FOREWORD

Hi! I am Alex. I am a matchless red panda and inimitable cookery expert. Moreover, I am both the best cook of all well-known pandas and the greatest panda among all famous chefs! OK, it’s a joke, and now I try to be more serious. I want to propose you something incredible: I invite you to a journey around cookery!

Firstly, I let you out something secret: your mom didn’t know how to cook when she was a child. And her mom, your granny, didn’t too. They learned this little by little, grain by grain, and now they are real home chefs, aren’t they?

Thus you have a brilliant chance to begin you culinary education, and I promise to help you with it. You will know how to make some dishes, to prepare basic foodstuff and then to surprise your mom and dad.

But before we start it, I’d like you to remember some rules. Above all, you should be careful very much. Kitchen is a place where there is a plenty of dangers: knives can be too sharp, stove is too hot, and some pots and pans are too heavy.

And you need to be very attentive with:

gas stove – it is very dangerous device. You can’t see gas as it’s transparent, and can be seen when burns. If you turned it on accidently or some put it out it keeps on its running. Gas can cause poisoning and explosion!

kitchen utensils – they become hot quickly and may burn you. Use special mittens – oven gloves to take the covers and handles.

oil – it is dangerous especially when hot! Do not stay near stove when oil is getting hot!

If you touched some hot pan or pot, or oil splashed on your hand you should put burned part in cold water.

unknown substances in plates, boxes vials, etc – they may be toxic, poisonous or just bad. Never taste any thing you don’t know!

knives and fragments of broken tableware – they are sharp, and you may cut yourself. Be careful with such things!

electric devices, of course – they are too intricate in using! You should always turn them off when their work is done. Don’t you dare to turn them on with wet hands or put your fingers into it!

Remember! If you are not sure in something, ask mom, dad or somebody else of grown-ups!

And some important abbreviations and conversions you should know:

tsp is for teaspoon which is used when you drink tea, equals 5 ml

tbsp is for a table spoon you eat soup with, equals 15 ml

drop is the less cookery measure that equals 1/60 of teaspoon

dash is a small cookery measure that equals 1/16 of teaspoon

fl. oz equals 30 ml

cup equals 240 ml

Well, are you ready to start?

So come on!

SANDWICH

Sandwich is the simplest meal you can only make. You needn’t fry, or boil, or cook something for it in any way. All you need is bread and some accompanied in slices – ham, cheese, sausage, fish and so on, and so forth. For more interesting sandwiches, you can take sauce or seasoning: mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise.

First sandwiches became known in 1762. A certain Edward Gibbon wrote in his diary that John Montague, Duke Sandwich, inveterate gambler, could spend twenty-four hours at a card-table. As he needed to eat something not leaving a game, he asked for some cold roast-beef between two pieces of bread.

There are many kinds of sandwiches now, and any of them may be great – everything depends on likings and bases. Usual sandwiches are square, and fashionable “clubbers” are triangular: somebody invented them when cut usual ones diagonally.

If you want to make classic sandwich with ham and cream cheese, you need:

TOAST BREAD

2 pieces

HAM

1 slice

(it should be of the same contours as bread is)

CREAM CHEESE

1 tsp

ROMAN LETTUCE

1 leaf

(wider than bread and ham are)

TOMATO

1 piece

For making sandwiches, you should:

spread evenly cream cheese on both of bread pieces

put slice of ham on one piece of bread

lay lettuce upon ham

cut tomato in rings and put some on lettuce (tomato rings must not be wider than bread)

NOTICE: you should be attentive for not cutting yourself

cover sandwich with the other piece of bread.

NOTICE: if you want to present your sandwich more interesting, you can make clubbers of them or shape it as you like.

Bon appetite!

CANAPE

A canapé is a peculiar kind of sandwiches. First, it’s very small – as the saying is to bite once only. Second, canapé can consist of any solid food – bread is not of sine qua non; moreover, there are vegetable or fruit canapés. Third, it is served on sticks, and this is the most interesting in it!

This hors d’oeuvre is French. It was named after a sofa where people sit and eat something light and not staining their hands or clothes. Today canapé is a part and parcel of fourchettes and other official dinners. Nevertheless, you can make it yourself and gladden your mom and dad.

For making canapes with cheese, green olives and vegetables, you need:

PAPRIKA

1 piece