Three – oh lord three - years ago, I posted a recipe called "Coq au Vin for Two," because Melissa had bought two Cornish Game Hens, and I wasn't sure what else to do with them. Tomorrow, we have company coming over and the weather is getting cooler. In other words, it's time for comfort food. So here's…

Coq au Vin for Four

The ingredient list might look a little daunting, but this really is an easy recipe.

You'll need:

4 bottles West Coast Pinot Noir or French Burgundy
2 white onions, chopped
2 whole carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
6 large sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves (fresh if you can find them)
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
4 cloves of garlic, halved
4 whole chicken legs with thighs attached, with skins

2 cups pearl onions
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 lb large mushrooms, coarsely chopped
½ pound bacon, chopped
½ cup cognac
2 tablespoons flour

You'll need a big, non-reactive stockpot, too. Six-quart or slightly larger. Put your chicken pieces in the bottom, then cover with the carrots, onion, celery, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, and garlic. Pour two bottles of Pinot over the mess, put the cover on, and stick it in the fridge overnight. You can shake or turn the pot every couple hours if you insist, but with the chicken on the bottom, there probably isn't much need.

So far, pretty simple stuff.

About 2 hours before dinner, it's time to get back to work.

Fill a large sauté pan with water and bring it to a boil. Add a couple pinches of salt, then throw the pearl onions in. After three minutes, strain them, let them cool, and peel off the skins. It's easier to get the skins off the pearl onions by doing this. But if you have a willing sous chef, skip this part and make them peel'em by hand.

In the same sauté pan, melt three tablespoons of butter on medium-high. Add in the pearl onions and mushrooms, and sauté them for ten minutes, or until the shrooms are tender. Use a slotted spoon to move the shrooms and onions to a side bowl.

With the heat still on medium-high, fry your chopped bacon in the same pan. When it's crispy, transfer the bacon to paper towels – but do not get rid of the bacon fat. But do kill the heat for now.

Here's the only tricky bit. You'll need a pot as big or bigger than the one the chicken marinade is in, and a strainer big enough to cover the top of the second pot. Was that clear enough, or do I need to draw a diagram? OK. So you've got a big, empty pot in the sink, with a strainer (or colander or whatever) sitting on top of it. Take your marinade pot out of the fridge, and dump it through the strainer and into the empty pot. And when I say to put the second pot in the sink, I mean it. I always splatter during this part – and not just because I'm so excited about wine-marinated chicken.

Alternately, you can fish out the chicken, and leave the vegetables in the marinade. If you go that route, you might get more veggie flavor later – but you'll have to spoon the veggies out of a simmering pot before you serve dinner. Personally, I prefer to do the messy work with cold liquids.

Take the chicken bits out of the strainer and pat them dry. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. The rest of the stuff in the strainer? Throw it out.

Put the strained-marinade pot on to boil at high heat. We've got to reduce the hell out of it while we do other things.

Now, that sauté pan full of bacon fat? Bring the heat back up to medium high, because we're going to brown the chicken in all that pork-fat goodness. Brown the chicken for about ten minutes total – five minutes per side. If you've got one of these babies, you can probably do all four chicken leg/thighs at once. If you think maybe there's too much bacon fat, feel free to pour some out. You need just enough to cover the bottom of the pan.

Reduce the heat under the marinade to medium-high and carefully add the chicken to it, along with a little salt and pepper. Let it come to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, uncovered. Here comes the tough part: Open the third bottle of Pinot, serve it to yourself and your guests, and ignore the freakin' chicken for 75 minutes.

Take the chicken out of the sauce and drop it in a bowl. If you left the veggies in, spoon them out of the sauce and throw them out. Pour in the cognac and bring the sauce back to a boil. Let'er go for 15 minutes. Melt the last two tablespoons of butter in a small pan, and whisk in the flour, then whisk the result into the sauce. Put the chicken back in, along with the onions, shrooms, and bacon. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Open the last bottle of Pinot, give everyone a refill, then plate the chicken with a generous serving of sauce.

Is that a lot of work? Well, maybe. But it's all easy to do, and fun with an audience. And because we're using leg-thigh combos, you won't even have to carve a chicken. Just ladle and serve, baby.

Serves, as the title suggests, four.

You want a side dish? I've got an easy one for you. While the sauce is in the final reduction (just before you do the butter/flour thing), fry up some diced potatoes in a pan with a little olive oil, thyme, and rosemary (plus salt and pepper). When the potatoes look crispy, turn off the heat. They'll soak up the sauce really, really nicely.