French Culture

Coq au Vin

This is one of my favorite dishes to make, so I had to bust it out for French culture. Don’t fuck around and try to make this with white wine. Actually, don’t even bring white wine to French culture. 

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken breasts and thighs

Flour

Cab Sauv or Shiraz (mmm Bota Box)

Tons of Garlic

More Garlic

Bacon 

Butter

Onion

Brown Sugar

Salt and Pepper

Cook the bacon in a larger skillet until crispy. Set it aside, pour out maybe half of the fat.

Mix up some flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Rinse off the chicken and then cover it in the flour mix. Cook the chicken in the bacon fat for 10 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. After the chicken has been cooking for 10 minutes, toss the diced onion in there. Now comes the fun part: pour in a bunch of wine so the chicken is about a quarter or half submerged, then add the garlic, bacon, brown sugar (not too much), salt and pepper. Simmer until the sauce has reduced down to a nice consistency, and be sure to smell and taste it a bunch of times, adding more sugar, salt, or pepper depending on what your tongue tells you. Once its just right, have everyone around have a little taste of the sauce on its own before you serve it up.

Broccoli in white wine lemon garlic cream

Sorry Dan but there is one exception to no white wine at french culture.  

Lots of Broccoli

Dry White Wine 

Heavy cream

Onions

Garlic

The juice of lemons

White peppercorns (or just pepper)

Salt

Butter 

Steam broccoli to perfection.  Fry up onions in butter and once they are soft add garlic.  Add about a half cup of wine and bring to boil.  Add another cup of wine and cook for about 10 minutes. Reduce heat a bit and add about a cup of cream and cook down for another ten or so.  Add lemon juice and pepper. Pour over steamed broc before serving.  

Bacon wrapped dates stuffed with blue cheese

You will literally die when you eat these. Literally. I haven’t met a single person who has had these and hasn’t died.

Ingredients:

a bunch of dates

half as many bacon slices as dates

enough blue cheese to stuff the number of dates

Preheat the oven to 375.

Cook the bacon for a couple minutes to cook off most of the excess fat , remove the bacon from the pan and set the bacon aside.

Slice each date down the middle and stuff with a little blue cheese. Wrap each date with a half bacon slice and secure each one with a toothpick. 

Put the dates in an oven pan and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the bacon is browned (It’s best to check periodically).

Prepare to die.