Cooking with Kids is a 4-part series designed to get kids into the kitchen with simple, delicious recipes that unlock the mysteries of cooking. The series is authored by Carolyn Federman, Founder of the Charlie Cart Project—a program that teaches kids fundamental cooking skills in schools, libraries and other community organizations throughout the United States. Part 1 – Kids in the Kitchen highlighted recipes from across the ckbk archive, starting with familiar tastes and setting the stage for a love of cooking. With Part 2 - A Few Fundamentals we move on to explore the collection with an eye toward building fundamental cooking skills. Looking for more recipes to cook together with your kids? Stay tuned for Parts 3 + 4 later this year. If you enjoy this series and have cooked some of these dishes with your family, let us know how it went!
Welcome back to Cooking with Kids! In this second installment of the series, I have chosen recipes that stay true to Charlie Cart’s goals of introducing new flavors while keeping cooking accessible through simple yet exciting, hands-on tasks. These ‘Cooking Fundamentals’ may look quite different from other cookbooks! Rather than focus on technique, these recipes introduce and reinforce specific concepts: Vegetables are easy and delicious; “Assembling things” like salads and sandwiches counts as cooking!; Herbs and spices are game changers in the kitchen – get to know them. While you’re chopping, smelling and tasting your way through these lessons (isn’t a recipe always a lesson?) you and your child will also have a chance to practice knife skills, learn about different cooking techniques and begin to appreciate the “layers” of flavor created by herbs and spices.
Chilly winters are ideal for afternoons spent learning, tasting and exploring new cultures together in the kitchen. With this exciting collection of recipes, you can’t go wrong.
Kitchen Fundamental #1: Vegetables are Magic
Baby Bok Choy with Ginger and Garlic from Katie Chin's Everyday Chinese Cookbook by Katie Chin
Courgette and Cheese Patties from Classic Turkish Cooking by Ghillie Basan
Spinach in Sesame Dressing from Let's Cook Japanese Food! by Amy Kaneko
Alice Waters once told me, if you’re trying to introduce a new vegetable, wait until your child (baby/toddler) is really hungry, and then serve it to them. While I did try to put this into practice on my own, it was most effective when it happened unintentionally. One day my husband and I took our toddler out for dim sum, without the proper preparation. We didn’t bring snacks. By the time we sat down, he was ravenous and starting to lose it. In a panic, we asked the waiter to bring us the first thing that was available. He brought a small plate of baby bok choy dressed in a sweet and salty plum sauce. Our boy wolfed it down and he has loved bok choy ever since. If you’ve missed that window, don’t worry! Get your kids into the kitchen with you. They will eat what they make, and their assumptions about food will be transformed. Start with vegetables.
Baby Bok Choy with Ginger and Garlic from Katie Chin’s Everyday Chinese is a good approximation of the dish that transformed my son’s tastebuds. If bok choy isn’t available, simply sauté whatever veg is left in the fridge (think cabbage, green beans, onions, carrots) and top it with Chin’s fail-safe sauce—a combination of ginger, soy sauce and brown sugar.
For the most reluctant vegetable eaters, fritters may just be the ticket. Who doesn’t love fried food? Try these tangy, herby Courgette* and Cheese Patties by Ghillie Basan. Once you have the hang of it, you can substitute all kinds of veg using this basic batter and technique, so long as you’ve squeezed out as much water from the produce as possible before frying.
Amy Kaneko’s Spinach in Sesame Dressing is SO SIMPLE and yet nearly every step is a fundamental cooking lesson. You’ll blanch the spinach in heavily salted water (salty like the ocean); prepare an ice bath to keep the spinach from continuing to cook after it has been removed from the boiling water; and use a mortar and pestle to make the sauce. This is the kind of recipe you can learn to cook from.
*Also known as zucchini squash.
Calling all Charlie Cart-ers! Veggie fritters are a great dish to make in the classroom, though you may want to swap onions for garlic to avoid teary-eyed students. From grating the veg, to beating the eggs, to chopping the herbs, there are plenty of jobs for all. Below we also highlight a steamed version (muthiya) that might work even better if frying poses ventilation issues. Substitute a simple yogurt sauce to go alongside by combining whole milk yogurt with lemon juice, salt, and dill.