Peloponnesian Kokoras Krasatos (Κόκορας Κρασάτος)

Kokoras krasatos belongs to the Peloponnesian Sunday table: rooster browned in olive oil, then braised in red wine, tomato, cinnamon, and bay until the sauce turns dark enough to stain the hilopites beneath it. The region is the dish's surname here, especially when the wine comes from Nemea and the pasta is the little egg square Greeks call hilopites.

The whole dish depends on patience after the wine goes in. Let the wine bubble hard for a few minutes before the tomato joins it, so the raw edge cooks away and the sauce becomes deep rather than sharp. Then lower the flame and leave the bird alone. A mature rooster needs time to surrender, often two hours, and there's no clever way around that.

I use rooster when I can find it, and an older free-range chicken when I can't. Λίγα και καλά, a few things, and good ones. Brown meat, honest wine, ripe tomato, and the cinnamon used with restraint. That is enough. My grandmother Despina would have served this with pasta on a cold Sunday, the pot already on before the house had fully woken.