Savoury dishes a 9yo can cook?

[AChickenCalledKorma]

I'm sure there's already a thread on this somewhere, but I can't find it.

DD1 loves to bake and has reached the point where she can rustle up a sponge cake or batch of muffins more or less unaided.

I'm keen to get her cooking a main course so I can laze about with a glass of wine while she works!

Have shown her a basic bolognese sauce tonight and I reckon she could do that on her own fairly soon. Am a bit stuck what else she could tackle, though. She's not keen on stews/casseroles or anything spicy, which knocks out some of the likely candidates. Anyone got a keen young cook in the family that can give me some ideas?

My DD is 10, for the last couple of years she has been able to make herself a sort of cheats carbonara. She dices ham, breaks an egg and mixes it up.
Once I've drained the pasta (she is too puny to lift the pan) she adds the egg and a bit of cream then stirs the ham in and voila, all ready for her to eat.

First of all good for you for actually teaching your kids to cook. Seems to me it's a dying art (wait in anticipation of huge MN backlash). Other simple pasta sauces would be good to teach like a pesto, or a basic roux so that she could do macaroni cheese. She's half a step away from a full lasagne then too. Stir fries would be good if you are happy with her knife skills. Perhaps you could introduce the process of a roast but using chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken. My dd is only six so a bit young for this level of cooking yet (she's a dab hand with any kind of egg dish though) but I can't wait to teach her more substantial things.

It really helps having a decent kids' cookbook that they can refer to step by step. We've got the Usborne Children's Cookbook by Rebecca Gilpin. At the weekend DD2 (9) cooked us all burgers with home-made salsa and a Greek salad - the burgers cook in the oven rather than being fried with a pan, for instance, so are much safer. There are also some cool recipes for roast chicken, stir fry, chili, soups, and the recipe for apple crumble has now become our family standard.

I agree with couldtry that not enough people teach their kids the basics of how to cook, and 9 is a good age to be starting. At that age they're old enough to choose their own recipe, write out the ingredients and come with you to the supermarket to buy them.

Other recipes in the book (we haven't tried all of them):

vegetable crumble
ratatouille
macaroni cheese
pasta with fresh tomato sauce
tagliatelle carbonara
chicken curry
vegetable risotto
salmon fishcakes
pizza
quiche
spanish omelette
fish pie
oven-baked salmon

Fish cakes? I was making basic fish cakes using tuna and boiled potatoes, flour and egg about this age, I think.

My 9yo can make omelette, scrambled eggs and beans-on-toast type meals.
She can also follow a simple recipe quite well. We have a children's cookery book, but I can't remember its name, I'm afraid, and she does well at following recipes from there.

Risotto? My 4 1/2 dd makes risotto suggestions now!

Omelette, frittata, fish/veggie cakes, burgers, chickpea burgers, meat balls, kebabs, Shepard pie, lasagne, mac and cheese, BBQ chicken, baked potatoes me made chicken/fish goujons baked not deep fried

Also mine love making toad in the hole with garlic cheesy potato, onion gravy and peas

I get mine to make a meal each a week. This is purely to help them to develop their life skills, you understand.

Mine can both do:

Risotto (which is dead easy, really)
Fish pie
Shepherd's pie
Chilli
Spag Bol
Carbonara
Cheese on toast
DIY pizza (they used to love that, but it's been off the menu for a while. They love seeing the pizza dough rise)
Fillet steak and chips. Which is both painful (no cooking skills to speak of) and expensive and since they cannot be bothered to make something like a pepper sauce to go with it, rather dull

My dd is also 9, also a dab hand at baking, & we've been exactly where you are.

I find the trouble with children's cookery books is that they tend to depend on ingredients that I don't have / wouldn't normally buy, and don't make the sort of food we eat. We generally eat a lot of seasonal/local stuff, mainly from our garden, and mostly veggie - and largely dairy free cos DH is allergic to cows milk products.

Things that dd has made, though so far with me helping/shouting instructions are dahl, rice & greens and pasta with tomato sauce (bit of a cheat as we've got lots of bottled toms). I'm sure she could also make vegetable soup as she often helps with the chopping etc.

I keep meaning to make a proper 'recipe book' for the things we eat a lot with quantities, timings etc so that dd can make them without me hovering around - perhaps this thread will inspire me to get on with it!

DD is 9 tomorrow and has started cooking! She makes a mean scrambled egg! Can anyone recommend a good children's cookery book? I have a few but they are a bit basic now and a bit sweet!! Need more savoury meals now

The six year old I look after enjoyed making salmon parcels for tea the other day - the recipe was in a brilliant kids cookbook she got for Christmas (might have been an usborne one)

It was simply a square of grease proof paper, put the salmon steak on top, finely chopped veggies e.g. Peppers, carrots, spring onions on top of the fish, then a sauce made with soy sauce, orange juice and ginger poured over. Wrap the paper up tightly and bake for about twenty minutes.

She can also do an avocado and prawn thing with a cocktail sauce (mayo, ketchup and yoghurt) completely on her own, obviously with some supervision with the knife, but we've taught her how to use sharp knives safely.

How could I have forgotten cous cous with roasted veg? DD not at all keen on the vegetable component, but does well with the cous cous which is essentially, boiling water on dried gear.

Couscous is a good idea, Kreecher - draining pasta is one thing that I'm definitely not happy for dd to do yet.

DS (10) did a few cookery classes last year which were great for him mastering a few skills without me having to clear up the mess. He made, and has continued to make at home leek and potato soup and spinach and ricotta canneloni. He has some of the Sam Stern books which are great 'real' cooking for that age.

Wow - thanks for some great ideas. We do have some children's cook books, but like Takver have usually found they are not the sort of stuff we normally eat. But maybe that's because we are stuck in a rut and I should let DD find us something new!

Like the idea of a range of pasta sauces. Also fish cakes - hadn't thought of those at all and she could definitely do a basic tun-of-tuna-and-boiled-potatoes one. Am going to keep this thread and work through a few ideas.

(Thinks ahead excitedly to the day when one meal a week can be delegated to the offspring )

I'd get your dd to have a look through some cookbooks and choose something that interests her - go to the library, if cookbooks are on the limited side at home.