Hearty coq au vin a delight worth crowing about

I had never thought of making the classic French dish coq au vin until I moved to China. To me it sounded too intimidating to cook. But several weeks after moving to Beijing, the shellshock of living here hadn't faded and I needed to tuck into a home-cooked meal to last me several days.

My version uses a minimal amount of ingredients since many local grocery stores don't carry a wide array of basic Western foods, and because Jenny Lou's - the supermarket geared toward expatriates - is an expensive adventure. Another reason for keeping it simple was to facilitate a quick and painless experience at a chao shi, or Chinese supermarket, which at the time had a buzz of energy dialed a bit too high for me.

To my surprise, coq au vin is not complicated and can be paired with any starch on hand, whether it be mashed potatoes, rice, bread, pasta or rice noodles. I bet the fried spongy bread in Uygur restaurants would work perfectly.