Julia Child's Ragout of Chicken and Onions in Red Wine
Why I Love This Recipe
In Theaters August 7th - Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends...until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.
Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) are featured in writer-director Nora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme.
Ingredients You'll Need
2 ½ to 3 pounds frying chicken parts
2 tbs. butter
1 tbs. olive oil or good cooking oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 or 2 large cloves of garlic, pureed
1 imported bay leaf
¼ tsp or so thyme
1 large ripe red unpeeled tomato, chopped, or 1/3 cup canned Italian plum tomatoes
3 cups young red wine (Zinfandel, Macon or Chianti type)
1 or more cups chicken stock
Beurre manie for the sauce (1 ½ tbs. each flour softened butter blended to a paste)
Fresh parsley sprigs or chopped parsley
Directions
Browning the chicken -- about 5 minutes. Dry the chicken parts thoroughly, and brown in hot butter and oil. Remove to a side dish, leaving the fat in the pan.
Simmering the chicken. Season the chicken lightly with salt and pepper; return it to the pan. Add the browned onions, and the garlic, bay, thyme and tomato. Pour in the wine and enough stock barely to cover the ingredients. Bring to the simmer; cover, and simmer slowly 20 minutes, or until the chicken is tender when pressed.
Finishing the chicken -- the sauce. Remove the chicken to a side dish, and spoon surface fat off the cooking juices. Pour the juices (and onions) into a saucepan and taste very carefully for strength and seasoning. Boil down rapidly if it needs strength, adding more of the seasonings if you think them necessary.
Off heat, whisk the beurre manie to make a lightly-thickened sauce. Bring briefly to the simmer -- the sauce should be just thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. Wash out the casserole; return the chicken to it, basting with the sauce and onions.
