Priya Krishna Wrote A Fun New Cookbook for Kids
Priya shares recipes from 'Priya's Kitchen Adventures,' her outdoorsy hobby, the best activity to do with friends, and a fun podcast for people too scared to watch horror flicks.
These recipes were first featured in Downtime’s Weekend Recs #49.
You can purchase Priya’s Kitchen Adventures: A Cookbook for Kids on Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or your local bookstore.
Q&A with the Author: Priya Krishna
What inspired this book?
After my cookbook Indian-ish came out, someone from the children's division of my publisher asked me if I had considered writing a kids' book because my voice felt so youthful (ha!!). I hadn't considered it, but I thought back to how much I was interested in cooking as a kid, and how so many of the kids' cookbooks that I encountered featured recipes that felt pretty whitewashed and overly simplistic (think: turkey roll-ups, fruit soup).
I looked at kids' cookbooks today and realized the field is still pretty homogeneous, with mostly white authors (with notable exceptions like the Waffles + Mochi cookbook by Yewande Komolafe). But kids these days are far more exposed to different cultures and countries.
I felt I had a story to tell, since I grew up traveling a lot thanks to a mother working in the airline industry. So I wanted to write a cookbook that took kids around the world and redefined what a kid-friendly recipe meant. A cookbook that felt empowering and inclusive, making no assumptions about kids' tastes.
How do you like to spend your downtime these days?
I do a lot of hiking! I never hiked when I was young, but I got very into it in my 20s. My partner and I are trying to hike all the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire, and we are about halfway there.
I am obsessed with the podcast, Ruined, in which the hosts summarize horror movies for people too scared to watch them (me). I can fold endless amounts of laundry while listening to that.
My friend Kate and I are both very much not athletic, but we started running together as a way to socialize and chit chat. Now when we run races, we will not talk to each other for a full week so we can collect stories from our lives, and then we just spend the entire race gossiping and catching up. I get really into the storytelling part, so much so that other runners will run in our vicinity because they need to know what happened to so and so when their ex confronted them at a bar.
One of my goals is to get really, really good at one card game. If you have a deck of cards and a game you know well, you can really entertain yourself for hours.
Recipes excerpted below, exclusively for Downtime paid subscribers:
Tiramisu
Life-Changing Udon
Recipe: Tiramisu
Difficulty Level: MEDIUM
SERVES 6 TO 8
Remember that tiny restaurant that looked like a grandma’s house from page 109, the one where I had the amazing ravioli? I didn’t mention dessert. On the menu it was listed as “Tiramisu- su- su- su.” I’m still not sure why! I wasn’t even sure that I liked tiramisu. But I ordered it based on how fluffy and beautifully cocoa- dusted it looked on another diner’s table, and I’m glad I did. That one experience kicked off a lifelong love of tiramisu— a creamy dessert that’s as close to a chocolate cloud as it gets. If you don’t think you’ll like a dessert with coffee in it, think again. The coffee supercharges the chocolate flavor.
Ingredients
For the syrup
1 cup (240 grams) strong brewed coffee, hot (ask an adult to help make the coffee!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
For the filling and assembly
2 cups (453 grams / 16 ounces) mascarpone, at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Zest of 1/2 lemon (get an adult to help you use a zester!)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (135 grams) powdered sugar
1 ½ cups (360 grams) heavy cream
About 30 ladyfinger cookies (look for the crispy kind, not the soft, spongy kind)
1½ teaspoons cocoa powder, or 1 ounce of your favorite bar of dark chocolate (74% cacao or so)
DIRECTIONS
Make the syrup. Whisk together the hot coffee, vanilla, granulated sugar, and cocoa powder in a medium bowl until the liquid is smooth and the sugar has dissolved. Put it in the refrigerator to cool.
Make the filling. Put the mascarpone in a large bowl and add the vanilla, lemon zest, salt, and powdered sugar. Using a handheld mixer (get an adult to help you with this), mix on low speed for about 30 seconds so that the sugar doesn’t fly all over the kitchen. Scrape down the sides of your bowl with a rubber spatula and then increase the mixer speed to high and whip until the cheese is lighter and fluffier, about a minute. (For this step, you can also use a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.)
Next, add the heavy cream to the cheese mixture and blend on the lowest speed until the mixture starts to look smooth, about 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of your bowl to make sure there are no bits of cheese or sugar that haven’t been incorporated. Then whip on high speed until the mixture is light, fluffy, and stiff, 1 or 2 more minutes.
Assemble the tiramisu. You’ll need an 8-inch square pan (a pie pan or small casserole dish of about the same size would also work). Have your pan, ladyfingers, coffee syrup, and cheese mixture ready. Tightly and evenly line the bottom of the pan with about half of your ladyfingers. Spoon an even coating of the coffee syrup over the cookies, using half of the mixture. It might seem like a lot of liquid, but the cookies will act like little sponges, so don’t hold back.
Next, spread half of your cheese mixture over the cookies with a big spoon or spatula, covering them completely with an even layer.
Repeat with the remaining cookies and cheese mixture, lining the pan with the rest of the cookies, soaking them with the remaining coffee syrup, and then covering them with the remaining cheese mixture. Smooth the top with your spoon or spatula as best as you can.
To finish the tiramisu, sprinkle the top with either the cocoa powder or dark chocolate. If using cocoa powder, a small sieve or tea strainer is a helpful tool to dust the dessert evenly with powder. If using chocolate, use a cheese grater to grate the bar over the top (get an adult to help with this).
Let the tiramisu set in the refrigerator for at least 3 to 4 hours before serving. It will keep in the refrigerator for about 3 days.
Recipe: Life-Changing Udon
with Soft- Boiled Egg, Hot Soy Sauce, and Black Pepper
The recipe below is for paying subs. Join in for $5/month here.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Downtime to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.