Coq au Vin Made Gluten Free

I may have found a new favorite dish.  My cooking partner and I were looking at the photos from the Coq au Vin shoot and we both decided to make this dish again for dinner tonight.  We were going to do a roasted chicken, but somehow that didn't seem adequate after seeing these photos.  If you are looking for a creative new dish for a holiday meal that doesn't involve roasting a turkey but will still impress, this is the dish for you.  You can serve this Coq au Vin with any number of sides: rice, pasta, or bread, or as pictured with baked potato and braised greens.  Tonight I may make it with a bread stuffing.

Coq au Vin is a delicious traditional French recipe that is easy to make gluten free.  It's basically a chicken stew with a wine-based gravy.  In this recipe I have thickened the gravy with quite a bit of gluten-free flour to make a nice, glossy sauce.  I use my No.1 All-Purpose Flour, which is excellent for making any kind of gravy, in part because it doesn't have any xanthan gum in it.  In other versions the flour is omitted altogether, which is another way to make this dish gluten-free.

Recipe for Coq au Vin

First, you will need to sautee some lardons to render out the fat.  Lardons are strips of bacon or pancetta that are cut into pieces slightly larger than matchstick-sized.

Cut into strips:

two pieces of bacon or 3-4 pieces pancetta

In a large oven-proof pan or dutch oven, fry the lardons at a low heat to render out the fat.  Don't brown them too much.

While the bacon is cooking, cut into large pieces:

4-6 shallots
2 carrots

Take out the lardons and set aside.  Turn up the heat under the pan and fry 2-3 at a time in the hot bacon grease:

1 whole chicken cut in quarters, or 6 chicken thighs

Don't crowd the chicken.  Brown on both sides then remove. Once the chicken is browned, brown your shallots and carrots.

Now is a good time to heat your oven to: 350 degrees F.

Deglaze the pan with:

1/2 bottle red wine

While the wine is reducing, mix in a small bowl:

4 Tbsp gluten-free flour (use one without any xanthan gum or other thickeners)
6 Tbsp red wine

When the wine has reduced a while and the bottom of the pan has been scraped clean, reduce the heat on the pan.  Add the wine and flour mixture slowly and stir it in constantly until incorporated.  This will make a thick, glossy sauce.  Stir in:

1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Now is the time to adjust your sauce's thickness if desired.  The rule of thumb is, the thickness of the sauce will be the same now as it will be when it comes out of the oven.  You may think it will reduce some more, but the liquids coming out of your chicken and vegetables will counteract any  thickening from the oven.

Add all your chicken pieces skin-side down then add the bacon pieces and browned vegetables back in the pan and cover everything with the sauce.

Bake the dish in your oven at 350 for 25 minutes.  Turn the chicken pieces over and cook another 20-40 minutes, or until cooked through.  This recipe was originally created to braise a tough old rooster in the wine sauce to tenderize him, but if you have a store-bought young chicken then it won't be necessary to cook it longer than it takes to cook it through.

Serve with your favorite sides and enjoy!