The Louisville Chef

This salmon was truly amazing. I found so many recipes online, but this one seemed to really bring out the best of the salmon. Butter for richness, honey for sweetness and garlic and thyme for a savory element and a little brightness for the chili flakes.



Ingredients

2 lb Salmon filet. Skin on or off is fine.
2 Lemons thinly sliced, and a 1/4 saved for after cooking.
4 Tbsp Butter, melted
2 Tbsp Honey
1 clove Garlic
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp Chili Flakes

Salt and pepper both sides of the salmon filet. Lay on a bed of sliced lemons. Spoon over the glaze.




Into a preheated 350F oven for 20 - 25 minutes and then turn on broiler for 3-5 minutes, and broil until the glaze sets. Squeeze on the reserved lemon quarter and let it rest for 5 minutes and serve.

Thanks to www.delish.com for the recipe and inspiration.

I had been looking at this recipe for a long time, but as I've mentioned, I'm not much of a baker. Enter quarantine and I have plenty of time to hone my skills.

This comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, Warm Bread and Honey Cake by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra. Her recipes reflect the heritage of her homeland of Guyana and her current home in the Netherlands. It's really a special book. 






A few things I learned when making this cake. Firstly, the recipe was vastly more accurate when I weighed the ingredients. Example, I found that 9 oz of AP flour was much more than 1 2/3 cups. My friends who are accomplished bakers say to always weigh if possible. I have tried to adjust the recipe to reflect this, but weighing would really be best.







Secondly, the recipe calls for 35-40 minutes cooking time, but I found in my oven it needed a full 50 minutes. 

Lastly, in the original recipe, she did not call for allowing the cake to rest before turning it out of the pan. I waited 15 minutes and it…

As with most of you, I have time on my hands, so I broke out the slow cooker aka crock pot. I found a recipe online, but wanted to adjust it to be more Asian influenced, almost a Korean BBQ. It was very good and will definetly be on rotation for dinner.

What I really liked about it, was that it was packed with flavor, but not a sodium bomb. The flavors were balanced and blended well. I served it with steamed jasmine rice and broccoli.
Ingredients
2 lbs Chicken Thighs, boneless and skinless. Excess fat removed. 1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil 1/2 cup Catsup or Tomato Sauce 1/4 cup low sodium Soy Sauce 2 Tbsp Honey 2 Tbsp Hoisin Sauce 1 Tbsp Rice Vinegar  1 Tbsp Shaoxing Wine 1 Tbsp Sriracha 3-4 cloves Garlic, minced 2-3 inch piece of Ginger, peeled and grated.  1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil 1/4 cup Green Onions, sliced 2 Tbsp Toasted Sesame Seeds
Lightly brown the chicken, then into the slow cooker with rest of ingredients, except green onions and sesame seeds. 



Cook on high for 2-3 hours and sprinkle with sliced green…

Originally developed by Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery. Published by NY Times and food writer Mark Bittman. Incredibly easy and well worth the time.



This recipe makes one loaf
Ingredients
3 cups All Purpose unbleached Flour or Bread Flour 1/4 tsp Instant Yeast 2 tsp Salt 1 1/2 cups, and 2 Tbsp slightly warm Water

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, yeast and salt. Give it a quick stir to incorporate. Pour in the water, and with a spoon, stir until blended and all the flour is incorporated. The dough will be rough and shaggy, almost like a scone dough, and fairly sticky. This step only takes one minute. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit out on the counter for 24 hours. No need for a “warm” spot, room temperature is fine. 


The dough will be ready when the surface is level and bubbly. 


Preheat the oven to 450˚, with the enamel pot inside, and with the lid on. While the oven is heating, turn the dough out onto a well floured surface. The dough will be very sticky and strin…

This is a great way to use up any leftover apples or other fruit and handy if you’ve got some canned biscuits laying around as well.

Ingredients 4 large Granny Smith Apples, peeled and cored. Cut into 1 inch pieces.  4 Tbsp Butter 1 tsp Cinnamon  1/2 tsp Nutmeg  1/2 cup Sugar 2 tsp Vanilla Extract Pinch of Salt 1 can of Flaky Biscuits 
Topping 1 Tbsp Butter 3 Tbsp Sugar



After peeling, coring and cutting the apples into 1 inch pieces, put them into a sauce pan with the 4 melted tablespoons of butter. Add a pinch of salt and allow them to soften and reduce. 


Then add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg. Continue cooking until slightly thickened. If you find they are not sufficiently thickened, add a cornstarch slurry and continue cooking. You make a slurry by adding 1 tsp of cornstarch with 2 tsp of water and mixing together. Once at desired thickness, pour into a pie dish/pan to cool. A square Pyrex can work as well
Preheat your oven to 350F. Open your can of biscuits and cut each biscuit into quarte…

This was a specialty of the original Florence’s in the North End of Boston. Sadly Florence has passed away and the original restaurant closed in 2015, but I like the idea of keeping this dish alive. I've heard they've reopened as the Florentine Cafe.
The North End has traditionally been a home for Italian immigrants and is packed with great restaurants and bakeries. In addition, it is also the home of Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church. If you visit Boston, it's  well worth a visit.

After I moved away from Boston, I tried to recreate Florence's recipe, and I think this is very close to the original. This sauce can be made thicker and more concentrated by just using one can of tomatoes. It’s your choice.
For the purists, they would likely disagree that this is the famous pasta from the town of Amatrice. However I like both. If you want to sample the "real" dish from Amatrice, here is a link. https://www.ciaoitalia.com/seasons/season-2300/episode-231…

So rainy and cold here today, it just begs for some French bistro comfort food. So, time to crack open a nice bottle of wine and make a hearty beef stew. I just braved the weather to pull together the basics for preparing my beef bourguignon.




Ingredients


2 Tbsp. Butter 3 cloves of Garlic, chopped 1 Shallot, chopped  1/4 lb. lightly smoked, unsmoked Bacon or salt pork 1 lb pearl Onions, blanched in boiling water for 5 minutes and then peeled. Frozen pearl onions are a good time saver.  ½ lb of whole Mushrooms 4 lbs. of boneless Beef Short Ribs, or Beef Chuck, cut into 2 to 3inch pieces 3 large Carrots, peeled and chopped into 2 to 3 inch pieces, or a 1 lb bag of baby Carrots 1 bottle of Red Wine (Pinot Noir is perfect) ½ cup Cognac ½ tsp. dried Thyme, or 6 stalks of fresh thyme 2 Bay Leaf 3 tsp. of Salt  Fresh ground Black Pepper
Cut the meat and put into a large bowl or plastic freezer bag with 4 springs of the fresh thyme, 1 bay leaf and two cloves of garlic, crushed with the side of your knife. 
Now…

Risotto is one of the most amazing dishes known to man. It is a simple combination of butter, stock and rice, which when properly prepared rises to an art form.
Many people do not know this, but in Italy rice is raised in the north in two main areas, the Piemonte (think Milan and Turin) and the Veneto, which is the area of Venice. 




The north of Italy has always been more of a rice centric region while the south was more of a pasta centric region.
While not complicated to make, for an authentic risotto, the ingredients and cooking process must be followed carefully. I have seen many variations on this theme, but a basic recipe is a good place to start.
There are a few things you must remember to make a good risotto:
Only use true Italian Carnaroli or Vialone Nano rice, other rice just doesn’t give equal results. If you’re in a pinch, medium grain rice will give you vastly superior results to long grain rice, but it's not quite the same. These rices can be purchased in most grocery store…