Kids Can Cook Fettuccine with Simple Lobster Sauce

My nine year old helped me throw this one together. We had some cooked Maine lobsters leftover from the weekend and  wanted to use them in a dish everyone would eat. I was thinking Lobster Fra Diablo but wasn’t sure my girls would enjoy it so I came up with this simple alternative.

My nine year old Maddie has Cerebral Palsy so I try to find jobs she can handle safely and still feel like she is contributing. It’s not difficult at all. She helped me get ingredients from the refrigerator, grab the necessary cookware from the cabinets, cut herbs from the herb garden, pick lobster meat from the shells, stir the pasta and set the table. All I had to do was cut and cook.

If you want to read more about how teaching your kids to cook is a good thing, check out my blog series starting with Kids Can Cook. I also built a Squidoo lens on the same topic called Teaching Your Kids To Cook.

Fettuccine with Simple Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

3/4 pounds of fettuccine
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups lobster stock*
2 cooked lobsters, meat from tail and legs removed and chopped into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper, to taste

How to Make Fettuccine with Lobster Sauce

Start by bringing a big pot of water to boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

Heat a medium sized saute (frying) pan until hot. Add oil and when it begins to shimmer, just before the smoking point, add the onions and cook for 3 minutes over medium high heat. Add the garlic and continue cooking until the onions become translucent. Do not let the garlic burn.

Add a quarter cup of the lobster stock to deglaze the pan. Add the lobster and the rest of the lobster stock. Continue cooking until the lobster stock is reduced by half or to your desired thickness.

Add the chopped basil and parsley. Mount the butter in pieces. Mounting is where you add butter to a sauce at the end to give it texture, flavor and a sheen. It is better to cut it up into smaller pieces and add one at a time while continuously stirring. You don’t want to add all the butter at once.

Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper.

When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the sauce, mix all together and serve.

*Lobster Stock - Not the easiest thing to find commercially and when in a hurry, not something you want to make. It is easy enough to make some decent stock with the shells and bodies of the lobster you are not using and here is a link to a lobster stock recipe but I used a product called Glace de Fruits de Mer Gold which is a fancy name for seafood stock but this stuff is more of a shellfish stock.  You can read more about it here at Lobster Stock.

Cooking With Kids: Cobb Salad

When you think of cooking with kids, you might shy away from knives, ovens and stoves and maybe just stick to sandwiches. I fully understand why you may follow that tactic and respect your decision. However, when I cook with my girls, I want the opportunity to not only spend quality time with them, but also to teach them new skills that will serve them well in the kitchen (and beyond) for the rest of their lives. It might sound just the slightest bit hokey, but positive cooking experiences early in life can lead to confidence that isn’t confined to just the kitchen.

Saying that, I am very careful especially when it comes to working with knives or being around a hot stove. I start them off with butter knives and after showing them how to handle a paring knife, I monitor every cut they make. My nine year old is still using the butter knife, but my eleven year old is now working with sharper knives and I don’t take my eyes off her. When either of them is near the stove, I constantly remind them the stove is hot, can be dangerous and to be careful. (Disclaimer - This is what I’m doing with my kids but you must decide for yourself if you think your children are capable of handling kitchen knives, kitchen equipment or being around a hot stove.)

So, for a hearty salad meal, I like to make a great Cobb Salad with my daughters. It’s truly an American invention, devised, like so many great recipes, on the fly at the Brown Derby in Los Angeles back in 1937. I’m sure most of you have had at least a variation on this salad: cooked chicken, mixed greens, avocado, hard-cooked eggs and bacon, all dressed with a simple vinaigrette.

The great thing about the Cobb Salad is that there are so many preparation techniques that the more difficult tasks could be left to older children while younger children will still have plenty to do to help. Before I go into all the different skills, let’s take a quick look at the recipe.

Cobb Salad
Serves 4

½ head Romaine lettuce
½ head Boston lettuce
1 small bunch frisee (curly endive)
½ bunch watercress (remove tough stems)
6 slices bacon
2 ripe avocados
(juice of one lime)
1 whole skinless, boneless chicken breast (about 12 oz.)
1 tomato
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Vinaigrette

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
1-2 teaspoons sugar
Salt and pepper, to taste
2/3 cup light olive oil
4 oz. Roquefort cheese

Okay, so here is our ingredient list. It doesn’t really seem too daunting. Now, let’s look at the skills that are needed to actually put this salad together:

Tearing/rinsing/spinning lettuce
Cooking bacon
Cutting/pitting/cubing avocados
Cooking/cooling/dicing chicken breast
Seeding/dicing tomatoes
Hard cooking/peeling/separating eggs
Mincing chives
Volume measurements
Whisking/emulsifying

According to the age and skill level of the child or children you’re cooking with, you might want to perform some of these tasks (cooking bacon, poaching chicken breast) beforehand. You might also decide that your kids are up to learning and performing all of these tasks, and that’s great, too. The most important thing is to be relaxed. If it’s going to be more stressful on you to watch your child use a chef knife to mince chives, just go ahead and do that part yourself.

Now, here’s how the salad comes together.

Salad Prep

1. Rinse and spin all the lettuces. Tear it all into bite-sized pieces.
2. Cook the bacon until crisp. Let cool on paper towels, and then crumble. (Warning: bacon spatters when cooking so pay extra attention if you let your kids cook the bacon or do it yourself. An alternative is to use the microwave. It does a pretty good job without the splatter.)
3. Halve, pit and cube the avocado. Toss with the lime juice to inhibit browning.
4. Poach, cool and dice the chicken breast.
5. Halve, seed then dice the tomato
6. Hard boil, cool and peel the eggs. Finely chop the whites and the yolks separately.

Vinaigrette

1. In a bowl, combine the vinegar, mustard, 1 teaspoon sugar, salt and pepper. Whisk very well to combine.
2. While whisking, slowly add the oil in a thin stream.
3. Stir in the crumbled cheese.
4. Taste, and stir in a bit more sugar, salt or pepper, if necessary.

Assembling the Salad

1. Toss all the greens together and arrange in an even layer on a large platter.
2. Place the crumbled bacon, diced avocado, diced chicken, diced tomato, egg whites, and egg yolks on top of the lettuce. This is where you can have some fun. You can arrange the ingredients in stripes; you can talk about fractions and have your child sprinkle the chicken on “half of the salad;” you can place the ingredients in a checkerboard pattern. The only rule is to place all of the ingredients and try not to have any of the plain greens peeking out. Don’t forget to sprinkle on the chives.
3. Evenly pour the dressing on the salad (you might not use it all).
4. Dig in.

I hope you can see the potential for fun with this salad. There is no reason in the world that you can’t add other ingredients. Tailor it to your family’s tastes. It might not be a traditional Cobb Salad, but if your family likes olives or broccoli, add some. If they like tuna, use that instead of, or in addition to, the chicken. Use goat cheese or even a mild cheddar in place of the Roquefort. Use this as a template for all sorts of composed salad possibilities.

At the end of the day, what we’re looking at is a procedure to a) encourage family time, learning and fun in the kitchen, b) get healthy food into your family, and c) show your kids that making a salad is far from intimidating—just dice up some ingredients, put them on some greens and make a simple vinaigrette.

I hope this Cobb Salad idea encourages you to cook with your kids. I guarantee that everyone will have a great time and that there will be a whole lot of vegetable eating going on!

Related Articles

Kids Can Cook

Teaching Your Kids To Cook - Developing Intellect

Cooking Helps Kids With Language Skills, Self-Confidence and Following Directions

Caramelizing Onions with Your Kids

Please be sure to check out my Squidoo lens called Teaching Your Kids To Cook for more of the benefits of teaching your children how to cook and is part of my new segment called Kids Can Cook. You’ll also want to read my blog post on How Cooking Can Give Your Child Self Confidence and Learn How to Follow Directions.

How Cooking Can Help Improve Your Child’s Basic Intellect

Vocabulary development, reading comprehension, counting, adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying, measurement, fractions, spatial relations, sequencing, logical thinking, prediction, cause and effect, chemistry. No, that’s not a list of the skills your child will be developing in third grade this year. It’s a list of all of the skills you are helping your child to develop just by cooking with them. It’s a surprisingly long, and surprisingly sophisticated list.

Are you shocked? I always knew that I was doing something good by cooking with my girls, but I must admit that I was a little shocked by how comprehensive this list is. And I’m not even listing things like following directions, cooperation and other social skills that I’ve already covered!

Let’s frame all of these skills in the context of an actual recipe. Then, I think it will be easier to see how children can learn so much, even without any overt teaching.

A Simple Waffles Recipe For You and Your Kids

1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 eggs, separated
7 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 ½ cups whole milk

How To Make Waffles With Your Kids

1. Separate the eggs, putting the whites into the bowl of your stand mixer or in a metal bowl (if you have a hand mixer)

2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar together

3. Whisk the yolks, oil and whole milk together.

4. Fold the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients.

5. Whip the egg whites to medium peaks.

6. Thoroughly fold the whites into the batter.

7. For a 9” round waffle, use ½ cup of batter. Makes 9 waffles.

8. If nine is too many, freeze the leftovers and reheat in the toaster oven.

What This Recipe Will Teach Your Kids

Let’s take each skill, one at a time. Remember depending on the age and level of your children, not all of these skills may be age appropriate. Use your best judgment; nobody knows your child as well as you do. And of course, whether or not you choose to overtly ask each question will have an affect on the “natural” setting. I just want you to be aware of how many different skills you can teach your kids while you’re cooking.

Vocabulary development: Here’s a list of words that you can teach, just from this one recipe. You can choose to use and highlight the words that you think are appropriate for your child. Personally, I don’t think it’s ever too early to start introducing “bigger” words to kids. Separate, whisk, fold, whip, freeze, teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, baking powder, egg foam/meringue, yolks, albumin, ingredients, peaks, dry ingredients, wet ingredients, waffle iron, any other words that you think are important. Some of these terms may even be new to you so it really becomes a learning opportunity.

Reading comprehension: The ability to provide accurate responses regarding questions concerning written language. Reading comprehension is dependent on accurate reading ability, reasoning skills, attention and memory.

According to this definition, reading comprehension is dependent on 4 other skills, so this is a big one. While this sounds intimidating, it is really as easy as having your child read the recipe, one step at a time (or reading it to your child) and then asking them what they are supposed to do. Then, you just have them follow each step, giving as much or as little assistance as your child needs or wants.

Counting: “How many dry ingredients are in this recipe? Wet ingredients? Total ingredients?” “Measure out 2 teaspoons of baking powder. One…..two!” “Measure out 7 tablespoons of vegetable oil. One….two….three….”

Adding and subtracting: “Okay, we cracked one egg. We need to crack three. How many eggs do we still need to crack?” “We need one bowl for dry ingredients, one bowl for wet ingredients and one bowl for the whites. How many bowls do we need altogether?”

Multiplying and dividing: “We’re making 9 waffles. Each waffle takes ½ cup of batter. How much batter should we have?” “How much batter would we need if we were only going to make 4 waffles?” “If we want 18 waffles, how much flour would we need?”

Measurement: “There are three teaspoons in a tablespoon.” “Look, this is how you level off your cup to make sure you have the right amount.” “Let’s see how much volume 7 tablespoons will fill.”

Fractions: “If it take 3 teaspoons to make 1 tablespoon, what fraction of a tablespoon is a teaspoon?” “How much salt would we need to make 18 waffles?” “Which is more: ¾ cup or ½ cup?”

Spatial relations: “What is happening to the whites as we beat them?” “Which bowl is big enough to hold all these ingredients?”

Sequencing: What do we do first: whip the egg whites or fold them into the batter?” “First, we separate the eggs. Next, we whisk the dry ingredients together. Then, we whisk the wet ingredients together.”

Logical thinking: “Could we still make waffles without separating the eggs?” “What does whipping the egg whites do to the batter?” “Why does it tell us to whisk all the dry ingredients together?”

Prediction: “Do you think we’ll break any of the yolks while we are separating the eggs?” “How thick do you think the batter will be?” “What do you think will folding in whipped egg whites will do to the batter?” “How much waffle batter will we need to make Belgium waffles?” “How many Belgium waffles do you think we can make with the batter we have?” “What do you think will happen to the batter while it is in the waffle iron?”

Cause and Effect: “We added a little bit of sugar to the batter. What do you think it will make the waffles taste like?” “Oh, we used ¾ cups of batter for this waffle, and look at the mess we made! Next time, we let’s remember to follow the directions.” “What will happen to the waffles that we put in the freezer?”

Chemistry: “Oh, look at what happens when you mix baking powder into warm water! What do you think the baking powder will do in our waffle batter?” “Hey, look at all the little bubbles that form when we whip our egg whites!” “Sugar helps things brown. If we leave it out, our waffles won’t be as golden brown as they could be.”

Wow! That’s a lot of teaching and learning! Again, please remember that it is not necessary, (nor is it necessarily advisable) to be too overt in your instructions. At the end of the day, this should be about you and your children participating in a fun and creative activity together. Just be aware of how powerful a tool cooking can be in teaching your kids.