Kitchenella: The secrets of women: heroic, simple, nurturing cookery - for everyone. Rose Prince
to encounter great greasy squares of roughly chopped onions in their food – nor do I, for that matter. The sympathetic Spanish and Greek mothers have a clever technique and often grate them, so they ‘disappear’ into the dish. Gently drawing children into eating difficult food will not spoil them. Once they love the flavours that ingredients like onions give food, they will worry less about the textures. But always give chopped onions a proper amount of time to cook.
Foibles
Sarah Husband knows all about the foibles of children’s appetites. She should do, because as a school cook she prepares food for over 260 of them a day between the ages of 8 and 18, and is in charge of menus. She also has school-age children of her own. She cooks adventurously at the school and at home, and keeps choice to a minimum. Conversations with her have changed everything for me.
‘Where am I going wrong?’ I asked her, during a period when my son refused to eat the smooth tomato sauce in the recipe on page 400, claiming that it was not ‘real Italian like on pizzas’. He was ten years old at the time.
‘You went wrong because you caved in to him,’ she said. ‘Instead of being firm, you let him dictate. You should be saying: “Don’t give me all of that twaddle about tomatoes,” and win the argument. Children are not born with eating problems, they are put upon them by outside influences, often the parents. Only a child with anorexia nervosa will try and starve, and there is a point when a healthy child’s hunger becomes bigger than its will to mess you around.’
I agreed with all this, yet admitted not feeling up to a fight when the six o’clock swill is in full swing.
‘You have to know when to get angry, and show it. When a child who can understand reason is consistently not eating you have to show you are upset. If you keep smiling, they’ll think you are too easy-going.’
At the school she offers the 260 children a one-pot dish with a vegetable for lunch. She makes braises, risottos, curries, pilaffs, pasta and noodle dishes. The obligatory salads offered are substantial. ‘The girls are not going to get away with eating a lump of cucumber,’ she says. Husband’s sons, George, Alfie and Joe, are good eaters. ‘I am tough with them about food but despite this my children hug me and say they love me. Being weak can be so cruel,’ she adds.
Her advice turned the tomato argument in my favour. The next time I served both my children pasta with tomato sauce, the response was predictable. ‘I’m not eating that,’ said Jack. I stuck to my guns (large gulp of white wine), took the food away and ended his meal. The ensuing row was painful but at the end of the awful evening, I detected a whisper of mutual understanding. It was Sarah’s word ‘twaddle’ that inspired me. Children are often not reasonable – they talk twaddle all the time and we fall for it.
SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN’S MEALS
• In the early stages, do not give up and try another food if a very young child spits something out. Give the same ingredient, prepared another way. If they really don’t like it, however, don’t force it.
• If a child likes something you give them, don’t bombard them with it or they will go off it.
• Once a child is old enough to reason, be brave enough to take a refused dish away and tell them the meal is over.
• Do not give puddings as a matter of course but only once or twice a week. Encourage healthier puddings that include fruit and yoghurt instead.
• A child is not a restaurant critic; never ask him or her if they liked a new recipe. If they have something to say, they will tell you.
• Once the meal is on the table, sit down with the child even if you are not eating. Keep distraction to a minimum – no TV and not too much talking.
• Last – and this is important and will take up all your steely will – if you spend the whole afternoon cooking something and they taste it and say ‘ugh’, turn your back so they cannot see the hurt and disappointment on your face. Try not to let a child know they have the power to do this.
I have published this recipe of Sarah’s before – but many have said how good it is and it has a place here, too. You can make it with fresh mince (beef or lamb) or minced leftover beef or lamb. The genius of it is that all the goodness and delicious flavour of vegetables are there, but they are invisible. Eat with mash or Yorkshire puddings.
SERVES 6–8
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped or grated
900g/2lb fresh minced beef or lamb (or minced leftover meat)
20 button mushrooms, grated
2 carrots, grated
about 4 heaped tablespoons grated root vegetables – parsnip, turnip, swede, celeriac (mix them, if you wish)
1 heaped teaspoon English mustard powder
1 litre/1¾ pints beef stock
sea salt and black pepper
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (optional)
Heat the oil in a large casserole, add the onion and cook for at least 5 minutes over a low heat until lightly browned. Add the minced meat, the mushrooms and all the vegetables and cook, stirring, over a medium heat for 1 minute. Add the mustard, stir a few times and pour in the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to very low and simmer for about 40 minutes to 1 hour, until the beef is tender. Add more stock or water if the braise is becoming dry. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add the Worcestershire sauce, if using.
The beginning – pheasant curry
‘Mine eats pheasant curry.’ I am showing off to other mothers of three-year-olds who have not got past the baby pasta stars phase. It was true. We used to buy cheap pheasants, then make a mild curry, mix it with rice and yoghurt and watch it go down by the bowlful. Pride is dangerous. On arrival in primary school he soon clicked that this was not normal among his peers and had the famous pheasant curry dropped from the menu. Back to pasta, though it was possible by now to feed penne, not stars. Tastes evolve in unpredictable ways. From being force-fed eclectic dishes as an unquestioning weaner, to the monolithic predilections of pre-teens – pizza, pasta and nothing else – to a sudden liking for searingly hot and sour tom yum soup at fourteen. It is like running a restaurant and keeping an eccentric, long-term regular happy. Nothing surprises me any more. In the meantime, try the weaners’ curry. I used to love finishing up the leftovers in the bowl.
SERVES 4–8, DEPENDING ON APPETITE
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, grated
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 dessertspoon mild curry powder
2 pheasant breasts, sliced into children’s bite-sized pieces
4 tablespoons smooth tomato sauce (see page 400) or passata
4 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon smooth mild mango chutney (sieve or process the usual type)
To serve: boiled rice, wholemilk yoghurt
Melt the butter in a pan over a low heat and add the onion and garlic. Cook for a nice long time, about 10 minutes, until the onion is transparent but not coloured. Add the curry powder and sizzle for half a minute, then put in the pheasant and stir until the meat turns opaque. Add the tomato with the water and cook until the pheasant is tender. Remove from the heat. For very young children with no molars, give the curry a little whiz in a food processor. Older ones should manage the textures. Stir in the mango chutney. To serve, mix the heated curry with freshly cooked rice and a little wholemilk yoghurt.
Shall I be mother? Whose job is it anyway?
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