/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Step 8:

Add the chicken back in, bring it to a boil, cover and simmer for a good 40 minutes, up to 1 hour 30 if you have an old or tough chicken/hen/actual coq.

Step 7:

Add in the stock and the wine sauce, bring to a boil and cook off the alcohol for about 5 minutes again. Skim it a bit if you get any muck.

Step 6:

Add a spoonful of flour to the vegetables, lower the heat and cook that all together for 5 minutes or so, mixing it around.

In the meantime, get a bit of stock chicken stock ready, about 300ML. I used a cube but if you have proper stock even better..

Step 5:

Chicken comes out, vegetables go in, get them a bit roasty as well. Please excuse the pan I put the chicken in, didn't want to get something else dirty.

Step 4:

Once the chicken is drained, into the pot it goes, over the bacon drippings and a bit of extra oil. Brown it on all sides. At this point the chicken will be kind of wine-purple so don't expect it to get to the usual beautiful golden colour.

Step 3:

While that's going on, fry up 4-5 pieces of bacon, or lardons, in a steel pan/pot, or a dutch oven if you prefer. Keep the drippings in there. I also took the bay leaves out at this point.

Step 2:

Take it out of the fridge, get the chicken out and let it dry a bit, and put everything else through a colander, separating the vegetables from the wine sauce. Let it sit so it drains well.

What I'm gathering is at worst I would just need to re-season the pot by deliberately cooking a thin layer of shortening, letting it rest, and wiping away excess.

Soon I will make coq au vin.
I have a cast iron Dutch oven by Lodge but not an enamel one.
Am I fine doing this with the ordinary cast iron pot when most of the recipes specify enamel? I am looking for the actual reason why enamel is necessary.
If it isn't an actual safety/damage thing, I'm not worried.