NEW YORK — Mark Bittman has taught us how to cook everything — how to bake and grill, prepare fish and vegetarian meals and do it fast. This fall, he’s targeting a different kind of home chef — the little ones.
“How to Cook Everything Kids” is written for children aged 8-12 and is bursting with photos, graphics, advice and techniques to empower any mini-Julia Childs in your home.
“It required a different kind of thinking,” Bittman says. “This is a book that is built to please kids and we’re not kids. So we had to consult with kids. We had to try to think like kids and about kids.”
Bittman, who has evolved from recipe developer and culinary writer into one of the leading voices on food and health policies, offers his take on kid-friendly dishes like baked ziti, chicken nuggets and chicken with orange sauce, giving easy directions and variations, like pork chops with apples for the latter dish.
The tone is less pedantic and more encouraging, allowing room for younger chefs to experiment and customize dishes. There are lists — like “9 Ways to Flavor Scrambled Eggs” — and recipes for substituting soy sauce glaze with sweet-and-sour, peanut and hot variations. “You do you,” Bittman writes at one point.
‘Fun visually’
It’s a useful resource for first-time cooks, explaining things like garbanzo beans are the same as chickpeas and offering helpful sections on spices and herbs, kitchen equipment and how to prep everything from butternut squash to corn. There are pictures of kids throughout the book.
“We wanted it to feel inviting and fun visually for the kids. I think keeping their interest and holding their attention was something that we really wanted to do,” says Jacqueline Quirk, an associate editor at Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Bittman says the hope is that “How to Cook Everything Kids” will teach children that cooking isn’t hard and they can produce things that taste good — lifelong paths toward better health and breaking the addiction to eating out.
“If you empower them to make it themselves, they’ll be more likely to enjoy it, even if it’s a strange vegetable or something like that,” says Quirk. “We wanted to inspire an adventurousness in kids.”
Bittman is also the author of several books, including, among others, “How to Cook Everything,” “Fish,” and “Food Matters,” which looks at the intersection of diet, personal and planetary health. Extending his franchise to kids made sense.
“There’s a lot of stuff in here that 4- and 5-year-olds might get a kick out of if they’re so inclined,” Bittman says. “The important thing is that parents set the example and that’s a more important thing than having kids do hands-on cooking.”
He laughs that, when he was a kid, the only cooking he did was to mix chocolate syrup and peanut butter in a glass to see what would happen.
“Now you’ll have 4-year-olds who will tell you that they want to be chefs when they grow up and that’s really different. Chefs were not visible people when I was younger, even when my kids were young,” he says. “Even being a food writer is an acceptable career.”
Color and sweetness but no mandolins
The book — organized by dishes like soups, breakfast, sandwiches, pasta, breads, main meals and grains and beans — reaches a crescendo with a beef and vegetable stir fry, a dish Bittman considers part of a holy trinity.
“I think there’s three critical recipes in this world. And they are: stir fry, rice and beans, and chopped salad. Imagine mastering those, or having a sense of those, when you were 12 — you’re sort of set for life at that point,” Bittman says.
“Almost everything that people wind up cooking can fall into one of those three categories. Those are sort of the mainstays of world cooking,” he adds.
The book tries not to lean on kitchen machines — and urges kids to get a parent or caregiver to help with things like blenders — and one utensil was banished completely: the mandolin. Even Quirk is wary of them.
Bittman has bent to his audience to make visually attractive dishes — like pasta with blueberry — and cooks some ingredients, like sweet potatoes and carrots, for a long time so the natural sugars shine.
“There’s more color in here than we would normally pay attention to. And, quite frankly, there’s more sugar in here than we would normally pay attention to,” he says. “We are focusing on real foods and good foods, but we’re allowing for the fact that kids really do gravitate toward sweets and you have to accommodate that to some extent.”
Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Makes: 1 sandwich. Time: 5 minutes. From “How to Cook Everything Kids” by Mark Bittman
Smushing a cheese sandwich in the pan leaves you with a crisp outside and gooey inside, says Mark Bittman in his cookbook “How to Cook Everything Kids.” You will need a couple cans from the pantry or a small heavy pot for this one.
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
2 slices any bread (about½ inch thick)
⅓ cup grated (or 1 or 2 slices) melting cheese (like cheddar, Jack or Swiss; about 1 ounce)
Put an 8-inch skillet over medium heat and add the butter or oil. Make a sandwich with the bread and cheese. Try to keep the cheese in an even layer not too close to the crusts of the bread.
When the butter melts or the oil is hot, put the sandwich in the skillet. Set a small plate on top of the bread and weigh it down with the cans or heavy pot. Adjust the heat so the butter or oil sizzles without burning.
Cook until the bottom of the bread smells like toast and is lightly browned and crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Take all the stuff off the sandwich, slip a spatula underneath, lift it off the pan and turn it over.
Swoosh the sandwich around in the pan to sop up all the butter or oil. If you want the sandwich even flatter, pile the plate and cans back on. The other side will also take 2 to 3 minutes to brown. Use the spatula to transfer the sandwich to a plate. Wait a minute for the cheese to cool and set, then dig in.
Eat with: Pickles, raw vegetable sticks, salad, a creamy tomato soup or chips.
Variations
- Grilled Chocolate Sandwich: Like dessert. Instead of the cheese, use 1 small chocolate bar between the bread. Your choice what kind, but I like mine pretty dark.
- Inside-Out Grilled Cheese Sandwich: That’s right. Crisp cheese on the outside, bread on the inside. You’ll need a nonstick skillet for this. Use one piece of bread and twice as much cheese. Don’t put butter or oil in the pan or use the plates and weights. Scatter half the cheese in the bottom of the pan, top with the bread slice, and scatter the rest of the cheese on top. Put the pan over medium heat and cook cook without touching anything until the cheese bubbles and melts and turns brown, 3 to 5 minutes. It should be crisp enough to slip a spatula underneath and turn it over. Cook the second side the same way. When the sandwich is ready, tip the pan so the extra fat pours away from the bread before lifting it out with the spatula.
- Cheese Toast: This time the sandwich is open. You can use any of the cheeses listed in the recipe or try grated Parmesan. Turn on the broiler to the highest setting (or use a toaster oven) and put the rack about 4 inches from the heat source. Keep the bread dry at first and put both slices on a baking sheet (or the pan for the toaster oven) and move the pan under the heat. Watch it until the top is toasted as dark as you like. Remove the pan, using tongs to turn the bread, then put a pat of butter on each uncooked side or drizzle with half the oil. Top the slices with the cheese and put the pan back under the heat until the cheese is melted and bubbly or brown as you want it.
