Dutch Oven Coq au Vin
Chicken thighs braised in red wine over coals. Slow, but the fire is doing the work.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 56
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 6
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 110 min
- total time
- 125 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Bacon | 6 oz | 4 oz for the braise, 2 oz crisped for the top |
|---|---|---|
| Bone-in chicken thighs | 6 | skin on, they hold up to a long braise |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Carrots | 4 | peeled, cut into 2-inch chunks |
| Onion | 1 | chopped |
| Garlic | 4 cloves | smashed |
| Brandy | 1/4 cup | |
| Chicken stock | 1/4 cup | or 1/4 cup water and half a bouillon cube |
| Pinot Noir | 1/2 bottle | |
| Thyme | a few sprigs | dried works, use 1 tsp |
| Cremini mushrooms | 1/2 lb | |
| Butter | 1 tbsp | |
| All-purpose flour | 2 tbsp |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady heat for close to two hours, so keep a second fire or a reserve of wood going.
- Set the dutch oven over the coals. Fry the bacon until crisp, 8 to 10 minutes, and pull it onto a plate.
- Season the thighs and lay them skin down in the bacon fat. Four to six minutes a side, until the skin is brown. Pull them out.
- Add carrots, onion, and garlic. Cook until the onion goes soft, then pour in the brandy and scrape the bottom of the pot.
- Return the chicken and bacon. Add the stock, the wine, and the thyme. Lid on, coals underneath and a shovelful on the lid.
- Braise about 90 minutes. Lift the lid every 20 minutes or so to check the coals and add a few if the simmer has died.
- Add the mushrooms for the last 20 minutes.
- Mash the butter and flour together into a paste. Stir it into the liquid off the heat and let it sit five minutes to thicken. Top with the reserved bacon.
This is a car-camping recipe and it stays one. The braise needs almost two hours of steady low heat and a heavy lidded pot, which is exactly what a dutch oven over coals does well and exactly what a canister stove does badly. Raw chicken also means a cooler, so there is no backpacking version of this worth writing.
The wine is not decoration. It is most of the liquid, and it and the bacon fat are what turn a plain braise into something with depth. The butter-and-flour paste at the end is the only real technique here: stirred in off the heat, it thickens the pot without lumping, which matters more when you are eating out of a bowl next to a fire than at a table.
Packing
Chicken and bacon go in the cooler, frozen if you can manage it, so day two is still safe. Carrots, onion, garlic, and mushrooms travel in a mesh bag out of the cooler. Decant the wine and brandy into bottles you do not mind losing. Pre-mix nothing else; the flour and butter get combined in camp.
Variations
- No brandy in the box: skip it and deglaze with a splash of the wine instead.
- Boxed wine holds better in a car than a corked bottle and nobody at the fire will notice.
- Serve over instant polenta or couscous, either of which cooks in the same pot after you tip the stew into bowls.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/coq-au-vin