Cooking and Chef Recipes

Today we introduce a new feature on the flog: Compliments of the Chef, in which some of our area's top culinarians share recipes and secrets. We'll feature dishes from some of the best restaurants in the area and beyond. And we won't limit it to things you can chew. Look for the occasional cocktail recipe. And if you have a favorite dish or drink you'd like to see featured here, send us a note and we'll do our best to get it for you.

Greg Richie, executive chef of Thornton Park Restaurant Group's Soco and Baoery restaurants, shares the recipe and procedure for making Baoery's Sizzling Lemongrass Chicken. It's an impressive dish that hits all of the senses when it comes into the dining room. You can make it at home using Richie's easy to follow recipe. Check out the video above for some advice from the chef.

One of the favorite dishes at Raglan Road at Disney Springs is the Seafood Chowder. It looks like a very complex dish — and the flavors certainly are.

But as celebrity chef Kevin Dundon demonstrates, it’s simple enough to try at home.

If you want to try it at the restaurant, consider a visit during the Fifth Annual Great Irish Hooley, which will take place September 2 through 5. Besides all the usual music and dancing that you can find at Raglan Road, the Hooley features a 90 minutes show — The Rhythms of Raglan — produced in Ireland, exported to Raglan Road and directed by David Hayes (Riverdance, “The Voice” Ireland edition) with guest choreographers including Michael Donellan (Lord of the Dance). The music festival’s multi-band lineup will feature headliner Screaming Orphans and other bands popular on the festival circuit. For details, times and more information, visit the Raglan Road website.

But now back to that recipe! And check out the video below to see how Dundon does it.

Bootlegger is a signature cocktail at Art Smith's Homecoming restaurant at Disney Springs. It was inspired by the homemade blackberry jam that Smith’s mother used to make and has a wink to Florida moonshine and rum. Watch the video of one of Homecoming’s bartenders mixing the drink. Check out the recipe and give it a try.

In culinary terms, a Napoleon is a layered dessert. But at Russell’s on Lake Ivanhoe, the new restaurant in the Ivanhoe district north of downtown Orlando, chef/partner Emmanuel Clement serves a savory Napoleon with layers of roasted red and golden beets and creamy burrata cheese.

It’s an impressive presentation, and it tastes as good as it looks.

It’s also easy to do, even with making the vinaigrette from scratch.

In this episode of Scott’s Kitchen, Clement shows Scott how it’s done. Watch the video, grab yourself some beets, burrata and pine nuts and give it a go.

Careful when you’re toasting the pine nuts – mine got a little too dark, but it all tasted great anyway.

This week’s Compliments of the Chef is the result of a reader request from Jim Heekin regarding a favorite side dish featured at the now-closed Txokos Basque Kitchen at East End Market before original owners Henry and Michele Salgado sold it to focus on their Spanish River Grille restaurant in New Smyrna Beach:

Wrote Jim: “When the Salgados left Txokos, the restaurant stopped serving the fabulous Fabada bean side dish. Any chance that Henry would share with you his recipe for that terrific dish? He isn't serving it at Spanish River Grille.”

Well, Jim, I have two bits of good news for you. First, yes, the Salgados were more than happy to share the recipe, which you’ll find below.

Second, the fabada bean dish is indeed being served at Spanish River Grille, accompanying one of the fresh fish dishes, such as bronzini, a current offering, or the Crispy Skin Snapper, as seen in the photo from SRG above. So you can visit and still get a taste of how it’s done.

In the meantime, here’s the recipe, compliments of the chef.

The Shrimp & Grits is one of the most popular dishes at Oceanaire Seafood Room, and today our friends at the Pointe Orlando restaurant share the recipe so you can try it yourself.

In this episode of Scott’s Kitchen, executive chef Greg Richie of Soco Thornton Park shows Scott how to make roasted pumpkin soup with chicken and andouille sausage, served in a pumpkin shell.

Watch the video then check out the recipe below.

Note from Scott: Be sure to let the wine simmer until the vegetables are nearly dry before adding the stock and pumpkin flesh. Add more pumpkin and simmer to reduce if you think the broth is a little too thin. Richie says you can add a touch of cream if you like.

I have a renewed respect for the pizzaiolas of the world.

Chef Justin Plank of Terralina Crafted Italian restaurant at Disney Springs joined me, virtually, in my kitchen to walk me through making a pizza.

It did not go well.

I explain all that in the video, but there is nothing wrong with Plank’s recipe, just the way I executed it. And executed is an apt word.

Watch the video then check out the recipe. Be sure you use high-gluten flour and not gluten flour. Other tips in the video.

When I was the food editor for the Phoenix New Times, I wrote an article that included a recipe for muffins. I got the recipe from a nutritionist who called them Mighty Bran Muffins (she also referred to them as broom muffins because they had so much bran that they would sweep you clean, so to speak).

I forget what the article was about but I’ve kept this recipe for 33 years and use it often.

Although I don’t mention it in the video, be sure to use golden raisins – they really do make a difference.

I like to prepare the dry and wet ingredients in the evening, cover them and put the wet mixture in the refrigerator overnight, then mix the two together and bake them in the morning. It’s nice to have hot muffins for breakfast.

Have you ever thought you’d like to try cooking an Indian dish but the thought of sourcing all the ingredients stopped you? The recipe may call for spices that you don’t normally keep in your cupboard – turmeric, cumin seeds, coriander – and if you don’t cook Indian dishes a lot, those spices may get old and you end up throwing them out, wasting the spices and the money you paid for them.

That’s why I’m excited about this edition of Scott’s Kitchen. Tabla, the fine Indian restaurant in Orlando and Winter Park, is offering a meal kit with most of the ingredients you need to make its chicken curry, including the chicken, as well as basmati rice pulao to go with it. It’s all portioned out (you’ll still need to measure as you cook) so there’s no waste.

Each Curry Chicken with Rice Pulao meal kit serves three to four people and costs just $30.

Even better, 100 percent will go to Cooking for Cause, a charity founded by Shivi and Sahil Jain, whose parents own Tabla. The Jains have chosen Ekal Vidyalaya, an organization that brings education to rural India, to receive the proceeds from the sale of the meal kits.

And Tabla’s chef Sajan Prem will guide you through the process of cooking both dishes in the video below.

Meal kits must be ordered in advance through Tabla’s Resy page.

The recipes are below. Look them over, watch the video, then order your meal kit from Tabla and cook yourself something delicious knowing you’re also Cooking for Cause.