Chicken Divan

May 5, 2003

A few years back a cousin sent my mother some family history information and asked her if she could fill in any of the gaps. I could see some errors in her list, so I volunteered to provide the information. I had a colleague who was into genealogy and he directed me to a couple of sources.

I had never been interested in pursuing my family history, being a firm believer in the philosophy that we are who we make ourselves, not who our ancestors were.

However, as I sorted out the information for my mother's cousin - and it really was quite simple - curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look up a name here, a name there. Suddenly I was hooked. Since then I have built up a database of more than 5000 names. During a lull in my own research I decided to do The Spouse's side.

Some bits of research come easily. Other's take months of digging. There are brick walls that refuse to crumble. There are the proverbial skeletons in the closet. And there are the great moments when a long-sought piece of vital informational suddenly drops into place.

There is a lot of detective work involved. Sometimes hard-won research has to be discarded because I have been barking up the wrong family tree. However, one of the marvelous spin-offs is finding myriad cousins I didn't know I had.

The Internet has certainly led to a huge upsurge in the number of people researching their roots. Scarcely a week goes by when I don't get an email from some part of the globe from someone inquiring if their Graham or Jones or Churchill or McDougall or Daubeny might be the same family as mine.

I store all the information on my computer and that, too, has certainly made things easier than the days when information was entered in copious notebooks and files. They still exist, of course, but it is so much easier locating a piece of information in a database, or finding out that John in England is my seventh cousin and so on.

One of the interesting facts the computer threw up today was that the average age span is 56 years 6 months and the earliest birth date I have recorded is that of my 7xgreat grandfather, Angel Eatwell who was born in Yatesbury, Wiltshire in 1679.

I was delighted to discover the name Eatwell in the ancestry. I must come from a long line of people who enjoyed their food.

With the winter breathing coolly down our necks here, salads are taking a back seat to soups and casseroles. After the son's request for one old favourite last week, I remembered another dish I used to make as winter approached - a chicken and broccoli casserole, Chicken Divan. According to my research, the dish was the signature dish of the 1950s New York restaurant, the Divan Parisienne . I don't have the original recipe but this is my version.

I like to use a whole chicken as the basis for this dish, though you can use chicken pieces. I believe the original used chicken breasts. A bonus is you end up with a pot of chicken stock that you can use as the basis for a soup.

This dish take a little preparation, but it is one you can make ahead and store in the refrigerator until you are ready to reheat it.

Chicken Divan

1 chicken
1 large carrot
one onion
two sticks celery
A few sprigs of assorted fresh herbs - oregano, thyme, parsley, rosemary, tarragon
1/2 cup dry white wine
salt
broccoli
1 red capsicum, diced

Remove any excess fat from around the opening in the chicken. Place the chicken in a large pot with the peeled diced carrot, roughly chopped onion and sliced celery. Add the wine, salt and enough water to cover the chicken. Bring to the boil, turn back the heat and simmer until the chicken is tender.

Remove the chicken from the pot and allow to sit for a few minutes until it is cool enough to handle then remove the skin and discard. Remove the meat, dice or break into chunks and place in the bottom of an ovenproof dish. Refrigerate until required.

Break the broccoli into florets and blanch for 2-3 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain and refresh in cold water then arrange in the dish with the chicken. Sprinkle over the chopped red capsicum (1).

The sauce

3 tablespoons butter or light oil
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup milk
2 cups grated cheddar
salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (fresh or dried)

Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour. Cook for a minute or two then gradually stir in the chicken stock and milk. Add half the grated cheese and stir until the mixture thickens and is smooth (2). Season to taste and add the cayenne pepper.

Pour over the chicken and broccoli. Mix the remaining cheese with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the top of the dish (3).

Place in a 180C pre-heated oven and bake for about 40 minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese has browned (4).

This can be served with rice and colourful vegetables or a salad. We accompanied it with a carrot, parsnip and potato mash.