Dynamite Kids Cooking School: Delicious Recipes That Teach All the Skills You Need: A Cookbook

by Dana Bowen, Sara Kate Gillingham

Overview

Delicious recipes and lessons from The Dynamite Shop, the premier cooking school for young cooks, from beginners to budding chefs.

IACP AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times

The Dynamite Shop is where kids from 7 to 17 have a blast learning fundamental cooking skills that they carry into their home kitchens and real life. From their Brooklyn school and in online classes, they’ve taught thousands of kids how to make dinner (and breakfast, and lunch . . . and dessert) with their signature mix of food kids really want to make, and detailed guidance. 
 
This cookbook features recipes from simple quesadillas filled with sautéed greens, a hearty lasagna, and a classic layer cake to exciting dishes like a quick, summery mac and cheese made with a light ricotta sauce, a puffy Dutch Baby pancake, and gingery pork or vegetarian Cantonese-style dumplings. With each recipe is a tip, trick, or technique that kids will learn and remember, not just for the next time they make this dish, but every time they get into the kitchen. Whether you’re just beginning to cook or you’re ready to tackle anything in the kitchen, this cookbook will empower and engage you to make a lifetime of great meals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593138458
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	169,276
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sara Kate Gillingham is the founder of The Kitchn, an online kitchen and lifestyle community, a James Beard Award-winning food writer, and the author of three cookbooks: The Kitchn Cookbook, The Greyston Bakery Cookbook, and Good Food to Share. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter.

Dana Bowen is a food writer and former executive editor of Food & Wine, Martha Stewart Living, Rachael Ray Every Day and Saveur. She lives in Brooklyn and upstate New York with her husband and son.

Read an Excerpt

Welcome to the Shop


We’re glad you’re here, and we’re so excited to cook with you.

We’re Dana and Sara Kate, two food writers and friends—and, most importantly, parents—who, in 2018, opened a cooking school for kids and families in an old Brooklyn pizzeria that now beams classes online to students all over the world. 

We’re all about empowering kids in the kitchen and helping them gain confidence by learning to cook. In our school, we host The Dynamite Dinner Club several times a week and walk the students through making a full meal for their family—it might be seasonal pasta one week, vegetable fried rice the next. We cook alongside them, they ask questions, we get closeups of their cutting board. We also teach The Dynamite Baking Club, Weekend Workshops, weeklong summer camps, and a free Community Kitchen charity class where we invite guest chefs to teach us a dish to raise money for a social justice cause that’s meaningful to them.

We’re an inclusive and supportive community that revolves around food. Whether you’re a parent of a budding cook or a young chef picking up your first very own cookbook, we’re so happy you’re here.

This book is a collection of our most popular recipes from all our classes—that means kids love to make them, eat them, and serve them! They’re our greatest hits, with all the tips, tricks, lessons, and cooks’ wisdom we impart to our students as we’re cooking together. Our recipes are designed to teach kids how to think and act like confident home cooks.

We started The Dynamite Shop because we believe there are so many reasons to get kids in the kitchen early and often. As people who spend most days working with and thinking about food (Sara Kate has written three other cookbooks and started a popular food site called TheKitchndotcom, and Dana is a food writer and former executive editor at Saveur, Food & Wine, and other culinary magazines), we could never find a cooking school that we would want to enroll our own kids in: most of them were too cutesy (you know, like “kidz” with a z) with infantilized recipes and instructions that talked down to kids and minimized their potential. Or, even worse, they taught cooking as a hyped-up sport, like cookingshow competitions with celebrity-chef bravura. They totally missed the point!

We wanted more for our kids in the kitchen. Cooking instruction has gradually disappeared from most of our lives without anyone ringing alarm bells. Most schools no longer teach home ec, and most households aren’t set up as they used to be, with multiple generations cooking together and passing down kitchen wisdom while preparing and sharing meals.

And as busy working parents, we also know that—let’s face it—the mealtime hustle and challenge are real. So we created a program where empowering kids in the kitchen to get dinner on the table at least once a week was the solution to all that.

We signed the lease on a run-down pizzeria and transformed the dilapidated storefront space into a comfy teaching kitchen, with a cook’s library, backyard garden, and neighborhood café up front. As soon as we opened, we were booked to capacity with our after-school program, which got dinner on one hundred families’ tables each week, and our summer camps, which served thousands.

When we weren’t teaching, we were a community hub: we hosted charity cookie swaps and PTA fundraisers, cooked for local shelters and assisted living residences, supported social action and food justice initiatives, made breakfasts for marches, and held election-year phonebank events. It’s crucial to us that we continue to make food spaces like kitchens and dinner tables places that are always welcoming young people to express themselves and to help one another.

In 2020, we switched to teaching cooking classes online so that kids could make dinner for their families in their own homes. Before we knew it, we were cooking with 500-plus families each week, all gathering remotely from around the world.

In the process of teaching online, we learned something important: teaching kids to cook in their own kitchens is the best way to help them build confidence and skills. They’re more focused and in their comfort zone, and most importantly, they’re cooking with a purpose—to feed the people they love. Our teachers can still see what they’re doing and guide them safely and joyfully as they make a meal. And when class is over, dinner is on the table.

We developed this program—and now this book—to teach, support, guide, and cheer you on your path to becoming a dynamite cook.

Table of Contents

Introduction 10

Organizing your space 15

Developing your skills 24

How to build flavor 38

1 Eggs

Boiled Eggs 48

Fried Egg 49

Scrambled Eggs 51

Poached Egg 51

Totally Adaptable Frittata 52

Sweet and Savory Crepes 55

Dutch Baby 58

2 Roasting

Skillet-Roasted Whole Chicken 63

Spiced Roasted Vegetables 65

Cheater's Porchetta 66

Whole-Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Maple Spice Compound Butter and All the Toppings 69

Butternut Squash Pasta with Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onions 70

Herbed Hasselback Potatoes 72

Spiced Chicken Thighs with Brussels Sprouts and Orange Zest 75

Spiced and Marinated Kebabs 77

3 Sautéing & searing

Laab Moo Lettuce Wraps 80

Crispy Sesame Orange Chicken or Tofu 82

Garlic-Ginger Blistered Green Beans 83

Up-to-You Fried Rice 84

Panfried Dumplings 86

Lemony Broccoli Rabe 88

Vegetarian Meatballs 89

Meatballs and Sauce 90

Healthy Greens Quesadillas 92

Summer Squash and Herb Risotto 95

Perfect Cast-Iron Steak 96

Smash Burgers 98

4 Sauces

Tzatziki 102

Romesco 103

Salsa Fresca 104

Classic Guacamole 105

Mayonnaise and Aioli 107

Any-Herb Pesto 109

Kale and Toasted Pepita Winter Pesto 110

Pan Sauces and Mounting with Butter 112

Béchamel Sauce 113

5 Pasta

Just Pasta 116

Basic Marinara Sauce 117

Fresh Pasta 118

Summery One-Pot Mac and Cheese 121

Classic Mac and Cheese with Roasted Broccoli 122

Up-to-You Seasonal Pasta 124

Pasta alla Carbonara 126

Up-to-You Lasagna 128

6 Casseroles

Shepherd's Pie with Potato-Parsnip Mash 132

Cheesy Cauliflower Gratin 134

Loaded Enchiladas 135

Family-Style Chicken Pot Pie with Lattice Crust 136

7 Soups & stews

Italian Wedding Soup 140

Up-to-You Vegetable Soup 142

Quick "Ramen" Noodle Soup 145

Vegetarian Three-Bean Chili with All the Toppings 146

Family-Style French Onion Soup 148

Coconut Curry Noodle Soup 150

Curry with All the Vegetables 153

Garden Gazpacho 154

Green Pozole 157

Pho (Vietnamese Noodle Soup) 158

Gumbo 161

8 Salads

Cobb Salad 164

Rainbow Grain Bowl with Tahini Dressing 167

Tangy Carrot and Cucumber Salad 170

Apple Cranberry Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette 173

Iceberg Wedge Salad with Carrot-Ginger Dressing 174

Garlicky Smashed Cucumbers 177

Antipasto Salad 178

Arugula Salad with Parmesan and Zesty Lemon Dressing 181

Massaged Kale Salad 182

Fattoush Salad 184

Chopped Cucumber and Radish Salad with Honey-Lime Vinaigrette 187

Cheater's Caesar Salad 188

9 Breads & baking

Monkey Bread 192

Mix-and-Match Muffins 196

Sleepover No-Knead Bread 199

Overnight Pizza Dough 202

Sheet Pan Pizzas 204

Skillet Corn Bread or Corn Muffins 207

Buttery Drop Biscuits 209

Banana Bread with Brown Sugar Glaze 210

10 Sweets

Buttermilk Cupcakes 214

Buttercream Frosting 217

Classic Layer Cake 218

Olive Oil Orange Cake 223

Rustic Fruit Galette 224

Blueberry-Lemon Hand Pies 226

Chewy Brownies 229

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies 230

Mix-and-Match Holiday Cookies 233

Graham Cracker Pumpkin Praline Pie 236

Chocolate Pots de Crème 239

Banana Pudding 240

Zesty Lemon Bars 242

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Choose-Your-Own Compote 244

Classic Cream Puffs with Raspberry Whipped Cream and Berries 246

11 Drinks

Homemade Soda 250

Bubble Tea 252

Thai Iced Tea 254

Lemonade 255

Spicy Chai 257

Italian Hot Chocolate 258

Shirley Temple 259

12 Other things cooks do

Chicken Stock 262

Vegetable Scrap Stock 264

Cooking Dried Beans 265

Cooking Grains 269

Quick Friage Pickles 272

Pickled Red Onions 274

Maraschino Cherries 274

Half-Sour Pickles 275

Easy Any-Fruit Jam 276

Whipped Cream 276

Zesty Bread Crumbs 277

Shaken Butter 278

Handmade Corn Tortillas 279

Toasted Nuts and Seeds 280

Garlicky Bruschetta and Croutons 281

Glossary 282

Acknowledgments 284

Index 285

Editorial Reviews

This book is a stylish, fun cookbook aimed at kids ages 7-17 (although, frankly, anyone new to cooking would benefit). . . This book sums up their approach and offers tips and a wealth of knowledge for any young person (and their sous chefs) wanting to get started in the kitchen. Some of these recipes are wow-worthy, and others will become quick favorites for the whole family.”—Edible Inland Northwest

From the Publisher

12/01/2022

Gr 4 Up—This cookbook serves up a foundation of skills for new chefs of all ages. Written by the creators of The Dynamite Shop, a cooking school for kids and families that started in Brooklyn but has since moved online, this cookbook dedicates 45 pages to cooking skills basics and tips before getting to any actual recipes. The recipes themselves are divided into 12 sections that focus on the overarching categories of cooking: "Eggs," "Roasting," and "Sweets," to name a few. The book has a robust index and glossary of terms that new chefs can easily reference. The recipes, sourced directly from The Dynamite Shop classes and including, for instance, butternut squash pasta with goat cheese and caramelized onions and green pozole, are more complex than one might expect for a kids' cookbook. The book also offers ideas for customizing or adapting flavors to the chef's own palate, inspiring creativity. While the recipes are clearly organized and written, not every recipe contains a photograph of the finished product. Beginning cooks may struggle to visualize what they're working toward—especially if the dish or ingredients are unfamiliar to them. VERDICT A thorough volume from experienced instructors; a fine choice for juvenile cookbook collections.

School Library Journal