I will second that roast chicken recipe - it’s our go-to.
Talk him through making a basic chicken stock with the bones, also - it just takes tossing it in a pot with some carrots / onions / celery (don’t even really need to chop those - just rinse 'em and throw 'em in whole - or get a bag of frozen pre-chopped, look for the name “mire-poix”). Whole peppercorns and a bay leaf or two, if he has them. That’ll also help get the last little bits of meat off the bones.
Cook it overnight - or just for a few hours on the stove, or just an hour in the Instant Pot. Strain, cool, pick the meat off the bones, throw that back in, let the stock sit in the fridge to help defat it.
Simmer with more veggies of whatever sort - and add noodles if you like (or rice). My preference is carrots and a bit of celery for the veg - again, can use frozen pre-chopped for the carrots (dunno about the celery - but even with minimal dexterity celery is easy to cut up).
That does take some elapsed time, but the hands-on part is minimal - literally just the time to strain the stock and pick out the meat. With all that, he’s gonna eat very well for a full week on one chicken.
Plus the chicken itself is so easy, and it’s good enough to serve for guests.
We like to throw some baby carrots in the bottom of the pan when roasting the chicken. They will get so beautifully caramelized, they are spectacular. First time I did that, my son didn’t want to try them: “They’re burnt!”. We encouraged him to try just one - and he was a convert.
Some thoughts from me:
One saucepan (3 quarts or thereabouts) and one larger pan - a 6-7 quart dutch oven, or a taller stockpot - those should do for basic cooking. The dutch oven will be slightly more versatile (IMO) than the stock pot. Maybe a frying pan of some sort if he’d be making stuff that would benefit from a frying pan.
One basic cookie sheet.
2-3 decent knives. A paring knife, a mid-length serrated one, and a larger knife good for chopping stuff. The mid-length serrated one will do enough for carving something like a chicken. Look for ones that can go in a dishwasher (i.e. no wooden handles).
A soup ladle, a regular spoon, and a slotted spoon. Maybe a whisk. Same caveat re the handles.
One cutting board. Ideally one that can go in a dishwasher.
One set of dry-measures. One set of measuring spoons (ideally a size / shape that will fit into a spice jar). One regular 2 or 4 quart measuring cup.
One large strainer or colander. If he’s not ever going to be cooking pasta / noodles, a hand-held strainer will do; if he will cook pasta etc. it’s useful to be have something that you can set in the sink when pouring a potful of water + pasta.
A few basic herbs and spices. You can buy those spice turntables etc. that come with a bunch of spices, though I’ve always gone with individual bottles that I purchase as needed. May not look as pretty as a set, but I know what I’ve got and how long it’s been around, and I only get what I know I’ll need. Salt, pepper (pre-ground, and a grinder with whole peppercorns), oregano, basil, cinnamon, onion salt, celery salt, garlic salt, cinnnamon all come to mind as must-haves.
Oh yeah … chicken stock is one of the few things he has already learned to make, and we’ve done it together many times. The “recipe” I taught him is “chicken carcass plus 4, 4, 3”: four vegetables (carrot, celery, onion, garlic), four spices (bay, clove, celery seed, peppercorn), and three liquids: water, lemon juice, and wine. Produces magnificent results and the stock is a base for many other delicious foods.
Re herbs and spices: he loves anything made with Penzey’s Adobo, dried basil, white pepper, ground cumin, and/or bacon salt. I will make sure his kitchen has all of those - he’ll be able to replicate “mom food” pretty well with those as I use them generously when I am cooking specifically for him!
When my daughters were learning to cook, I got some basic “cooking for college students” -type books with basic, familiar recipes in them like oven fries, homemade baked chicken nuggets, easy teriyaki, stir fries, etc. Nice keep around as a reference.
With this, I’d say you’ve already given him a solid start in knowing basic cooking.
I will re-emphasize the importance of choice of knife (or knives). Cutting is such a basic and necessary cooking task, that even if he’s never super speedy(and why would he need to be) having the right type of kitchen or chefs knife that fits him and makes it as easy as possible is very important. Flat(or straight) curved and cleaver are the three basic types with many hybrid variation (between flat and curved edge knives, not too knowledgeable about cleavers).
Oh wow, that sounds really good. I tend just to use the carcass, plus those veggies, plus salt and bay leaf. Until I learned to do this, I never knew what the big deal was about chicken soup; now it’s a family favorite. Your version sounds lux!
As for yogurt, figure that a gallon of milk makes 2 quarts of Greek yogurt and 2 quarts of whey. The whey can go in smoothies, or in bread, or in the drain. Even if you pour it out, though, 2 quarts of Greek yogurt for the price of a gallon of milk tends to be a really good deal. And since there aren’t any stabilizers, it’s really really tasty.
Along these lines–try Sapporo Ichiban Chow Mein packets for yakisoba. You can frequently find them at the supermarket but if not the nearest Asian market.
You can make it with almost anything. I usually use a few strips of bacon for protein, chopped green cabbage, green onions, bell pepper, jalapenos, ginger, and garlic. However, even just some mixed frozen veggies (diced carrot, etc.) are perfectly fine. It’s really hard to go too wrong on either the meat or veggies, so it’s easy to start simple and branch out from there.
Another element to consider is what he can keep in stock vegetable-wise. I just cook for myself and some ingredients just don’t make sense because they aren’t versatile enough.
Personally, I’ve found that bell peppers are among the most versatile of veggies and I always keep some around. I use them for Asian food (the aforementioned yakisoba, ramen+), Mexican food (nachos, quesadillas, fajitas), omelettes, and a few other things. It also makes a good snack with onion or ranch dip.
I keep a few other standbys around as well: garlic, onion, and jalapenos mostly. Anyway, just something to think about–focus on meals that have common ingredients so that there’s less stuff to buy and less waste.
My daughter has really poor fine motor coordination, and yet, she LIKES a lot of foods that involve slicing and dicing. So when it’s her night to cook she often makes those foods. We are trying to encourage her to make easier dishes, honestly, because she finds cooking burdensome. But… there’s a trade off between effort and liking what you made.
I disagree. I think you learn to cook by learning some recipes, and THEN you can generalize and expand your repertoire. I am not a “by the recipe” cook. I invent stuff, I modify stuff, I am strong on fundamentals. But I started with some simple things that worked. Chocolate chip cookies. A roast. Boiled potatoes. Frozen vegetables. Boiled rice. Really simple.
Yes. I love my instapot because it frees me from paying attention to my food as it cooks. Want broth? Put everything in it, and walk away. You have 24 hours after it’s cooked before you have to deal with it. No worries about the pot boiling over, or the flame going out and the broth spoiling.
It’s also terrific for dried beans. Much easier to use than a traditional pressure cooker, and much faster than a plain old pot. And you don’t need to watch it as it cooks…
Honestly, I don’t find the controls super intuitive, but that’s the kind of problem that your graduate-student son will be able to navigate without too much trouble.
Oh, and we have been making all our yogurt in it since shortly after we got it. It’s slightly better than the best yogurt I can buy, and costs as much as milk. (My husband prefers unstrained yogurt, so a quart of milk makes about the quart of yogurt.)
And, having recommended simple recipes, here are two:
Ramen+
Prepare Ramen. Add some sesame oil, and bits of chive or scallion that you’ve sliced with scissors directly over the pot. Drop in leftover meat or an egg. It’s now a nice meal.
Bean Soup: Here’s my recipe, (which makes dinner for 3 plus leftover lunch for me for most of the week) but really, opening a bunch of cans of beans and adding some broth and greens will give you a big pot of tasty food.
Get some chard. Separate the stems from the leaves. Chop the stems and cut the leaves into squares. (I usually use 3 large leaves, or more smaller ones. but it doesn’t really matter.)
In a large pot (I’d guess my pot holds 2 gallons):
Saute sliced carrots and the chard stems in some olive oil.
Add 1 large (20 oz) can of dark red kidney beans.
Add 1 large can of white kidney beans.
Add 2 medium cans (12oz each) of butter beans
Add 3 quarts of broth
Add 1 medium (12 oz) can of diced tomatoes
optional – add some tomato paste, sun dried if you can find it.
bring to a boil.
when it boils, add a pound of pasta (I like butterflies) the chard leaves, and some fresh basil. Cook until the pasta is done. Serve.
The leftovers will absorb the extra liquid and become a delicious stew.
While there are a lot of ingredient, the only hard step is cutting up the chard. And perhaps the carrots. Every other step is opening a can or box and dropping it into the pot.
I’m a big believer in recipes, but kind of in a similar way. When there’s something new I want to make, I’ll often look at four or five different recipes for it to get a sense of what folks like to put in it, and then I’ll choose one recipe as a base and modify it. It gives me a sense of proportions and such. Once I’m comfortable with that kind of food, I’ll leave the recipe to the side.
For now, yes. He’s observed me cooking and seen that I follow the same strategy you do - start by reviewing recipes, figure out what’s going to work for me, and when I’m comfortable with the dish I don’t need a recipe any more. In his mind, being able to cook means not being a slave to a cookbook - once you know what you’re doing! He prefers to follow recipes for now, and when I’ve helped him make something, he’ll ask - “but HOW MUCH basil should I add?”
That sounds like a pretty healthy approach. Ask, add the suggested basil, and evaluate. Eventually he’ll learn how much basil he likes to add for himself.
Yogurt is easy to do in the oven. A little putzy to make sure the temperatures hit right, but nothing you can’t handle with a dutch oven and thermometer.
It’s maybe too late now, but have you considered getting him a mandolin slicer? You can do all sorts of prep work on veggies and cheese with it, and it requires no knife skills.
