This is officially the first post of The Pizzle’s second year!
Thank you guys for giving a shit and sending me those nice emails. I didn’t think anyone would actually email me. You see, I wait in front of the computer and mash on the refresh button for 24 hours a day. It’s not easy staying up that long, but methamphetamines are really strong, and with them, I can do anything. Just ask the cops.
Now that cold weather is quickly approaching, cool food bloggers like to talk about stews and soups. They often throw around the words “root vegetables” and “pumpkin-spiced diarrhea.” If you want to join our elite ranks, say things like that very often. People will clap you on the back and sing your praises all over the Internet.
Since I am easily peer pressured, I have decided to write about a classic French stew, called coq au vin. Translated from French, the name of this dish is “cock with wine.” That is how your mother prefers to enjoy her cock, as she’s demonstrated frequently in the past. She’s wonderful. Also she probably belongs in rehab.
Speaking of cocks, the name doesn’t refer to penises, as you might expect, but rather, roosters. Coq au vin is a wine-braised rooster, slowly cooked for hours. Cock meat is rubbery and tough, and this is how the French make it palatable. Even though roosters are not easy to eat, it is important to respect all animal carcasses and at least attempt to eat them, because they are dead and do not need their useless bodies any longer. Traditional coq au vin generally has a horrific purple color that looks like coagulated blood, as you see in the picture above, which is appealing to monsters like me.
“Dannis Ree,” I asked myself, “How can you take a dish which the French consider sacred, and turn it into an abhorrent American version, full of poor education, global ignorance, and cirrhosis?”
And this is how Coq au Night Train was born, out of the cavernous ass of my brain.
Coq au vin is stained red by braising the chicken in red wine. I do not have any red wine at home, because I am an uncivilized neanderthal. But I do have a magnificent bum wine known as “Night Train Express,” from this previous post about bum wine pairings. The bottle claims it is citrus-flavored, but that is a lie. It tastes like desecrated raisins. Did I say desecrated? I apologize. I meant defecated. Night Train Express is also highly alcoholic; it has 17.25% alcohol in it, and is extremely affordable for raging alcoholics with very little money.
Otherwise, Coq au Night Train is a pretty simple dish, containing chicken, bacon, onions, mushrooms, and chicken stock.
Start with your mise en place and chop up all your vegetables and aromatics. Since this is a French dish, I need to use a lot of French cooking terms today. As I have taught you before, “mise en place” means “to put in place.” It is where you prepare all your chopped ingredients before you cook them. I secretly call it “misery en place” because it is a pain in the dickhole.
Today’s mise en place includes bacon, carrots, and onions. Carrots are not necessarily part of the traditional recipe, but some people like to use them. I like to use carrots frequently. And by “use,” I mean, “cram up my ass.”
Those tiny onions are called pearl onions. I think of them as the “veal of onions,” because they are baby onions. They are extremely cute, but also terribly difficult to peel. I was planning on using at least double the amount in the picture, but I got so angry at peeling them I threw one at the wall.
Next, render down your bacon. You want a lot of fat to sear the chicken in later. As they say, “fat is flavor!” Saturated fat is also a significant factor in heart attacks.
While your bacon is cooking, salt and pepper your chicken. Again, I’m going against tradition here; coq au vin uses an entire chopped up chicken, but I chose chicken thighs. I like dark meat because it stands up to long cooking much better — chicken titties just dry out.
Sorry I called the breasts titties. I’m rude. Tits. Tits tits titties.
Take the bacon out and brown your chicken. Your mother browned my sausage last night.
Searing your chicken adds valuable flavor to the meat and the stew. I’m just saying this stuff to pretend like I know what I’m doing. I can’t believe you guys fall for it.
Once the chicken is done searing, you’ll have a pan full of brown shit (or as the French say, “merde”) at the bottom.
This is not actually shit. It’s the caramelized bits of meat and fat that adds a ton of flavor to soups and sauces. Even though it looks dirty, do not wipe it up with toilet paper. There’s even a French word for it, fond. Using the word “fond” in a conversation with a food blogger is like a secret handshake. They will know you are in their club when you say it all the time.
Put your aromatics in the pan and let them cook down.
All that fond at the bottom will start to come up as the vegetables start to push out moisture. You can scrape up those brown bits at the bottom once they get loose. My ass is loose from all those carrots I put up there.
The most important ingredient in this recipe is the Night Train Express.
Gently pour the alcoholic beverage into the pan with the vegetables. You can scrape up any remaining fond with it. Be careful, however. Since there’s so much alcohol in this stuff, you actually risk lighting the vapor on fire. Catching on fire does not feel very good.
Pour in a cup of chicken stock, and place the chicken back into your cheap old pan. Put the pan into the oven at 300°F with the lid on.
See that thyme on top? I stole it from my landlady’s garden, because I am a jerkoff.
Let the cock braise for two hours.
Technically, this isn’t cock, but probably hen, but whatever. Most chicken we eat are girl chickens because they are more tender. Women. We eat women.
Sear some mushrooms and put them in the sauce, while letting it reduce.
You’ll see some recipes call for additional flour and butter, but I don’t think that’s always necessary. If you let it cook down enough, it’ll eventually have the silky texture of semen, which is an ideal description for food.
Here is the finished Coq au Night Train Express!
Doesn’t look half-bad, does it? That’s because it’s not. It tastes delicious — the chicken is tender and moist due to the slow braising process, and the onions, carrots, and mushrooms add a punch to the balls of savory flavor. The reduced sauce, however, is extremely sweet, which some people might like, but that’s because hangover-inducing Night Train Express is chock full of sugar, probably to hide the fact that it is going to kill you. And thankfully, this chicken is not that disgusting purple color that French people enjoy. So consider this a win for us Americans versus the smelly French.
To apologize for actual decent food, here is a cool video I found on the Internet.
Coq au Night Train Express
- 1/2 cup carrots, sliced up like a snitch in prison
- 1 yellow onion, also sliced up like a snitch in prison
- 4 oz. bacon, chopped up into bits
- Fingernail clippings
- However many pearl onions you decide to peel before losing your shit
- 2 or 3 lbs. of chicken, whichever parts you like the best, I recommend chicken penis
- 1 375 ml bottle Night Train Express bought from a homeless person at twice the price on the sticker
- 1 cup cock stock
- Cow pee
- Salt and pepper
Basically just follow the directions up top. It doesn’t matter all that much. I know you guys don’t cook any of this. It’s all right. Everything is going to be all right. Someday we will all die and maybe the chickens will eat us, in a plot twist.
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