Coq au Vin

This is the start of the actual cooking process. The chicken and mirepoix were marinated in a bottle of red wine overnight, Then the chicken was removed, dried and seared (that's what's going on on the right) and the mirepoix was strained out of the wine. After the chicken was seared on all sides, I browned the mirepoix, stirred in flour, poured the wine from the marinade back in, scraped the fond off the pot and put the chicken in the pot and stewed it for an hour and a half.

Meanwhile, I chopped a quarter-pound of my home made pancetta into lardons and fried them off. Then I browned the button mushrooms in the fat that rendered off the pancetta. These are the end result of that process.
Here's one thing I think I screwed up. The next step after the bacon and mushrooms is to cook the pearl onions in a small saucepan with 2 tbsp butter, "enough water to cover", a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt. As you can see, I used a saucier and not a small saucepan. Why was this a mistake? Because the surface area of the saucier was wider so it took more water to cover the onions. Why is this a problem? Because the recipe said to simmer the onions in the pot covered with a piece of parchment paper until all the water evaporated. Once the water was gone you leave the onions in the now-dry pot until they brown. The fatal flaw was that it would take a whole lot longer to evaporate all this water than the recipe intended so I wound up tossing out the remaining water when the onions were cooked and I probably threw away some flavor in the process. Live and learn, I guess.

Here's how the chicken looked after cooking. Tender and hearty, but maybe a little underseasoned (which is scary because I thought I put a lot of salt on it before I seared it).
Almost done...the chicken has been quartered with my newly-sharpened knife (thank for the sharpener recommendation Doogs, it's a gem!), and the strained cooking liquid, mushrooms, pancetta and pearl onions have been combined with a cup of wine that was used to deglaze the pearl onion pan and reduced until it coated the back of a spoon. Note all that splatter and mess on the stovetop. There's a lot of cleanup involved in this dish.

Anyway, dump all that goodness over the bird and you get...

...dinner! No, you're not supposed to garnish it with a parsley sprig, I just did it for some color contrast in the photo.