Nolan Baker

By Published On: March 30, 2016

Nolan Baker said his official start to cooking was helping his dad, Mark, at The Countree Store in Bruce (formerly Bruce Jr. Food Mart), and watching Food Network, namely Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri. At the store he would help with breakfast, and late night food like chicken and hamburgers.
Baker is a now culinary student at The W in Columbus and will graduate in 2018, with a double minor in business and nutrition. He is a 2013 graduate of Bruce High School and since fifth grade he said he knew he wanted to go to culinary school.
He says it gives him the opportunity to do more and to be able to do different things, and he spoke highly of his mentor Linkie Marais, a Food Network Star finalist, and alumnae of The W. He would really like to have a show on Food Network one day.

Cook Nolan BakerHe loves to eat proteins, especially high-end steak, and cooks steak a lot, using a home rub he makes. He tries each week to cook or eat something from another part of the world, leaning toward Greek, Asian and Mexican food.
Dolmades are his dad’s favorite and he developed the Pad Thai recipe.
He loves Southern food, too, but tries to eat more healthy-based, clean food. Two of his favorite things to make are his mother, Carol Baker’s chicken spaghetti, and his grandmother, Mary Baker’s fried rice.
From them, he has seen how to put love into what you cook, and from his professors he has learned so many helpful techniques.
He doesn’t bake much saying, “you can’t play around” with it and “you have to be patient.” He did make his Grandmother Baker a birthday cake for a mid-term project. It was a vanilla cake with buttercream icing, covered with a quilted pattern green fondant, Belgium dark chocolate, and gum paste flowers. He said he made an “A”.

For one of his finals, he will make a “full-blown three-tiered wedding cake.” He calls it “Simply Quilted” and it will feature a white quilted pattern with lace, along with hand-painted red gum paste flowers. The flowers take hours to make and paint, he noted.
Baker likes the demonstration aspect of cooking and says he helps with a lot of demos off campus. Besides his classes, he also has three jobs–student recruiter, private chef and a catering business. He has been writing a food blog for a year and a half and has a Facebook page for his catering.

He catered a wedding recently for locals Miranda McCormick and Hardy Wade. Their menu consisted of buffalo chicken phyllo cups, Italian stuffed mushrooms, Cajun meatballs, BLT bites, crab dip, regular and Greek pimento cheese balls and deviled eggs.
He has grilled octopus which he seasoned with salt, pepper and cayenne, and sauteed squid, which he made into fish tacos. One of the best things he’s eaten is filet of tuna from Hawaii, which they grilled.
He likes asparagus, which he cooks often, along with fennel, artichokes and jicama.
Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken Tacos
2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 lb.)
14 oz. diced tomatoes
1 cup chicken broth
1.5 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 cloves garlic
1.5 Tbsp. chili powder
Corn tortilla taco shells
2 cups shredded lettuce
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
Shredded Mexican cheese
Sour cream
In your slow cooker, combine chicken (if it’s frozen, no need to defrost, throw it in frozen), diced tomatoes, chicken broth, cumin, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or high for 4 hours. When it is done cooking, shred the chicken using two forks in the slow cooker. It will be falling apart and shred very easily. Stir around in juices. Build tacos by adding shredded chicken and toppings of choice. Leftovers will keep refrigerated in airtight container for five days.

Dolmades
2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
4-5 oz. finely diced onion
1 lb. ground pork
7 oz. short grain rice like Arborio
1/2 oz. dill, chopped
1/2 oz. Italian parsley
50 grape leaves
16 oz. chicken stock
Heat olive oil in small skillet and saute onion over medium heat until soft. Set aside and cool. Mix pork, rice, dill, one Tbsp. salt, parsley, and onion until evenly distributed. Fill leaves with 1-2 tsp. of  pork mixture near the stem and roll to the top of leaf, tucking in the sides. Bring chicken stock to a boil. Put Dolmades into a Dutch oven and barely cover using the hot chicken stock. Lower heat to simmer and cook 45 minutes. Rest off heat 20 minutes and serve.

Thai Stir Fried Rice Noodles (Pad Thai)
1 oz. tamarind
2.5 Tbsp. fish sauce
2.5 Tbsp. palm sugar
8 oz. dried thai rice noodles
5 oz. savoy cabbage
2.5 oz. carrots
4 oz. shrimp (peeled and deveined)
2 large eggs
4 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 Tbsp. thai red curry paste
8 oz. boneless skinless chicken breast cut into ribbons
1 cup chicken broth
1.5 oz. trimmed green onions
4 oz. mung bean sprouts
Soak all the noodles in warm (not hot) water until flexible. Drain. Remove cabbage leaves from head and cut the ribs out. (Cut into small ribbons). Peel carrots and also cut into long ribbons. Pour one teaspoon of salt over the shrimp then wash to clean off. Drain and pat dry. Cook egg with one teaspoon of oil in non-stick skillet and remove from heat and cut into strips. In heavy wok (or 6 qt. Dutch oven) over high heat,  swirl in 2 Tbsp. oil and cook curry paste about 30 seconds. Stir in chicken fry until just cooked through. Transfer into bowl and set aside. Stir in 1 Tbsp. oil and cook shrimp until just opaque and transfer into bowl with chicken. Pour in one cup chicken broth and bring to boil until reduced by half. Fold in green onions and bean sprouts. Combine chicken, shrimp, eggs and veggies back into the noodles and cook 2-3 minutes. Garnish with nuts of choice.

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