The Louisville Chef

My friend was visiting from the UK and made this for dinner and it was off the charts. He is originally from Singapore and while this is not an authentic Singaporean dish, it is very good and very healthy. I like to serve it with my homemade chili paste. 

Ingredients

½ lb Ramein Noodles, rice vermicelli or thin spaghetti 1/2 tsp Toasted Sesame Seed Oil 1 cup sliced Shitake Mushrooms ½ cup thinly sliced Cabbage or Bok Choy ½ cup thinly sliced Carrots ½ cup thinly sliced Red Pepper 1 Tbsp Oil 1 cup sliced Onions 2 Tbsp shredded Ginger Root 4 cloves of Garlic, sliced 1 tsp Salt 2 tsp Curry Powder, 1 Tbsp if you like it spicy. ½ tsp Turmeric 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce Dash of Fish Sauce, optional 1 tsp Sugar 3 Tbsp chopped Green Onions 1 Tbsp chopped Cilantro
Blanch noodles according to instructions, drain and rinse with cold water to wash off starch and drain. Do not overcook. Sprinkle a little sesame seed oil to coat, and set aside.
Slice the shitake mushrooms, bok choy, carrots, red pepper and toss individually in v…

London is a vibrant culinary destination  Anyone who says the food in London is bad, is uninformed. London has every cuisine imaginable and in all price ranges. I can honestly say it's one of my favorite culinary cities. It's hard to think of a cuisine that is not represented.



In light of that, please understand that this is by no means a comprehensive list, but rather a few of my personal favorites. I don't want to start getting comments like,"how could you not have included ...."

Since there are so many little gems, it never hurts to ask a Londoner, and they can likely steer you to something off the beaten track. 

Reservations and Tipping

Reservations are usually required in most good restaurants. Book far in advance for the top ones. You can book a lot of good London restaurants at http://www.opentable.co.ukIt is not unusual for them to tell you that they need to have the table back in 2 hours. They are not being rude; they say that to everyone, including the loca…

Now that autumn is just around the corner, I wanted to share a great tip about storing tomatoes. One year I planted 3 San Marzano tomato plants and I had so many tomatoes, it was impossible to cook them all. I was still getting baskets of tomatoes in late September, so I had to find a solution.

After picking another basket of beautiful San Marzanos, I just took them and put them into a gallon freezer bag and put them into the freezer. No washing, no fuss and they were still warm from the garden. 


About two weeks later I remembered them and was expecting the worse, but when I took them out to make a sauce, they were perfect. I put a little bit of lukewarm water on them and the skins came right off and I then chopped them and made a wonderful sauce. They had lost none of their flavor. 

The only important thing to remember, is that this will only work for tomatoes you plan on using for cooking, as the texture will not be suitable for slicing.

I picked my last batch in early October and then …

Staying with our Asian theme, here is a favorite dish of mine. I wanted to find a way to make it without the ground pork, so it would have all of the flavor I love, but without the heaviness and greasiness of the pork. 

It has a few critical ingredients, which might take a bit of time to find, but once you have them you will have enough to make this dish many times. 

I have divided it into four steps to make it easier to follow. Give the recipe a quick read, so you know what ingredients to have prepared prior to starting cooking.


Ingredients

Step One
Combine these ingredients into a small mixing bowl and mix thoroughly, and set aside. 

½ cup Vegetable Broth
1 Tbsp Chili and Garlic Paste
2 tsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
2 tsp Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Cornstarch

Step Two
Preheat your wok until hot and then add 3 Tbsp of oil and stir fry the garlic, ginger, mushrooms and green onions until just slightly softened.

3 Tbsp Oil
4 cloves of Garlic, minced
1 inch piece of fresh Ginger root…

When I crave Chinese food, this is the flavor I want, spicy, sour, sweet and savory. I believe  that's why this dish is so popular, as it gives you most of the essential tastes combined into one dish.


This dish combines the smoky flavor of dark soy sauce, the freshness of green onion and the crunch of peanuts. I have made this dish many times, but as I often do, I have kept modifying it, and I really do feel I have developed a stunning recipe.



Ingredients

1 8oz package of super firm Tofu cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 Tbsp of Hot Bean Paste

After cutting the tofu, mix in the hot bean paste and set aside.
Sauce Mixture: 1 Tbsp of Shaohsing Rice Wine, dry Sherry is a suitable substitute.
1 Tbsp Rice Vinegar 1 Tbsp of Dark Soy Sauce 1 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce 1 Tbsp of Toasted Sesame Oil 1 Tbsp of Light Brown Sugar 2 Tbsp of Water 1 Tbsp of Cornstarch

Prepare the sauce mixture just before beginning to cook and set it aside.
4 cloves of Garlic, roughly chopped
6-8 dried whole Red Chilies
1 inch piece of fresh G…

I love chili, and I am very committed to making it in an authentic manner. I really enjoy vegetarian chili. I like the bold tastes, but appreciate the lower fat and the no meat aspect.



I have a couple of versions of this, depending on what I have in the pantry. This is the basic recipe and then feel free to add whatever you like. I'll include some optional items at the end to spur your creativity.

Ingredients

3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 large Onion, chopped
3 tsp of Salt
1 tsp freshly ground Black Pepper
1 large Yellow Pepper, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 large Red Pepper, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 Large Orange Pepper, chopped into 1 inch pieces
4 cloves of Garlic, whole
4 Tbsp Chili Powder
1 Tbsp Ground Chipotle Peppers, optional
1 Tbsp Hot Smoked Paprika
1 Tbsp Ground Cumin
1 4 oz can of fire roasted Green Chilies
1 15 oz can of Black Beans, including juice 
1 15 oz can of Pinto Beans, including juice
1 cup of fresh or frozen Corn
2 32oz cans of crushed Tomatoes
1 bottle of Dark Beer

Get out your larg…

I didn’t think you could make a sweet potato pie any better until I came up with this recipe. It is perfect and adds an entirely new dimension to the flavor. The coconut gives a fruity and rich flavor to the potatoes.


Ingredients

1 1/4 pound of Sweet Potatoes cooked until tender, but not mushy 7 Tbsp. of Butter 1 cup of Vanilla Sugar 1/2 tsp. Nutmeg 1 tsp Cinnamon ¼ tsp ground Ginger 1 tsp Vanilla Extract 1/3 cup Evaporated Milk 2 Eggs beaten well ½ cup of toasted unsweetened Coconut. If you use sweetened coconut, then cut back one Tbsp of sugar.
Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into 2 inch pieces and boil until done. You will know they are done when you stick the pieces with a knife and they slide off.
After the potatoes are cooked, drain them and transfer them to a large bowl and blend well with the butter using a mixer. 
Toast the coconut in a 350 degree oven until golden brown. Add the remaining ingredients except the eggs and allow the mixture to cool. 
When sufficiently cool, add the eggs and b…

My goal behind cookbook du jour is to share some special books from my culinary library. I want to introduce you today to "Warm Bread and Honey Cake" by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra.



Gaitri is well known for her first baking book, "Windmills in my Oven", which is a very good book on Dutch baking. A resident of the Netherlands, she published "Warm Bread and Honey Cake" as a broader overview of home baking from around the world. 



I was particularly drawn to her book, as it's a basic, non fussy guide to baking from many countries. If you love to bake, it is a wonderful book and well worth a look. I'd like to call out a few really special recipes, that are my personal favorites.

Layered "Drunken" Apple Cake - Kind of a German/Chilean tarte tartin.

Lemon Shortbread Cookies - A lovely Dutch shortbread cookie with a fresh lemon flavor.

Coconut Cake - Such a simple name for such a wonderful cake. It is insanely good when just out of the oven.

Nutmeg Cake wi…