120°C Fan.

Remove the chicken, onions and garlic and strain the sauce (a solid cone strainer is best).  Serve.

The fennel, coriander, pink peppercorns, bay/thyme, parma ham are all mine and are optional, as is straining the sauce, which I wouldn’t do if using the ham.

If you do want to strain the sauce, alternatives would be

1.        to mash the cooked garlic into the strained liquid, and/or

2.       roughly chop the shallots or an onion at the wine boiling stage and separately slowly cook some small whole shallots and maybe button mushrooms in butter with the ham slices (as though making a coq au vin) and add them to the chicken and strained sauce at the end.

This is good.