Stephanie Alexander wants to start kids cooking revolution

CAN your kids cook a meal from scratch from “real food”? Stephanie Alexander wants to help the next generation conquer the kitchen. Here are her tips to get your kids to love cooking.

Stephanie Alexander in her kitchen garden with kids Riley, Clara and Lucy. Picture- Nicole Cleary

“I AM absolutely driven by the conviction that the world would be a better place if everyone knew how to cook from fresh food.”

It’s this belief that sent one of Australia’s most respected cooks, restaurateurs and best-selling authors back to the kitchen and onto her laptop where, for the past two years, she’s been writing the follow-up compendium to the book colloquially known in kitchens around the country as “the cooking bible”.

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Encyclopaedic in scope, Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion is the book much of Australia turns to when wondering what to do with the mushrooms, the pumpkins or anything else they’ve picked up that looked good at the market, or when they want to make a classic fish pie, roast a chook or make a ragu.

But it’s the next generation of cooks Stephanie now wants to help conquer the kitchen, to give them the skills to cook a meal from scratch, from “real food”.

Stephanie Alexander in her kitchen garden with kids Riley, Clara and Lucy. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Stephanie says her new, equally weighty book, The Cook’s Apprentice, isn’t only for kids and young adults, but for any “new foodie” — people who might come to cooking later in life because they’ve suddenly lost their “cook” through death or divorce and are now at a loss at mealtimes.

“It’s really for anyone who feels they’d like to know more about ‘the how’ of cooking, the techniques. So (cooking) is not a task that’s filled with anxiety but it’s something you can slip into without too much trouble,” she says.

Since 2004, Stephanie has been travelling the country with her Kitchen Garden Foundation helping schools set up gardens in which students grow vegetables they then turn into meals.

For those older kids the 50-odd pages of kitchen terms and techniques will be invaluable, which the 300 recipes within the book point back to where relevant.

A pronunciation guide for tricky terms — boe-kay gar-nee; keen-wah — helps build knowledge and confidence, too.

“I believe the skills last, (the pupils) understand the potential of ingredients. I’m not saying they’re all going to be brilliant cooks, but they are well on their way — and then of course when they come across The Cook’s Apprentice a bit later on in life, in three or four years, they’ve got the next step.”

STATE OF ORIGIN

The first thing in any food education, Stephanie says, is to understand where our food comes from.

“People don’t know very much about where their food comes from and of course that has real dangers — dangers about food security and dangers for our wonderful farmers and producers,” she says.

By arming people with a little knowledge about the where, along with a skill or two to take care of the how, the why becomes clear.

“This is to make a difference to how people cook. I want people to eat real food, at least some of the time, not just have frozen and prepackaged and pre-prepared food.”

When you’re dealing with fire and knives, safety is first for kids in the kitchen.

SAFETY FIRST

Stephanie says the first thing to consider when introducing kids to the kitchen is, of course, safety.

“You have to teach them to be careful around boiling water. We are dealing with knives and fire, so they have to be treated with respect. They have to understand that knives are sharp, understand that stoves can burn. But having said that and got that out of the way, let’s start doing something that you’d really like to eat.”

LIFE SKILL

Eggs are a great starting point for the novice. “If you have a dozen eggs you can make an omelette, you can poach them, you can scramble them, you can add lovely herbs to a scramble or an omelette. You get a bit fancy and can make a frittata,” she says. “I think learning how to be comfortable around eggs is a pretty good life skill, because any kid coming home from school desperately starving can make an omelette in five minutes.”

STIR AND STEAM

Another easy win for the first-time cook is tackling Asian greens — whether steaming them or adding to a stir fry.

“Once they have those two techniques under their belt they’re off and running, because you can add all sorts of other interesting bits and pieces to your stir fry bok choy, prawns, tofu, mushrooms. Once they’ve got that technique comfortably learnt, that’s a fantastic life skill.”

Kids don’t need to be coaxed into eating vegetables used in creative ways, Stephanie says.

EASY BEING GREEN

Stephanie scoffs at the idea that kids have to be coaxed into eating their greens.

“We don’t have any problem at all at the kitchen garden with children not eating greens, because we don’t serve them a great spoonful of something dark green on their plate.”

Silverbeet is one of the easiest vegetables to grow, and so schools across the country usually have a heap of it in their gardens and are always looking for things to do with their crop.

“One of the most popular ways to use it is in pasta stuffing, in a ravioli, or a cannelloni shape, or as a roly poly thing with a filling of ricotta and silverbeet. The kids just love

it, they’re back for second and third helpings,” Stephanie says.

NO FUSS FEASTING

Introducing kids to new flavours around the family dinner table is one way to bring up adventurous eaters.

“The phrase that really gets me is when a parent says, ‘you won’t like that darling’. I get so angry — how do they know what darling is going to like if darling hasn’t been given the opportunity of tasting it?”

Stephanie says while “it’s useless me pontificating, I know every parent has his or her own theory” her three-year-old granddaughter eats a broad range of foods because she was offered at least a taste of whatever was being served around the family table from a very young age.

“I remember being somewhat astonished when the first thing she was given by her mother when she was under one was a lamb chop — not in my day, it would’ve been pureed pumpkin — but she sucked it like a lollipop. She held onto the bone and seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of it.”

PETER, PETER

But as their palates are developing, kids do have different food preferences.

“Children, particularly very young children, don’t like certain textures, and you have to respect that,” Stephanie says.

“It’s interesting so many children don’t like the texture of pumpkin and if your kid absolutely loathes pumpkin it’s a bit cruel to keep serving them it night after night. You could probably find something else.”

But, for a sure-fire winner to turn that pumpkin-sized frown upside down, Stephanie suggests grilling it instead, or using it to make gnocchi.

“They love it, as long as it’s not forced upon them.”

The most important thing for any cook — even a young one — is a good knife.

PACK THE KNIFE

Older kids who are showing a keen interest in cooking will want to start using their own pieces of kit and the most important thing for any cook is a good knife.

“You need a good, all-purpose cook’s knife,” Stephanie says, one that fits comfortably in the hand, generally around 20cm.

“Go to a store and feel the weight, how it feels in your hand.”

You’ll also need something smaller, a good paring knife, and after that, Stephanie suggests a really good bread knife.

“When you have those three knives you’ll be set up for years, and it’s only if you get really into cooking that you might need a filleting knife. But that’s pretty specialised.”

The Cook's Apprentice by Stephanie Alexander.

STAFF OF LIFE

Given bread forms such an integral part of many kids’ daily diet, Stephanie says it’s the one thing worth spending money on for quality.

“I’d love children to find a proper bread. This white sliced squishy product that is very cheap, is universally available, is a travesty to the whole meaning of what bread is to so many cultures and so many people where it’s the staff of life. It’s sustaining, all about wholegrains and chewing it and it’s about craftsmanship,” she says.

“I think that other stuff shouldn’t be called bread.”

A FINAL WISH

“If I had my way and could wave my magic wand I’d wave it so every child in Australia, from the time they enter early learning certainly until they commence secondary school, they should be involved in pleasurable food education at some level so that they can bring this into their life and they aren’t so utterly dependent on convenience foods.”

The Cook’s Apprentice by Stephanie Alexander (Penguin), $45 available now