I just tried this recipe this weekend. It was good. Not great, especially for the amount of effort and sheer number of dishes dirtied in the making. But quite good. And it made the house smell delicious the entire time it was cooking. We made chicken nuggets for the two year old because we figured the strong flavors in this dish would not suit him. After finishing his nuggets, he asked for some of our chicken. And, in spite of normally having issues with meat that has texture, he kept asking for more until we both finished what was on our plate.
I did have to cut some corners using a pressure cooker because I neglected to read the recipe far enough in advance to allow for all of the cooking time. But it still worked out nicely. The stock was the most amazing smell I have ever smelled coming out of my kitchen. Part of my disillusionment may be from the amount of time spent in the kitchen crammed into about half the time that the instructions called for and the stress of having to adjust the recipe and cooking technique on the fly (prior to this weekend my husband has been the one in charge of operating the pressure cooker so not only was I changing the recipe slightly as I went I was also learning a new cooking technique). And halfway through cooking today I suddenly felt nauseous for some reason (the coq au vin still smelled good even then though) and was concerned that I would not be able to eat it once I finally got done cooking it. This dish was good enough that after the first few tentative bites, the nausea went away and I was able to actually enjoy the dish.
All in all, I would certainly try this again. But it may be one of those once, maybe twice, a year things because it does eat up a lot of time. In the book excerpt linked at the top of the post the author mentions using a crock pot with spectacular enough results to change his thoughts on crock pots completely. Maybe next time I'll tinker with doing this in the crock pot to cut down on the time I have to spend in the kitchen.
I did have to cut some corners using a pressure cooker because I neglected to read the recipe far enough in advance to allow for all of the cooking time. But it still worked out nicely. The stock was the most amazing smell I have ever smelled coming out of my kitchen. Part of my disillusionment may be from the amount of time spent in the kitchen crammed into about half the time that the instructions called for and the stress of having to adjust the recipe and cooking technique on the fly (prior to this weekend my husband has been the one in charge of operating the pressure cooker so not only was I changing the recipe slightly as I went I was also learning a new cooking technique). And halfway through cooking today I suddenly felt nauseous for some reason (the coq au vin still smelled good even then though) and was concerned that I would not be able to eat it once I finally got done cooking it. This dish was good enough that after the first few tentative bites, the nausea went away and I was able to actually enjoy the dish.
All in all, I would certainly try this again. But it may be one of those once, maybe twice, a year things because it does eat up a lot of time. In the book excerpt linked at the top of the post the author mentions using a crock pot with spectacular enough results to change his thoughts on crock pots completely. Maybe next time I'll tinker with doing this in the crock pot to cut down on the time I have to spend in the kitchen.
