Sous Vide Coq-Au-Vin with Potato Puree

Few years ago, when I first had my Sous Vide machine, I made this Coq-Au-Vin dish using a recipe I found on the web. It was a nice recipe but I felt the sous vide time of 8 hours was too long. Two Sundays ago, I bought some Chicken Maryland for our weekend dinner but I did not have that much time so I decided to experiment with a 4-hour sous vide window. It was a huge success.

I panfried the Maryland skin down to crisp the skin (like a duck leg confit) before cooking them again (skin up) in their own juice from the sous vide process with garlic, mushroom and cherry tomatoes. This makes the meat tender, juicy and it gets nice and crisp for the kids (and me!!) who like the skin.

Try this for your next weekend dinner!

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For Sous Video

• 4 Chicken Maryland (Drumstick and Thigh)
• 2 clove of garlic, crushed
• 2 bay leaf
• Leaves from 2 sprig of rosemary, chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and Pepper

To finish the dish

• 500g Mushroom of your choice, halved or quartered depending on size
• 250g Cherry Tomatoes
• 4-6 cloves garlic, peeled
• Chicken juice from sous vide process
• 50ml red wine
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp mixed dried herbs
• 1.5 tsp sugar
• Olive Oil
• Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Method

Preheat Sous Vide Supreme to 82°C.

Use a clean vacuum pack bag and make sure you wear clean disposable gloves.

Wash the chicken legs and pat them dry with kitchen paper. In a mixing bowl, rub salt and fresh cracked black pepper into the chicken legs. Add garlic, chopped rosemary and olive oil and mix well with the chicken legs. Place 2 chicken legs with one bay leaf into each sous vide bag and seal on a hard vacuum.

Place the bags in the water bath and cook for 4 hours. Once cooked, cool them in ice water.

** You can sous vide the chicken legs days in advance and freeze them until needed. Defrost and sous vide at 82C for about 30 minutes and you are ready for the next steps.

Carefully remove chicken from bags. Drain and keep the juice.

Pat dry the chicken legs and remove any garlic or rosemary leaves from the skin.

Heat up olive oil in a pan and pan fry the chicken legs skin side down until skin brown and crisp. Remove and out aside.

Heat up olive oil in skillet, big enough to hold all the chicken legs. Brown garlic until fragrant. Do not let burnt.

Sautee mushroom until softened. Add mixed herbs, red wine, vinegar and juice from the sous vide process. Turn up the heat and bring to a slight boil. Add cherry tomatoes and the chicken legs, skin side up. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Season with salt, pepper and sugar.