Gewurztraminer and Chicken a True Love Affair

Lately I have been searching the web for new recipes to try and blog about. I have found a lot of great meals that I plan to make in the future. I founded a great website, finecooking.com, this website has so many great ideas for dinner. I had some chicken that I had to cook and I knew I wanted to drink a Gewurztraminer with the chicken. I am in absolute love with Gewurztraminer, especially from Alsace. Plus it's a great pairing!! You don't always need red white with meat. So I Googled Gewurztraminer and  chicken and found a meal that I couldn't wait to make. Braised Chicken with Gewurztraminer, it's a lot like Coq au Vin but delightfully different. It's also a meal that takes some time to make, so it's not an easy weekday meal.

Braised Chicken with Gewurztraminer
Here's what you'll need:
Two-Three pounds Chicken Thighs seasoned with salt
Cup of grapes I used seedless green
Large yellow onion chopped
Two garlic cloves chopped
750 ml Gewurztraminer
Two cup chicken broth
Thyme
Half cup heavy cream
Two teaspoons corn starch

You need to start by browning the chicken in Dutch Oven over Medium/High heat in a tablespoon oil. Don't crowed the Chicken if need be brown them in batches. Set them aside in a bowl, and dump out all but two tablespoons of fat. Add the cup of grapes and cook about two/three minutes. Set them aside and add the onions with a pinch of salt and cook until they are softened. Then add the garlic and cook two more minutes. After the onions and garlic have added their aroma to the room add in the wine making sue to stir up all the brown bites left from the chicken thighs and let reduce by half.

Return the chicken to the pot, add the both and thyme. The recipe called for two tablespoons but all the comments said it was a bit bland, so I added twice as much thyme. Let this come to a simmer, then cover and let cook for 25 minutes. Then take the chicken out of the pot and set a side in a bowl.

Now for the sauce. Bring the liquid to a rapid boil and reduce to two and half cups. Whisk together the cream and corn starch together. Whisk the mixture into the liquid making sure to whisk it until the sauce thickens up. Salt (I used a grey sea salt with herbs that I bought at Beacon Hill Wine and Gourmet in Melrose.) and pepper (I used my own blend of white, green and black pepper corns) to taste. Again the comments were that this came out bland so I added about a tablespoon of each. Put the chicken and grapes back in the sauce and let simmer another five minutes. I served the dish with egg noodles and green beans.

Wow, did this come out great. In the fall when Moscato Grapes are available I would use them instead of the green grapes, but other than that this is a meal that I want to make when people come over for dinner. It took over a hour and half to cook and had a lot of tasks, but it was real easy to make and was the type of meal that makes you feel like a five star chef.

THE WINE:
So what do you serve with a meal like this? No brainier: you serve the wine that you cooked with. It's the perfect pairing as it will not over power or be over powered by the sauce. As I said, I love Gewurztraminer. Most people think it's a German grape but they would be wrong. Gewurz is the German word for spice but the wine is from the village Tramin in Italy. They do speak German in this region. The grape does best in cooler climate so it does well in Northern Italy, Germany and parts of France, mostly Alsace.

In Alsace it can range from dry to very sweet, I personally like the more off-dry styles, like the Gewurztraminer from Joseph Cattin. They have been growing grapes in Alsace since the 18th century, in the 1850s they started making exceptional wines from the region. At the end of the 19th century phylloxera came to destroy European vineyards (sent from the USA by accident). Joseph Cattin studied how to beat the tiny pests and became a very important person by saving the region. I love many of the wines from this vineyard that I have tasted, especially the Riesling and Gewurztraminer. The Gewurztraminer has a wonderful fragrant nose of spicy, tropical fruit and rose petals. As you taste it you get lost in spicy, exotic fruit. It has a great body and the acid really helps calm down the sweetness. This is an fantasticly awesome bottle of wine. I can't wait to dink another bottle of this wine.