Tender Oven Care

WHEN your typical youngster enthusiastically offers to rustle up dinner, the best most of us might hope for is a well-done pizza followed by a sneaky trip out later for a takeaway.

At worst we'll be "treated" to some bizarre concoction using every available kitchen cupboard ingredient, deep fried and served with a side salad that's been lovingly drowned in dressing and quite possibly even stewed.

Probably the last thing you'd expect, but certainly tastier, is a mouthwatering dessert of poached fresh rhubarb with spicy ginger cheesecake, a portion of meaty halibut or delicate sea bass displayed on a bed of tagliatelle vegetables, all bathed in a sumptuous creamy sauce.

Yet dishing up precisely that kind of winning meal is pure child's play for Rachel Notarangelo. The talented 14-year-old has just won through to the national finals of a prestigious cookery competition with her delicately flavoured fish and dessert dishes.

Soon the Holy Rood High schoolgirl will represent Scotland at the FutureChef finals, cooking for a demanding judging panel of top chefs.

Few of her teenage peers may be as competent at filleting a fish as her, but Rachel's far from the only youngster excelling in the kitchen. An increasing number of youths are taking inspiration from television chefs and fighting their family for kitchen work-top space to practise their own impressive cookery skills.

New research from spice firm Colman's claims 50 per cent of Scottish parents agree their children have become more adventurous with food thanks to the rise in celebrity chefs. Among the children quizzed, 74 per cent revealed highly sophisticated taste buds, claiming they could easily detect different seasonings and herbs used in their food.

The downside for parents, concludes the survey, is that children's gastronomic demands are raising the kitchen stakes even higher, leaving the adults struggling to dish up meals to match the television cooks.

At least for some, the pressure is off. For a boom in children's cookery classes in the Capital means they can simply pass the task of making dinner over to junior.