The Changing face of the Kitchen
Many of you already know that I’m supported by Fisher & Paykel with the cook school at Mills Reef, which is why last Saturday I had the opportunity to look into the future of our cooking spaces at the launch of the Urbis Design Day in Auckland with Fisher & Paykel’s Social Kitchen, and let me tell you as a cook it looks great.
I know that I’m biased, but the fact is that our kitchens have reflected the social and economic changes in our society throughout history. Go back in time and the kitchen was a large space which handled not only the finished meal but also the bakery, butchery and the myriad of tasks related to daily life from preserving to curing.
With the birth of supermarkets and processed food we no longer needed the large workspace and our kitchens became small and hidden from view. Our easy access to pre packaged processed food meant that our homes could be designed around the social areas instead of the functional ones, sadly that also meant that we lost our handed down cooking knowledge and skills.
Its all starting to sound depressing, but wait, things are changing. As kitchen appliances became more designed and less utilitarian we started to place the kitchen in the middle of the house as a design feature, almost a domestic piece of art. We still weren’t bothered about the cooking but at least it was on show.
So what’s next? Well it looks like things are changing again. With the massive growth in the Farmers Market movement and the Celebrity Chef phenomenon it looks like we are starting to care about our food supply again. This means that the kitchen now becomes the hub of the home, where we all come together to cook, eat, socialize and even work. Happy days.
Which bring me to this week’s recipe; I want something classic but unpretentious. Coq au Vin or chicken in red wine is one of those meals that will draw people to the hub of your home with exquisite aromas. A little trick for you is to immerse the chicken pieces in the red wine in a sealed plastic box in the fridge for at least 24 hours to marinate; this will intensify the flavours beautifully
Coq au Vin
Serves 6
Method
1.5kg corn fed chicken, cut into 10 pieces
125g piece of unsmoked streaky bacon, cut into 5mm thick strips, 4cm long
50g butter
1 tablespoon oil
Plain flour for dusting
1 crushed garlic clove
A fresh bouquet garni of thyme and parsley
½ bottle red wine
10 button onions
10 mushrooms
Seasoning and beurre manié (butter and flour mixed to a paste) for thickening
Method
Heat half the butter in a flameproof casserole and put in the sticks of bacon. When they start to brown, add the flour dusted pieces of chicken and sauté until they are nicely browned all over. Add the garlic, then after a minute or so the garni, wine and seasoning. Once the casserole is nearly boiling, transfer to a pre-heated oven at 180˚C for ¾ hour. Add onions and mushrooms and cook for another 20 minutes. Remove the chicken and bacon and reduce the liquid for 5 minutes. Whisk in the beurre manié to thicken the liquid and bring everything back together and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve with Rice or steamed vegetables.
Traditionally chicken is partnered with white wines, but in this case since the cooking is in red wine then this is perfect. A quick point to remember is that only ever cook with wines that you like, they don’t have to be expensive but you do need to like them as the flavour is going to run through the whole meal. A bad flavour in the wine is not going to suddenly get better with cooking.
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