Social cooking comes to Kapiti

How many cooks is too many?

Who says you can have too many cooks? 8 teams of three people people cooked nine dishes in one and a half hours of aromatic steam and organised chaos at Kapiti Kitchen Space’ first social cooking night.

Our first event was a big success with all the teams getting their dishes up on time with only a few dramas and blue plasters. The chilli flakes in the kale created a bit of a challenging aroma at the end of the cook, but we opened the doors. Next time, we will use fresh chilli!

Each team created three dishes which were put together as a shared meal for 24 at the end of the night. The time pressure added an element of low key pressure and there was a lot of laughter as part of the busy social cook. Yottam Ottolenghi’s latest book ‘Simple’ was selected to feature in their first social cooking evening.

Ottolenghi is an Israeli-English chef, restaurant owner, and food writer as well as a Masterchef guest judge, restaurant owner, and author of several best-selling cookbooks. He uses everyday fresh ingredients with a middle-eastern and sometimes Asian twist which transforms them into complex flavours. Feta really works as a surprise element in his sweet and salty cheesecake.

Kapiti Kitchen Space owner, Keryn Mells has eaten many of Ottolenghi’s recipes – at his London restaurants Nopi, Ottolenghi and Rovi as well as cooked at home. Keryn has a background in event management as well as being an enthusiastic amateur cook. “This event would be great as a team building exercise for a business as with my teaching and coaching background, I can add some elements to make it about much more than just about cooking”, says Keryn

“Brilliant fun, highly recommend. Having never been to a social cooking event I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was a well organised evening, with a great vibe and delicious food”, said participant Gail McIntosh. Social cooking is about cooking with friends or making new friends while cooking, rather than a cooking class. Starters are eaten on the run and then everyone sits down to mains and dessert.

Each team gets all the ingredi ents, a cooking station, equipment and step by step recipes with pictures as well as cooking notes on how to serve and present the dishes on time.

For people that don’t want to go out on a cold winter’s evening, Kapiti Kitchen Space also do small group social cooking – they will bring all the ingredients and recipes for 5 dishes to your home and you can invite some friends around to share the cooking.