Award-winning private chef and caterer Alexa von Strolley continues to pivot. What’s new on her menu offerings? Keto! Why Keto? Thursday Food asked. Here’s her response.

COVID-19, I feel, made us all indulge for a couple weeks and then think, crap, I need to get healthy and start taking care of my body and overall health.

I think everyone has put on some COVID-19 lbs. With that said, my sister started her keto journey a couple weeks ago. It was a bit difficult, I mean apart from the fact that we (her and I) are just obsessed with food, she went into it not thinking about bread and sugar substitutes. (Let’s be honest, who can just stop eating carbs and sugar without preparing?).

So I thought to myself, I hear a lot of my clients for lunch talking about keto, telling me to do keto meals. I thought, they must be struggling to keep their keto lifestyle fun.

Food should be fun, always! Especially diets.

Of course, a couple of my clients challenged me, doubting that I could make keto meals as exciting as my previous indulgent options.

I’m never one to pass up a good bet, and so I began my mission to prove them wrong.

Not only did I enjoy the challenge, but, this new style of cooking. I realised, hey, I’m giving other keto followers ideas on how to spruce up their meals even if they aren’t ordering from me. I started getting a lot of messages, advice on desserts. Who would have thought there was a little keto community in this pandemic, cheering for me, giving me their input, honest opinions, and how I could improve. Something new, something exciting, something to look forward to!

I hate diets, so I’m all for encouraging and helping in any way that I can! We’re all out of our funk right now. With the COVID-19 weight gain, people are trying to get back to some type of normalcy, if that’s taking back control over their bodies, then so be it! I figured why not offer something to help, and so, keto lunch at Tooksie’s canteen began!

What is Keto?

The keto diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet. It lowers blood sugar and insulin levels, and shifts the body’s metabolism away from carbs and towards fat and ketones.

You’re drastically reducing the intake of carbohydrates and replacing it with fat. Due to the reduction in carbs, it puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. When this happens, your body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy.

Von Strolley’s Keto Chicken Florentine got rave reviews from Jamaica Observer Table Talk Food Awards judge Professor Lloyd Waller. Here’s what he had to say

If you didn’t see the world “keto” one would never know that this multi-dimensionally flavoured dish, represented on the menu as “Keto Chicken Florentine” was not made in a five-star non-keto restaurant in Barcelona. The dish is a perfectly cooked chicken breast in an innovative sauce atop cauliflower mash and accompanied by parsley drizzled cherry belle tomato. And, guess what? You would never believe that this robust, multifarious blend of different ingredients successfully represented itself a dish for anyone trying to lose weight.

Introduce your family to keto this weekend via Von Strolley’s Keto Fried Chicken.

Ingredients:

6 chicken thigh, bone-in, skin on

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp garlic

2 tsp garlic salt

½ tsp Scotch bonnet, seeds removed, diced

1 tsp escallion, minced

1 egg

2 tbsp heavy cream

½ cup almond meal

½ cup parmesan, finely grated

Canola or vegetable oil to fry

Method:

Coat chicken in olive oil, garlic, garlic salt, Scotch bonnet and scallion, mixing well to ensure all the chicken is covered. Leave to marinate for half-hour.

Meanwhile whisk the eggs and cream together. In a separate bowl, combine the almond flour and powdered parmesan, then pour onto a tray ready to bread the chicken.

Fill a Dutch oven pot with oil, two inches high over medium-high heat.

Dip each piece of chicken in the egg mix and the roll in the almond meal and parmesan mix. Set aside on a tray until ready to fry.

Place chicken in the pot, remembering not to overcrowd, this will prevent the oil temperature from dropping too quickly and allow the chicken pieces to be totally surrounded by the oil and not stick to each other.

Fry the chicken for 10-15 minutes until it is a dark golden brown. If you are unsure whether the chicken is cooked remove one of the pieces and cut through the thickest area to check.

Once cooked through the chicken is ready to eat. Just remove from oil onto a paper towel-lined plate.

Von Strolley offers lunch: Wednesday – Friday, 12:00 noon – 3:00 pm

Pick up or delivery, preorders only.

Call: 876-537-5443 for further information

The menu is posted on her Instagram and there’s a link in her bio to order. @tooksiekaycatering

Alexa Von Strolley

Private Chef & Caterer

E-mail: tooksiekay.catering@gmail.com

Instagram: tooksie_kay_catering

Cell: (876) 858-1299