It’s Food Revolution Day!
This year, for Food Revolution Day, Jamie Oliver wants everyone to “get kids excited about food”.
“It’s time to take action!
We need every child to understand where food comes from, how to cook it, and how it affects their body. This is about setting kids up with the knowledge they need to make better food choices for life.” – Jamie Oliver
You can read more about what Food Revolution Day is all about here.
For French Fridays with Dorie this week, we were tasked to choose a recipe from Dorie’s book, Around my French Table that we think every child should know how to make.
We discuss this topic often at home. The kids all want to make sure they know how to make my meatloaf, Salisbury steak and challah. But there are so many other things they need to know how to make before they leave home and are out on their own. Aside from the obvious basics- vinaigrettes, pate brisee, steamed vegetables (with butter and salt), chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cream pies to name a few, one of the most important dishes they need to know how to make is a good roast chicken.
So we chose Dorie’s Hurry Up and Wait Roast Chicken to make. Before I tell you about our dinner adventure, I’ll tell you this- the chicken never touched the floor!
Firstly, the girls insisted on wearing gloves so as not to actually touch the raw chicken. (Confession: I usually do too.) Hannah was the butcher and chopped off the large piece of excess neck skin. Then, Abby rubbed the entire chicken with a large chunk of butter. I added the salt and pepper as I was the only one with clean hands. I placed the chicken in the roasting pan and Hannah tied the legs and turned it on its side for the first round of roasting.
(Also, I must teach them how to hold a knife properly!)
There was a small incident while Hannah was trying to maneuver the pan and her cell phone and the pan ended up on the floor with the chicken in her bare hands. She caught it as it flipped off the counter. Great catch! Many minutes of hot water and soap followed as we all laughed hysterically.
Thinking they were relived of their dinner tasks, they dispersed to play Minecraft before being brought back to peel the carrots and chop the potatoes. We added some fresh herbs and smashed garlic to the pan and continued roasting.
We had to give up on our oven midway through because the chicken had been in for an hour already (it was nearly 9:30pm at this point) and the bird was still was not cooked. We moved it to the Puck Pressure Oven and within another half hour the chicken emerged- crisp and golden and the vegetables beneath cooked through. (“I need a new oven already”, I said to no one in particular.)
Anyway, they were very pleased with their result and I was very proud of them. We let the chicken rest on it’s head end, so the juices would run into the breast while we made the sauce. A mixture of white wine and water, pan drippings and a swirl of butter.
It’s these last touches, resting the chicken in a headstand and making the sauce, that turns a simple dish into a special dish.
I cook a lot with the girls, but mostly it’s been baking cakes and cookies, making homemade pasta, pancakes and eggs. It’s time to move on to meats and poultry – tonight was a great start. They only have a few years left at home then they will be out in the world. I hope they will take my love of cooking with them wherever they go. I honestly think they will.
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For details on creating these recipes, check out the FFWD site and see what other Dorista’s who are also cooking the book have done-
You can also buy the book here:
What a GREAT recipe to teach a child – one roast chicken will go a very long way – you’re definitely setting them up for success with this recipe. We *nearly* did a roast chicken but my kid chef couldn’t settle for just ONE dish. It’s marked in her book though.. so I am sure she’ll be making it soon. Thank you for cooking with your kids this FRD2014!
How neat that your girls already have recipes that want to learn to make. My kids just plan to show up and have me cook for them for the rest of their lives!!!! Love seeing your children in the kitchen 🙂
I’m so proud of you all for making that recipe together! I did the lazy variety. Yours looks delicious, and I couldn’t agree with you more – great to know how to make something so simple and satisfying. Luckily my nieces love to both cook and bake, but of course, they’d often choose to make desserts too. But it all comes together.
I love your process photos of the girls too – so much fun!!
As we know too well, the perfect roast chicken is a lifetime pursuit so its best to start early! IT really is the perfect thing to start kids on and fun how so many Doristas are on the same page. I did the cornish hens this week for the same reason.
I think seeing real chicken,,, not nuggets, not patties… but understanding that it comes from a bird and being able to be comfortable with that is really important too. My 12 year old made a chicken too and she was a little weird about it when it was uncooked. If we want them to eat real food I guess they need to get comfortable with real food… lucky them I had to catch and cut up eels for my Italian grandmother when I was little.
Nice post…loved seeing your girls in the kitchen! I honestly laughed out loud as you described the girls catching the chicken mid-air! Been there!
A good chicken recipe should be in everyones repertoire! Well done!!
First, hooray to the kids for hanging in there beyond 9:30PM, Mom. Whoops, just remembered that they are kids so going to bed at 8:30PM TO 9:30PM like I do, is not their problem!!!. Before I can comment on the delicious-looking chicken I must admit to having needed to google “Minecraft” (had no idea) and “Puck Pressure Oven” (had never heard of it). Also, kids being kids, I commend your daughter for not dropping the chicken to catch the cell phone (if it was headed to the floor also). My cooking partners (high school boys) kept their mobiles at their fingertips (received constant texts from girlfriends) and I worried about a mobile disaster. Like your girls, the boys were concerned about cleanliness and plastic gloves and the like. And, like you, I travel all over the Roaring Fork Valley (I live in the mountains of Colorado) to pick up the best ingredients. Since it’s not NYC, sometimes I have to rely on mailorder. Your food choices and dinner looked mighty tasty and I commend you for cooking with your girls. You wrote a very lovely Post which brought back many memories of times with my daughters.
My son can’t make a challah but he can braid one. Glad your roasted chicken turned out well even with the slight mishap. The Minecraft reference made me laugh, my son is into that also.
What a wonderful shared adventure! I think Hannah’s chicken save will go down in your family’s lore and never be forgotten. Great job!
Love all the details of the story – so good the chicken avoided the floor! This kind of recipe success sets kids up for a lifetime of cooking, especially when they have parents who make sure they have their favourite recipes in their back pockets before they leave home.