In the French Kitchen with Kids: Easy, Everyday Dishes for the Whole Family to Make and Enjoy by Mardi Michels is the perfect cookbook to introduce kids and adults to French cuisine. Twice a week Mardi teaches French cooking at an all-boys school as part of their after school club program and discovered that kids can, and love to cook. Her passion for cooking shines through in her first cookbook. She is also the author of the popular Eat Live Travel blog.
Chapters and Recipes
Reading through the Introduction Chapter I learned that initially Mardi had organized technology-based programs and how she was inspired to teach the boys French cuisine instead. The chapter on Top Tips for Cooking with Kids made me reflect back to the times when I cooked with my young daughters and how I should have followed tip number 3: ‘Demonstrate, not do’ more often. The Equipment in the French Kitchen chapters lists everything from pantry items to kitchen gadgets.
The seven chapters: Breakfast (Le petit déjeuner), Lunch (Le déjeuner), After-School Snack (Le goûter) Dinner (le diner), Dessert (Le dessert), Special occasions (Pour les grandes occasions) Basic pastry recipes (Recettes de bas pâstisserie) lists easy-to-follow recipes such as:
- Quick Croissants (croissants), Individual Baked Eggs (ouefs en cocotte), Breakfast rolls (petits pains au lait
- Bacon, Cheese and Onion Quiche (quiche aux lardons, fromage et oignons), Creamy Vegetable Soup (Velouté de legumes), Cheesy Pasta Bake (Gratin de pâtes au jambons)
- Choquettes, Madeleines, Traditional Macarons (Macarons à l’ancienne)
- Steak with Oven-Baked Fries (Steak frites), Crunchy Fish Cakes (Croquettes de poisson), Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes (Gratin Savoyard)
- Upside-Down Apple Tartlets (Mini tartes Tatin), Crème caramel, Chocolate Mousse (Mousse au chocolat)
- King Cake (Gâteau des rois brioche, Crêpes, Chou Puff Tower (Pièce Montée)
- Choux Pastry (Pâte à choux), Sweet Shortcut Pastry (Pâte Bisée), Simple Brioche dough (Pâte à brioche)
The recipes are well written and easy-to-follow with the ingredients listed on the left of the page and instructions on the right. Some recipes include time-tables, tips and tidbits of information. The stunning photos are beautiful.
Recipes I made
French Loaf (Pain français facile) Page 25
Because I love bread and think it should be in a food group of its own, I made the No Knead French Loaf from the Breakfast (le petit déjeuner) Chapter. This recipe requires minimal hands-on time but yet it produces two loaves of bread with a beautiful golden crust and soft crumb. Next time I will make slashes across the loaves deeper before baking them to make them more visible.
Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwich (Croque-Monsieur) Page 44
A couple of years ago, I had a Croque-Madame (a Croque-Monsieur topped with a fried egg) at a French café in Paris. While I was savoring every morsel, I remember thinking that not only was I in Paris, but I was eating one of the most delicious sandwiches I have ever tasted! I have made Croque-Monsieur several times since then, but not until I made this recipe did I succeed to capture that flavour.
The Croque-Monsieur sandwich is made with country-style bread slices, butter, béchamel sauce, sliced ham and grated cheese. Once grilled, more béchamel sauce and cheese is added on the top and then it`s placed under the broiler bubbly.
In the headnote of this recipe, Mardi does mention that eating sandwich will instantly transport you to a French café, and she is right.
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Ratatouille Tian (Tian) Page 108
This recipe is one of the three versions of Ratatouille recipes listed in the Dinner (le dîner) Chapter. It`s an easy recipe to make and the presentation of the sliced eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes makes a lovely presentation. The sprinkling of Herbs of Provence adds to the flavour.
- 1 small (31/2 oz/100 g) yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon flaky sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning
- 2 baby or 1 small (7 oz/200 g) eggplant, thinly sliced
- 1 medium (5 oz/150 g) zucchini, thinly sliced
- 3 Roma tomatoes (10 oz/300 g), thinly sliced in rounds
- ½ teaspoon dried Herbes de Provence
- Olive oil, for drizzling
- Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning
- Preheat the oven to 400˚F (200˚C).
- Place the onion slices and minced garlic in the bottom of a 5- x 7-inch (13 x 18 cm) baking dish. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, the ½ teaspoon flaky sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper.
- Stack the eggplant slices upright against the long side of the dish so
- they are slightly overlapping each other. They should be quite tightly packed. Follow with a row of zucchini slices, arranged in the same manner. Next, make a row of tomato slices.
- Continue in this manner until you have no more vegetable slices left.
- You should have enough vegetable slices and room to make at least two rows of each vegetable.
- Drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the vegetables, sprinkle with the
- Herbes de Provence, cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes.
- Remove the foil from the dish, drizzle with a little more olive oil and
- bake, uncovered, for a further 20 to 30 minutes, until the vegetables are cooked through.
Will it stay on my bookshelf?
Although I did not make any of the recipes with tiny hands helping me (my two daughters are adults and my granddaughter is still a baby), I really enjoyed cooking from this cookbook. Mardi’s simplistic approach teaches young cooks necessary basic life skills.
I have many recipes left to make so it will stay on my bookshelf. Hopefully, one day I will be making recipes from In the French Kitchen with Kids with my granddaughter.
Product Details
In the French Kitchen with Kids: Easy, Everyday Dishes for the Whole Family to Make and Enjoy
Author: Mardi Michels
Softcover: 184 pages
Publisher: Appetite by Random House
ISBN: 978-0-14-753077-6
Excerpted from In the French Kitchen with Kids by Mardi Michels. Copyright © 2018 Mardi Michels. Photography © Kyla Zanardi. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.
Disclosure
In the French Kitchen with Kids was sent to me for review by Appetite Random House. The opinions are my own.
As part of the Amazon affiliate program, I make a small credit when you make a purchase through a link I provide. This is at not extra cost to you. I only write about and recommend products that I like and would benefit my readers.
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