Chickens Around the World

Coq au Vin
The New Best Recipe (Cook's Illustrated)

We cooked this during the State of the Union Address, so there was excitement all around us.  Jon assembles his own giant teabag (or as the French say, a Boquet Garni) to create this dish.  The teabag includes thyme, parsley, and bay leaves.  As is the case with tea, you don't eat the bag, but enjoy the juices which have sopped up all of the important flavors.  Jon also wanted me to write something about a beurre manie to show off our Frenchiness.

Key Ingredients: Chicken, bacon, red wine, pearl onions, white mushrooms, carrots, onions, and shallots

Chicken Marsala
The New Best Recipe (Cook's Illustrated)

The sweet marsala makes this dish, for lack of a better word, sweet.  We love the pancetta.  We'd make it more often if it were healthier.  We plan on adding less butter than is called for next time.  We'll keep you posted on the results.

Key Ingredients: Chicken, sweet marsala wine, pancetta, and white mushrooms

Chicken Provencal
The New Best Recipe (Cook's Illustrated)

We make this dish on a regular basis because it is the healthiest of all three here.  The herbs, anchovies, olives, and tomato paste make the sauce really flavorful.  We actually cooked this dish yesterday.  I was too lazy to pick up the nicoise olives, so we had it with pasta instead (a strange substition, I know).  It actually made for a very nice tomato sauce.  I think I'm going to pressure Jon into making it this way more often.  Unlike he and his lovely cardiologist father, I adore carbs.

Key Ingredients: Chicken, nicoise olives, tomato paste, anchovy, and herbs

Caternet Sauvignon

The New Best Recipe (Cook's Illustrated)

Key Ingredients: Azula in a wine bag