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The best time to start cooking coq au vin, in Aziraphale’s opinion, is in the early 1800s in rural France right after your least favorite rooster turns two years old. The second best time to start cooking coq au vin is two days before your demonic best friend comes back from a work assignment to Norilsk.
(“Norilsk,” Crowley had said, slumped as low as he could without sliding off of Aziraphale’s sofa entirely, “ever been?”
“Never had the pleasure,” Aziraphale had said, and he’d sipped his brandy.
“Here’s your chance. It’s an easy job—just two little temptations.”
“Thank you, but no. This corporation doesn’t handle the cold well.”
Crowley had been so incensed he really had fallen off of the sofa. “That corporation?” he’d demanded. “I’m an actual snake!”)
You have to start cooking two days before, you see, because the secret to a good modern coq au vin—since rooster blood went out of fashion as a thickening agent—is a hearty stock with plenty of gelatin in it. So before you even get around to the actual stew itself, you break down the hens and use their backbones and feet and some vegetable scraps and let it all simmer for as long as you can stand and you think about how there’s only two days left until he’s back, and how every hour the stock simmers is an hour closer to things being as they should be, and what Norilsk might have been like, and how long he’s going to pretend to be put out with you because you didn’t go in his place.
That last part is optional.
Remember to take the bay leaf out when you’re done. If you’re thinking ahead (if you’re searching for things to do with your hands, if you need to fill time because it’s going so slowly and Norilsk is so far away), you can marinate the chicken overnight with a nice red wine (perhaps La Tâche, like the one you had after the crêpes that time he appeared to save you from an ignominious end at the hands of an overly enthusiastic executioner).
Then the day before you actually want to share your coq au vin with your friend—the day before he comes home, that is—it’s time to assemble the dish. Modern hens don’t need a long braise like old roosters would; just pull the chicken out of the marinade after you’ve browned the salt pork and pat it dry, being sure to reserve the marinade—
A knock on the shop door interrupted Aziraphale’s reverie.
“We’re closed,” he shouted, but the little bell rang anyway and that should not happen, there was only one being who would just open his locked door after knocking, which meant that the best time to start this coq au vin should actually have been the day before yesterday, because Crowley was home.
Crowley would almost certainly laugh if he heard that thought. “I was gone a week,” he’d likely say, and Aziraphale would have to laugh and say “Yes, it’s silly isn’t it, barely even had time to notice that you were gone,” and he would be lying.
The shop creaked as Crowley moved through it.
“Aziraphale?”
“In the kitchen,” he called, and he continued patting the chicken dry, because even though Crowley was back now and not when the coq au vin was ready, the chicken still needed browning.
(“Why d’you do it that way?” Crowley had once asked, peering dubiously at Aziraphale as the angel peeled an onion by hand.
“Which way?” Aziraphale had asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious of his peeling methods.
“Actually doing it. You could just—” he snapped his fingers demonstratively “—have the food. No need to make it.”
“It’s better when you do it the old-fashioned way,” Aziraphale said, which was both true and much easier than the other truth, which was that he enjoyed being a part of the process, enjoyed making a thing with the direct intention of Crowley enjoying it.
Crowley had snorted. “That’s not old-fashioned, angel. Old-fashioned is speaking it into existence.”)
And then Crowley was crossing the threshold of the kitchen, wrapped in an absurdly puffy jacket that made Aziraphale sweat just to look at. The demon shrugged it off; it winked out of existence just before hitting the floor.
And then there was a moment—one of the strange moments that seemed to crop up every now and again, lately with increasing frequency—when they both hesitated, like they were expecting something of themselves or each other, only they didn’t know what.
Then it passed.
“Didn’t take as long as I thought,” Crowley said.
“Lucky, that,” said Aziraphale, and he picked up the kitchen tongs and began placing chicken into the pot. It sizzled in the rendered pork fat. “You’re back too early for supper, but just in time to help.”
“What’re we making?”
Aziraphale’s mind caught on that, on “what are we making,” and on how it felt to hear that, but what he said was just: “Coq au vin. It’s…warm.”
Crowley was very still, and Aziraphale thought that perhaps this was another of those moments. Then the demon rolled up his sleeves and walked over to the sink, where he washed his hands, and they set to work.
They’d never cooked together before, Aziraphale realized as he was coaching Crowley through the browning process for the vegetables. For that matter, he wasn’t certain that Crowley had ever cooked at all. Aziraphale made food for them both plenty of times, and Crowley occasionally kept him company, but he’d never been an active participant before, never diced and stirred, never accidentally brushed against the angel while moving from one counter to the other.
When they had the chicken legs nestled into the vegetables and simmering in stock and wine and the pot in the oven to roast and braise, it seemed only appropriate to open another bottle of the Tâche and toast to Crowley’s safe return. It had been, Crowley mentioned time and again, excessively cold.
“Bitter cold,” the demon said meaningfully.
“So you mentioned,” Aziraphale said.
“Going to take me another week just to thaw.”
“Time does heal all wounds.”
“Not frostbite!” Crowley said, but the kitchen timer went off and the business of adding the chicken breasts to the pot put that conversation on hold.
The second best time to finish coq au vin is the day after you prepare the bulk of the dish: after you’ve simmered everything to perfection, you should let the temperature settle and put the whole covered pot into your fridge overnight to let the flavors deepen and mature, then bring it back up to temperature before mixing in some butter for the last bit of magic in the sauce, and serve.
But there are any number of factors which can impact a recipe—humidity, ambient temperature, ingredient quality and regionality, the list goes on. So it turns out that the best time to finish coq au vin is approximately two hours after your demonic best friend shows up in your shop after a work assignment in Norilsk. It was an exceptional dish. The way Crowley wrapped his hands around the warm bowl and preened when Aziraphale complimented his cooking was even nicer.