Thanks to all about the objects in the photo. I can "read" the scored items as sliced, scored mushroom caps. With regard to my second question about the crisp looking skin in the photo, I agree with chef June that the stewing stage will always make the skin look soft. Is the photo just a food photo then and not the actual look of the chicken per the recipe or can you think of tricks [last minute broil] that would give that great presentation?
My attempt was delicious and looked fine, but nowhere near the mahogany, crisp-looking chicken in the picture. Mine started out like that but looked soft and shrunken/pucker ed after stewing and waiting for sauce reduction. Suggestions for more photogenic chicken?
Chicken that is crisp was not stewed in any kind of sauce. Stewed birds just don't look like that! The skin is destined to be soft. If you brown the skin first before the stewing, your lkin will be a darker color, but it will still be soft.
You shouldn't see any bacon in a finished traditional Coq au Vin. It is used in the beginning of the recipe to add flavor, and is usually not included in what is served. I like to serve the dish rustic style, so I add the little cut up pieces of bacon along with the onion, carrots et all that are cooked with the fowl.
I think the scored things are large trumpet mushrooms and the brown squarish thing on the lower left is one piece of the slab cut into four pieces for serving.
I will correct my reply. What look like grill marks are scores in the mushroom slices. The sauce is seeping into the score marks which is why they show nicely, but they aren't grilled (that would be unusual anyhow).
As June mentions below, this is not a traditional coq au vin, but one that Tom has modernized and adapted for his own table.
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On the far left is a hunk of bacon.
The scored items are grilled mushroom slices.
As June mentions below, this is not a traditional coq au vin, but one that Tom has modernized and adapted for his own table.
The round white things are boiler onions. Here's a picture of a bag of the latter:
https://d2lnr5mha7bycj.cloudfront.net/product-image/file/large_c806dc58-f88d-43eb-8450-73b1f9b9ad4a.jpg
One could easily substitute smaller pearl onions for the boiler onions. The author even alludes to this in the recipe headnote.