Nigel Slater’s Coq au Riesling
Deeply savoury and delicious, Nigel Slater’s Coq au Riesling will quickly become a favorite quickly. Chicken cooked with white wine, cream and mushrooms.
For my birthday a week or so ago, I was spoiled with something I have wanted for a very, VERY long time. A perfect, white Le Creuset 30cm Buffet Casserole. Well that was my idea anyway. I went to my local Le Creuset store very much intent on buying one of the pristine beauties but was told that the white range only gets made twice a year in France and as it’s also a very popular range, it gets sold out relatively quickly.
I took to Twitter to see if anyone could help me and within minutes the amazing folk at Le Creuset South Africa tweeted me back saying they are going to search high and low and within 24 hours they had located the very last white buffet casserole in the country and had it sent to my local store. I mean, is there anyone that does customer service better?
Anyway, so buffet casserole purchased, I needed something to christen it with. A good friend suggested that I make Nigel Slater’s Coq au Riesling from his book Real Food and I knew it had to be. I tweeted about it (well of course) and what do you know, Mr Slater himself shared my sentiment that this dish was made for my dish.
You should make this if you like chicken. If you like mushrooms. If you like creamy sauces. If you like Food. And most importantly if you like a bit of plate licking. This recipe is so gosh-darn delicious that I did, in fact, lick my plate. While it’s cooking, the scent of onion, garlic, mushrooms and wine will waft through your house, teasing your senses and when you take your first bite, you will swoon.
The chicken was soft and succulent and the sauce deeply savoury. Serve it with steamed rice or on top of al dente pasta or as I did, with a loaf of crusty bread to mop up the sauce. A zesty green salad won’t be out of place either.
Nigel Slater’s Coq au Riesling
Ingredients
- 50 g butter
- splash of olive oil
- 2 onions finely chopped
- 125 g bacon/pancetta sliced into thin strips
- 4 garlic cloves thinly sliced
- 8 chicken pieces on the bone I used 4 thighs and 4 drumsticks
- 250 g portabellini mushrooms sliced
- 500 ml Riesling or dry white wine of your choice
- 250 ml cream
- salt & pepper to taste
- handful chopped parsley
Instructions
- Melt the butter and oil together in a large pan.
- Brown the chicken pieces all over and remove from the pan.
- Add the onions and bacon and allow to fry until the onions are soft and translucent and the bacon has rendered it’s fat.
- Add the garlic and allow to saute for another 30 seconds before removing the mixture from the pan (leaving the fat behind).
- Add the mushrooms and allow to fry for 5 minutes.
- Add the onion and bacon mixture along with the browned chicken back to the pan.
- Pour in the wine and allow to come up to a boil. Turn down the heat and cover. Allow to simmer for 15-25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
- After 15 minutes, uncover, turn up the heat and add the cream. Allow to cook for another 10 minutes.
- Add the chopped parsley and season to taste.
- Serve with rice, pasta or crusty bread.
Other chicken dinner recipes you will love:
Easy coconut curry chicken thighs
Creamy Dijon mustard chicken thighs
Pan-roasted chicken with lemon garlic butter
This was amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. I ended up using 5 bone-in, skin-on thighs in my enameled casserole. It was the perfect amount of sauce to chicken. Will serve with orzo next time. I had already planned on roasted potatoes so I warmed up some bread I had in the freezer to mop up the sauce. This goes on my meal for guests list. 🙂 I am going to check out his book!
So glad you liked it. You must, his books are all excellent.
What is the difference between a Le Creuset braiser (what I have) and a buffet casserole (what you have)? I’m wondering if I can use my 5qt braiser to prepare this. Looks super yummy!
The buffet casserole is the one pictured. It’s deeper than a frying pan and heavier but still flat enough to allow the sauce to reduce nicely.
This dish was superb! I made it and realized I didn’t have any wine half way through, so my hubby stopped by the store on his way home and picked up a Moscato. I was reluctant to use such as sweet wine in cooking, but that’s all I had. I continued on with the recipe, using a little flour mixed with the sauce in a separate bowl, then whisked into the rest of the sauce to thicken it a bit. My family LOVED it!! I did try the recipe a week later using riesling just to see, but I was little more partial to the sweet notes the moscato lent. Amazing recipe either way though!!! Thank you so much for sharing.
So glad you liked it Andrea. It’s always interesting to play around with different wines when they are such a star ingredient in a recipe. I’ve made this with almost all of the styles and it results in a different dish every time. Thanks for your lovely comment!
Made this today and it turned out great. I didn’t have riesling so I used white cooking wine and chicken broth. Also used half and half for the cream – bowing to diabetes. Will definitely make again. thanks so much for sharing.
Glad you liked it Theresa!
I made this last night for my husband. We were amazed at the dimension of the flavors from such simple ingredients. I make a lot of Indian food with A LOT of spices so this one a complete 180 for me. I gave the chicken a very good browning and I think that played a very important role – don’t skimp on that part! I will definitely make this again. Thanks for posting this wonderful recipe!
Thanks for your lovely comment Natalie! Yes, that browning is incredibly important as that adds a lot of deep, caramelised flavours.
I have found the next recipe I’m making for my blog!! We eat so much chicken and fish I’m always on the lookout for different recipes. This looks wonderful — I wish I could get another Le Crueset . And Oh Hallelujah I just found a great German Riesling in our stage. You can’t see me but I’m doing a happy dance. Thank you so much for introducing us to this recipe. Buona Giornata!!
It’s only a pleasure! I hope you enjoy it !
Judy, Mine is the 30cm/3.2 litre buffet casserole. I’m not sure how many quarts that is.
The cream shouldn’t curdle, unless you’re using reduced fat cream.
Is your pan the 3.5 quart or the 5 quart? Also is there a problem adding the cream to the hot liquid already in the pan? Will it curdle?
I’ve done variations on this recipe many times, always with goof results, though I have not tried it with Riesling, so, thanks to your lovely review, I’ll revisit the dish with a different inflection! Thanks for the review and the photos!
Thanks for your lovely comment!
Lara, I do leave it on because often the chicken isn’t submerged completely. It definitely adds a lovely bit of extra flavour. 😉
After seeing the photos and re-visiting this page today I couldn’t resist…. I’m now making this for dinner tonight! On the menu for tomorrow? Your garlic roasted chicken and cauliflower puree. Thanks for all the fantastic recipes xx
Thanks for your lovely comment! I get such intense pleasure when people try my recipes. I hope you enjoy both!
Such a delicious recipe! It’s my go-to when I’m entertaining, and comes out brilliantly every time. Just curious – do you leave the skin on the drumsticks or thighs? I’ve previously removed the skin, but this time I’m debating leaving them on… just don’t want to risk that horrible, chewy skin you sometimes get after letting it simmer.
Wow… this was fantastic. Rich and creamy, but not too much so. The freshly chopped herbs really elevated the dish to another level. I served it with sugar snap peas sautéed in olive oil, garlic, fresh black peppercorn, and sea salt, with a butter leftover multigrain boule for grains. This one is certainly a keeper in my book! 🙂
Great to see this dish again, I bought the book when it first came out and made this wonderful recipe for years…then much like Nigel I forgot about it till I came across this page, safe to say this is on the menu again this week once I’ve done my shopping.
Absolutely not. 😉 This is delicious whether made in a crappy pan or a fancy-pants pan.
My pans are crap. Lol. Should I just avoid this dish until I get the fancy pan?
That is absolutely an amazing recipe. I can’t wait to make this.
However, since dry white wine is not available in my region, may I use red wine instead?
Lee, sure you can use red wine but it will then be a Coq au Vin and not a Coq au Riesling anymore. Also, with red wine you’ll have to omit or reduce the amount of cream the recipe asks for.
This looks delicious, thank you for sharing. I’m thinking of doing this in a slow cooker for a few hours. Would you add any stock with the wine for slow cooking and then add the cream at the end?
I would definitely add a little stock if you’re going to try it in a slow cooker and then just add the cream towards the end.
Oh Mags, thank you so much for your WONDERFUL comment. I really am so happy that you and your family loved this recipe. You can trust Nigel Slater’s recipes again and again. They always work and they are always drop-dead-delicious!
This absolutely, hands down, THE BEST chicken in wine sauce recipe I have ever made. But be forewarned if you are going to make it, make it with a Reisling that you will DRINK (i.e., a GOOD ONE, not a cheap one in a box) and buy two bottles so you can have that extra bottle for dinner. If you buy cheap crappy wine you get nothing but what you put into the dish. (And PLEASE PLEASE don’t substitute chicken broth, if you are a tee-totaler, just forego the dish….) That said, I have tried making Coq Au Vin using many many many recipes and despite the best intentions I could really never warm up to purple chicken. Sorry, just me. But now THIS recipe…. I cannot say enough good about it…. Served to my son and DIL and mad NO substitutions except used boneless skinless thighs out of deference to my DIL who does not eat bone in chicken. It was WONDERFUL, we ate it with a green salad made from my porch-side garden, and freshly baked ciabatta bread. No one had room for dessert, so I suggest you choose something simple and refreshing like cookies and sorbet or fruit. There were four adults that ate this and I made it with nine chicken thighs… and had enough leftovers for my son for lunch the next day (yes, he snatched them up on his way out the door, along with the strawberry orange cobbler we had for dessert).
When I make it again (and there will be an again, and again and again and again) I may experiment with different wines and different mushrooms or shallots instead of onions, but made exactly as written this is just FABULOUS. You. Must. Make. It. (unless as mentioned you don’t cook with wine, please do not diss this recipe with anything else, if the name of the wine is part of the recipe, there is a REASON!)
Can you tell me if you made any changes in timing or browning considering you used boneless skinless thighs? Hank you.
If you use boneless thighs you could reduce the cooking time by 5-10 minutes.
No, you leave the fat in the pan to saute the mushrooms in. If there’s a lot of fat from the bacon in the pan, you can pour some of it off but you’ll need a little fat to fry the mushrooms in.