Try this Thai duo - squash fritters and cucumber salad - with the kids' help

I love introducing kids to different cuisines. Exploring other food cultures can spark wonder and help kids become more adventurous eaters. These Thai-style dishes are a delicious and easy way to start broadening their horizons. A riff on Thai fishcakes, the squash fritters are packed with vegetables yet taste decadent. They are paired with a sweet and sour cucumber salad piled onto the fritters or enjoyed on the side.

“Gin khao lou mai?” (pronounced gin-cow–lou–mye) translates to “Have you eaten yet?” In Thailand, it is used the way we ask, “How are you?” Any place that takes food this seriously is onto something good.

As the popularity of Thai restaurants has grown, so has the availability of traditional Thai ingredients for home cooks. The Thai Kitchen brand (owned my spice giant McCormick), widely available in supermarkets, offers red or green curry pastes and fish sauce, but I encourage you to take your kids to an Asian market instead. There are several in the suburbs worth checking out (I found eight within five miles of my house.) With exotic produce, unusual ingredients and low prices, a shopping trip becomes more like a field trip. There is typically an attached café, bakery or takeaway counter, so plan on lunch or a snack while you're there. You'll find the Thai basil, long beans, bird's eye chilies, lemongrass and galangal for these recipes, but also candy and snacks in unexpected flavors, like cherry blossom or green tea, and an array of kitchen equipment.

My condiments cache and spice cabinet are my secret cooking weapons. They effortlessly turn commonplace dishes into something special. In this case, I had powdered galangal and an open jar of spicy peanut sauce. Galangal is a close relative to ginger, so that plus a little cinnamon work as a substitute. As for the sauce (which is great with the fritters), you can find several 5-ingredient, 5-minute recipes online for making your own with a peanut butter base. Sweet chili sauce is another option for drizzling or dunking. If you don't use ginger or lemongrass frequently, you can keep both in the freezer, then peel, grate or zest what you need. Or buy those refrigerated pastes, though they cost more and won't last as long.

In Thailand, crushed peanuts are often found among other condiments and relishes on the table so that diners can tweak their food's flavor profile. The peanuts here top the cucumber salad, but if allergies are a concern, you can substitute cashews, use hemp hearts or omit entirely. If you have a mortar and pestle, let the kids do the grinding. It's much more satisfying (and traditional) than regular chopping, which sends peanut fragments flying all over my kitchen. This tool is great for the lemongrass, too.

I grate both the squash and the onion using my food processor's metal blade, which saves time. Kids enjoy feeding the vegetable pieces through the tube and watching them get blitzed (I still do, too.) Let little ones press the buttons. Alternatively, you could use a box grater for the squash and chop the onions with a sharp knife, but that doesn't seem nearly as thrilling from a child's perspective.

Assign kids the jobs that use cool tools like the whisk, garlic press, citrus reamer and Microplane. Explain how they work, maybe give a quick demonstration, and then let them have a go. The best tool is their (clean) hands. Let them mix the fritter ingredients before pan-frying. I use a cookie dough scoop to measure out a consistent amount for each fritter, but a tablespoon will do. You can have kids standing on a step stool next to you, handing you one scoop at a time, while you operate the stove.

If you follow my column, you know that I'm a big fan of flexible recipes that allow you to improvise. I included quinoa in these since I had some leftover from another meal. I also threw in a mixture of Asian long and green beans because the last of my garden harvest yielded a small handful. These mix-ins are entirely optional but add to both the nutrition and texture of the fritters. I omitted any extra pepper in this recipe, knowing kids normally don't like too much heat, but you can add a teaspoon of cayenne, hot paprika or chili powder to kick this up a notch.

Make the cucumbers first, since they need to marinate while you are making the fritters. You can use any type, but you don't want the seeds. Those small cocktail cukes or the long English or Japanese varieties will save you the halving and seeding job. A mandolin is a great tool for slicing very thin cucumber and carrot pieces, but the blades are so sharp that I know adults who are afraid to use them. Always use the safety handle, be mindful when cleaning and don't let the kids anywhere near this one until they are older, wiser and have better hand-eye coordination.

In the meantime, “than hai im, na kha,” which is what your Thai host might say instead of “bon appétit.” It means “please eat as much as you want” or, more literally, “please eat until you're full.”

Leslie Meredith is the winner of the 2019 Cook of the Week Challenge and a mother from Arlington Heights. She runs School of Food out of her home. See the school's Facebook page @learngrowcookeat or contact Leslie at food@dailyherald.com.

Thai cucumber salad

½ cup rice vinegar

¼ cup sugar

1 English cucumber, peeled and sliced very thinly

1 carrot, peeled and sliced very thinly

2 shallots or ½ red onion, sliced very thinly

1 teaspoon salt

¼ cup fresh herbs (cilantro including smaller stems, mint, Thai basil), roughly chopped

1/3 cup roasted peanuts, chopped or ground with a mortar and pestle

Whisk vinegar and sugar together in a small saucepan over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and a syrup forms; let cool. Place vegetables and salt in a medium bowl and stir in syrup. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes, up to 24 hours. Stir in herbs, top with roasted peanuts and serve.

Serves 4

Thai squash fritters

2 cups summer squash, grated

½ yellow onion, grated or 2 green onions, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup cooked, cooled quinoa

2 eggs, beaten

1 handful fresh cilantro, including smaller stems, chopped

1 Thai or Serrano chili, stemmed and thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon fish sauce

¼ cup fresh green or long beans cut into 1-inch pieces

½ lime, zested and juiced

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated or minced

1 teaspoon fresh lemongrass, minced or pounded into a paste with a mortar and pestle

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Place squash and onion in a mesh strainer over a bowl. Salt and toss to combine; set aside to drain.

In a large bowl, combine flour, quinoa, eggs, cilantro, chili, garlic, fish sauce, green beans, lime zest and juice, ginger, lemongrass and pepper.

Return to the strainer and gently press vegetable mixture against the sides to remove as much water as possible; add to the bowl and mix thoroughly.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Scoop a tablespoon of the mixture for each fritter, flattening it slightly in the pan with the back of a spatula. Flip after 2-3 minutes and cook another 2 minutes until golden brown on both sides.

Serve immediately, with Thai cucumber salad and choice of dipping sauce.

Serves 4