Brussels Sprouts are the New Black (with Coq Au Vin)

In today's episode of bobo-corrupts-classic-recipes-and-makes-an-overly-elaborate-meal-for-a-weeknight, I attempt a coq au vin. I studied in Bourgogne (Burgandy, in English)for a semester in college, so it may come as a shock to know that I did not consume any coq au vin nor any boeuf bourgignon at all, during the entire stay. My first encounter with coq au vin was at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant at The London Hotel in New York City, and it has now become my go-to dish to try at new French restaurants as a guage of authenticity and tastiness. I had a bag of brussels sprouts that needed to be cooked, as well as a bottle of Argentinian Malbec (bought it because the label was a pretty purple color) that was a little too tannin-y for my taste; both of those seemed perfect companions to chicken.

When I cook things that are not my own creation, I usually read a few different recipes and get the spirit of the dish, then improvise when I actually start cooking. Instead of rooster (coq), I used plain ol' drumsticks with skin. I omitted the mushrooms and pearl onions, because I always end up picking them out of the meal anyways. Here is a brief and rough synopsis of what I did:
-bread and seasoned drumsticks (9) in whole wheat flour (didn't have white flour)
-chopped bacon and 1/4 of the onion into little pieces and then fried them, put the bacon and onions in the large pot and browned drumsticks in remaining grease. saved the grease and browned stuff for the next day's sauce-making.
-chopped carrots into large bite-sized pieces (this prevents them from being too mushy when you cook them the next day.)
-thinly sliced the rest of the onion and placed in a large pot with the carrots, bay leaves, thyme, 1 can of chicken stock, the entire bottle of Malbec (or any other strong red wine). Left the whole pot in the refrigerator overnight.
THE NEXT DAY
-take pot out of refrigerator and cook some more. I separated the meat from the carrots from the onions and other little bits, and simmered the remaining liquid until it was thick, for the sauce.

When I plated the coq, I took one leg, some carrots, and then poured some of the thickened sauce over the leg. It IS a week night, we don't have time for cutting off the knuckle and pushing back the meat, as Gordon Ramsay demands.

I paired the dish with mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts, mostly because I love brussels sprouts. They are totally making a come back. It might just be me subliminally ordering dishes with brussels sprouts, but I see them every time I eat in a restaurant now. The other day, I was watching one of those competitive cooking shows and one of the challenge ingredients was brussels sprouts. The problem is that Americans are not brought up to properly cook brussels sprouts, so all of the contestants failed (at least in my book). One contestant tried to cook brussels sprouts with bacon, which seems like a delicious idea, but they undercooked the sprouts and overcooked the bacon.

Brussels sprouts don't demand your bacon, they demand your love. Never steam brussel sprouts to death; they are not supposed to be yellow.

This is how my mom taught me to cook them:
-halve or quarter the brussels sprouts, depending on their size, so that each piece is a comfortable bite-size.
-heat up a little bit of cooking/vegetable oil in the pot and add a little bit of chopped garlic.
-put the brussels sprouts in and toss them so that they are coated in the oil. Add a little bit of water and cover with a lid. Let them steam for a while until you can see that their green color is even greener.
-Uncover, add some salt, and toss/cook for a little bit longer to evaporate some of the liquid.
If you are a fancypants like my mom, you can add Japanese fish-flavored powder and less salt - the fishy flavor really makes the brussels sprouts sweeter and less bitter. I don't know how. It's Japanese magic.

I attempted to make haricots verts aux amandes but it wasn't as good as I remember. Probably because I had to slice the almonds and roast them myself. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO SLICE ALMONDS BY HAND?!

Gordon Ramsay's Maze at The London Hotel

Let's take a detour from the usual Taiwan food and give you a glimpse of what Sunday afternoon was like during my last trip to New York, shall we? My flight left JFK at 6:30pm, which meant I needed to leave the city by 4:00pm to make it through security in time. Originally, the plan was to go to New Jersey to see my best friend's tail-less, meow-less cat who wears a pink sweater, but the transit time to and from there would have been quite a stretch on my already-tight last day. It was fortunate that I canceled those plans, because Elizabeth (one of the 4 filles who went to Dijon in 2003) called and wanted to get lunch somewhere midtown, close to the Port Authority, from which her bus to Boston was leaving. Not being familiar with any restaurants near Times Square (midtown west) that didn't try to serve up a side of consumerism with your entree of tourist, I went with good ol' nymag.com to help me narrow down a decent restaurant that wasn't astronomically priced. I originally started out narrowing down my choices by neighborhood, then cuisine, then price, but I wanted to do something different than the Hispanic or French cuisine I had had all weekend. I chose the "London Bar" because I thought it would remind us of London, and since it was a bar, food would come quickly so Elizabeth and I could make our respective modes of transportation. The number I called turned out to be the common line for "maze," a silver and teal toned, less formal restaurant by Gordon Ramsay in the London Hotel. I had heard of his name before in culinary circles, but had not made the connection that this was the guy who has a show on the Food Network.

I think it worked out well that we landed at such a posh restaurant. If the 3-course lunch was a steal at $35, (2 courses were $25, but who would reject a Gordon Ramsay dessert?) I can only imagine how expensive food normally is at maze.

Elizabeth's elegant white cowl neck sweater went well with the sterile-looking silver and teal of the restaurant. All the dishes were the purest of white, and there were nifty little holders of silver for your silverware.
I was impressed by how the waiter poured my coffee. Usually I just pour a bunch of coffee and fill the rest with milk, unable to control how much cream goes in the cup of coffee. He poured about half of the cup of coffee, then added the amount of cream I wanted, and topped the cup off with some more coffee. In the oval container to the right are actual lumps (not cubes, not crystals, LUMPS) of brown and white sugar.
The first course for me was the hand-dipped sea scallops seared with a coating of curry salt. The dish is garnished with a slightly sweet plum sauce and bernaise sauce. I don't know what the two little crispies in the corners are, but they were delicious. I have a suspicion that they are made with the same type of batter as gougeres.
Another view of the scallops. Each was as big as my cellphone.
Despite having lived in Dijon for a semester, I did not actually taste the complexity that is Coq Au Vin. Coq au vin est un plat bourguigon (dish from Burgundy) that is one of the classics in French cuisine. It is characterized by the red wine sauce (usually a burgandy wine). Here, the coq au vin is served with three small bits of baby carrots (very tender but not mushy), on a bed of salty cabbage. The cabbage is like a sauerkraut that itsn't sour. The buttermilk colored sauce to the left is foie gras veloute. A veloute is a creamy sauce that is not creamy. I can only describe it as velvety - not rich, but not watery, if that helps.
They only coated the top section of the chicken with the thick wine sauce. I think it was a brilliant move, because the flavor would have been very overpowering had all the chicken been drenched in sauce. The sauce actually juxtaposes itself perfectly with the crispiness of the skin of the other two pieces of meat.
For dessert, I went with the blackberry lemon cheesecake. It's only a cheesecake in the loosest of senses. The crust, instead of being at the bottom, was a light dusting of crispy crumbs. The top layer of cream is less dense than a regular cheesecake, and is separated from the richer bottom half (that was flavored with lemon) by a thin layer of blackberry confiture (jam). There is a small surprise at the bottom tip of the glass, in the form of pleasantly tangy lemon custard.
Peanut brittle and chocolate truffles with caramel centers finish off the meal.
By the time we got to the petit-fours, nobody had space to eat anymore, so they gave us this nifty little box (about the size of a lipstick holder) in which to pack the petits-fours.