Chimole Recipe

Belizean Entree

CHIMOLE

INGREDIENTS

1 small pumpkin squash, or nearest orangish squash you can find
1 large white potato
1 medium white onion
1 chayote
4 large, ripe red tomatoes
4 garlic cloves
3 medium whole cloves
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 tablespoons red recado
1 tablespoon black recado
2 vegetable bouillon cubes1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon allspice
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 tablespoon red pepper
6 cups water2 chicken breasts
8 hard-boiled eggs
8 or more flour tortillas

UTENSIL

spice or coffee grinder

PREPARATION

Peel pumpkin, onion, and white potato. Dice squash, potato, onion, chayote, and tomatoes. Mince garlic cloves. (Just in off the internet news. Five people stole 9.5 tons of garlic. They were caught by the Hungarian border police who noticed a strong garlic smell coming from the five cars.)Put whole cloves and black peppercorns in spice grinder. Grind until you get a powdery substance. Crumble red recado, black recado, and bouillon cubes into soup pot. Add salt, allspice, oregano, cumin and red pepper. Pour in water and heat on medium for about 40 minutes or until all veggies are soft.

While the vegetables and spice are cooking, chop up chicken breasts into 1/2-inch cubes. Also, boil eggs for about 12 minutes and let them cool. Add chicken cubes to soup pot.

Ladle soup into bowls. Peel eggs and slice each three times. Put an equal number of egg slices on top of the soup in each bowl. Serve with at least two flour tortillas and one plate per person. The tortillas may be used for dipping or for making burritos from the soup.

TIDBITS

1) January is National Soup Month. What does this mean? I don’t know. Have you ever celebrated National Soup Month? Me neither.

2) Soup is an anagram for opus. Opus means an artistic work such as an opera.

3) Soup is also an anagram for puos. Puos is the plural form of puo.

4) Soup lovers in America eat about ten millions bowls of soup a year.

5) Soup haters consume considerably fewer.

6) Nebraskan bar owners may not sell beer unless they are cooking soup. That and possessing a liquor license.

7) Andy Warhol ate tomato soup every day for lunch for over twenty years. He became a famous pop artist. However, hundreds of millions of people have devoured rivers of tomato soup without achieving the slightest bit of fame. So, who can say?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.