Chefs Share: “The First Thing I Ever Cooked Was…”

Our favorite chefs weren’t always the culinary masterminds as we now know them to be. There was once a time when they were just kids in the kitchen, mixing up concoctions… some delicious and some not. From sugary treats and traditional dishes to chocolate covered hands and accidental explosions, check out how Aarón Sánchez, Sue Torres, Wilo Benet and more started out in the kitchen.

Chef and busy restaurateur Aarón Sánchez traces his memory back to a favorite dish he made with his mother. And that's no surprise, mama is Zarela Martinez, a famed cookbook author, chef, and restaurateur herself. 

“Sopa Seca was one of my favorite dishes growing up, and I would always ask my mom to make it for me,” said Sánchez. “One day she got tired of me constantly asking so she taught me how to make it!” Sopa Seca traditionally uses fideos, which is Spanish for noodle, but Sanchez shared that he sometimes uses alphabet pasta to make the dish more playful. Try Sanchez’s kid friendly tip the next time you make the pasta inspired classic. 

Puerto Rican chef and restaurateur, Wilo Benet also credits his very first dish to his mother.

“The very first thing I remember cooking was rellenos de papa or fried stuffed potato croquettes,” said Benet, revealing that his mother would hand him the rellenos to finish shaping .

“I must have been ten years old, but stumbling into cooking via dish washing and helping my mom is my earliest memory of preparing any food item,” he said. 

Next, Sue Torres, Roberto Santibanez, and more… [pagebreak]

Sue Torres took the frozen route when playing chef as a kid. The chef and television personality created a sweet treat with ingredients from her mother’s pantry.

“My mom owned a chocolate store when I was in grammar school, so we always had chocolate, nuts, and dried fruits on hand for when she felt like playing at home,” said Torres. “When I was nine, I dragged my sister into concocting a peanut butter truffle, which we called ‘Sisters’ Delight,’” said Torres of her first culinary creation.

Chef, restaurateur and cookbook author, Mary Sue Milliken also shared a sweet memory of the first dish she ever cooked.

“When I was about six years old, my mom and I found a recipe in Ladies Home Journal for crushed up potato chip cookies, and even today, they are still one of my guilty pleasures,” said Milliken, who still bakes cookies with her mom whenever she can.

Never one for a sweet tooth, Milliken’s cookies are the perfect blend of salty and sweet, but still hit the spot when it’s time for dessert.

“They are essentially shortbread cookies with potato chips in them. We melted chocolate chips and drizzled the chocolate over the cookies with our fingers,” said Milliken of the cookie recipe, which has not only been added to one of her cookbooks, but to the menu of her restaurant, The Border Grill.

“It was so much fun beating the bag of chips with the rolling pin until they were crushed,” said Milliken. “’Border Sugar Cookies’ is a great recipe for kids who like to get their hands dirty, like me!”

Next, Roberto Alcocer, Dionicio Jimenez, and more… [pagebreak]

Roberto Alcocer’s first memory of cooking is a special one. It was after baking his first batch of brownies when the chef and owner of Malva Cocina in Baja, decided to devote himself to his profession.

“Since I was very small, I liked helping my mother in the kitchen,” said Alcocer, whose Oaxacan mother emphasized the importance of eating at home with family. However, it was a homework assignment that peaked Alcocer’s interest in the kitchen.

“The teacher let us pick which task to do, which we had to make without the help of our parents,” said Alcocer who chose to bake brownies. “My teacher counted the votes and out of all the brownies, everyone liked mine the best!”

After learning that his mother saved the brownie recipe that he found in a book years ago, Alcocer added the treat to his restaurant menu.

“I like the idea of ending your meal with coffee and a brownie, as it briefly relates to my culinary beginning.”

Mexican chef Dionicio Jimenez whipped up an impressive entrée the first time he held the reigns in the kitchen.

“The first thing I ever cooked was seared chicken breast stuffed with huitlacoche and requeson,” said the executive chef at El Rey in Philadelphia, who was just nine at the time.

 “I was always hungry and looking for ways to entertain myself so I would often go out back behind our house to pick fresh vegetables,” said Jimenez. “I also loved to make fresh roasted tomato salsa from the garden.”

Next, Alicia Maher and more… [pagebreak]

Another fan of the tomato, Salvadoran chef and author of Gourmand award-winning cookbook Delicious El Salvador, Alicia Maher remembers the first time she cooked a traditional Salvadoran tomatada, a simple combination of chopped Roma tomatoes, onions, garlic, oil, and salt and black pepper.

“My great-aunt taught me how to cook it when I was eight years old,” said Maher. “She always served it with fresh warm tortillas and a slice of queso fresco.”

It was while cooking tomatada that Maher learned the subtleties of heat and seasoning meals with just salt and pepper. 

“To this day, I use it on my grilled chicken, fish, or carne asada; my husband likes it on a baked potato; and our sons love it with spinach and pasta or a batch of warm corn tortillas,” said Maher. 

For chef Paula DaSilva cooking was a family affair: DaSilva remembers every Saturday growing up as feijoada day at her parents’ restaurant.

“Although I didn’t make it on my own, I have memories of helping prepare for it,” said DaSilva of the tedious process and lengthy preparation that went into the dish. “Some of my tasks would include cleaning the black beans, cutting collard greens, cutting the bacon, and cracking some eggs to make a side dish of farofa.”

In the end, it was all worth it and feijoada continues to be not only one of DaSilva’s favorite dishes but one of her favorite memories of growing up and spending time in the kitchen.

Chef and restaurateur Roberto Santibañez starting his cooking career with a bang – literally.

“When I was a kid, about six years old, I was camping with my father and he asked me to cook breakfast for us,” said Santibañez, who decided to take a cue from his grandmother. “I had seen my grandma beating eggs and in Mexico they beat eggs like they’re going to batter something. First you beat the egg whites and then add the yolks."

With only a cookie tin at his disposal, Santibañez put his scrambled eggs in the tin and covered it. Bad idea.

“Everything exploded after I put it on top of the heat! My dad ended up making breakfast for us that morning since I accidentally blew up ours,” laughed Santibañez, who eventually perfected breakfast and made it for his sisters.

Funny enough, Santibañez came to enjoy chemistry and mixing concoctions, which in part led him to become a chef.