My novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, is coming out soon on Humoroutcasts Press and Shorehouse Books!
Yippee!
Monthly Archives: May 2015
Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms?
Categories: book reviews and excerpts, humor
Tags: books, De Lancey, HumorOutcasts, hunks, Lutheran, mushrooms, press
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Kjottkaker, Norwegian Meatballs
Norwegian Entree
KJOTTKAKER
INGREDIENTS
1 small onion
4 slices bread
¾ cup milk
1 pound ground beef
¼ lard or lard or suet
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup beef stock
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
SPECIAL UTENSIL
non-stick skillet
shotgun (To scare away Norwegian witches and evil spirits.)
PREPARATION
Mince onion. Add bread and milk to mixing bowl. Let sit for 15 minutes or until all the milk is absorbed. Add onion, ground beef, lard, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Mix with hands. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Make 1″ meatballs with hands. Add vegetable oil and meatballs to non-stick skillet. Fry meatballs using medium heat for 5 minutes or until meatballs brown. Gently turn over meatballs at least once to ensure even browning. Remove meatballs and drain on paper towels. Keep beef drippings in skillet.
Add beef stock and flour to skillet. Cook using medium heat for 4 minutes or until sauce starts to boil and thicken. Stir constantly. Add meatballs. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. This dish goes well with mashed potatoes or lingonberries.
TIDBITS
1) On Christmas Eve, Norwegian witches and evil spirits like to fly around on broomsticks and cause mischief. Don’t enable this sort of behavior; hide your broomsticks. Make the witches and evil spirits walk. Maybe if they did some sort of aerobic exercise, they would feel better about themselves. For we all know, when night baddies have better self esteem, they might perform fewer pranks. Some of these happy witches and spirits could even become politicians, the first step on the path to respectability. However, should a nasty night thingy find your broomstick, scare it away with a shotgun. Shotguns, they’re not just for weddings anymore.
– 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.
Categories: cuisine, humor, international
Tags: aerobic exercise, broomsticks, Chef Paul, Christmas Eve, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, evil spirits, kjottkaker, Norwegian, politicians, recipes, self esteem, shotgun, witches
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Vidalia Onion Rings
American appetizer
VIDALIA ONION RINGS
INGREDIENTS
3 medium Vidalia onions or other onions
1¼ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup beer (8 ounces left in that bottle for drinking, eh?)
½ cup milk
3 cups peanut oil
SPECIAL UTENSIL
electric skillet
Makes 40 onion rings. Takes 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Peel onions. Slice onions into rings ⅓” thick. Punch out onion rings from slices. Add flour, baking powder, and salt to first mixing bowl.. Mix with whisk until well blended. Separate egg yolk from egg white. Add egg yolk, beer, and milk to second mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add egg yolk/beer/milk mixture to bowl with flour mixture. Blend with whisk until smooth. Add egg white to third mixing bowl. Whip with whisk until peaks form. Fold egg white into bowl with flour/beer/milk mixture. Mix with whisk until well blended.
Add enough peanut oil to completely cover onion rings. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Dip onion rings into batter. Turn onion rings until they are completely covered in batter. Make enough battered rings to cover skillet. Sauté at 375 degrees until onion rings turn golden brown, about 4 minutes on each side. Place paper towel on plate. Place onion rings on towel. Put towel on top on onion rings. Gently push down on towel to remove oil.
TIDBITS
1) Onion-festival groupies will want to know that the Vidalia Onion Festival is held in late April in Vidalia, Georgia and features: onion tasting, cooking demos, concerts, chef competitions, and an onion run. Onions are historically rather sedentary, so this last event is only for the patient.
2) Walla Walla, Washington’s onion festival is held during the first week in June. Go there and watch an onion grow. Again, this is an activity only for the persevering and independently wealthy.. They also have onion bowling. If your onion gives you a 7-10 split, why just eat it. Woot!
3) Go to Weslaco, Texas in late March for its onion festival. It’s the only one with dancing horses.
– 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.
Categories: cuisine, humor
Tags: American, appetizer, Chef Paul, cookbook, dancing horses, De Lancey, festival, Georgia, onion, onion rings, recipes, Texas, Vidalia, Walla Walla, Washington, Weslaco
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Hasselback Potatoes
Swedish Entree
HASSELBACK POTATOES
INGREDIENTS
10 tablespoons butter (5 tablespoons for casserole dish. 5 tablespoons to spoon over potatoes.)
10 small potatoes
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons grated Våsterbotten or Parmesan cheese
6 tablespoons breadcrumbs
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
9″ by 13″ casserole dish
baster
Makes, well, 10 potatoes. Takes about 1½ hours to make.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt all butter using medium heat. Peel potatoes Cut off a thin slice off the bottom of the potatoes so that they will lie flat in the casserole dish. Slice potatoes every 1/6″ along its width. Make the cut go ⅔ of the way through the potato. (One way to do this is to put the potato on a large spoon. The sides of the spoon will prevent cutting the potato apart.)
Pour 5 tablespoons butter into casserole dish. Add potatoes to casserole dish. Add 5 tablespoons butter, dill, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Drizzle potatoes with butter/dill mix. Bake potatoes at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes Baste two times with butter from casserole dish. Remove casserole dish from oven and sprinkle potatoes with grated cheese and bread crumbs. Bake for another 20-to-30 minutes or until golden brown. (The potatoes, not you, for goodness sake.)
TIDBITS
1) The Hasselback potato can be served with almost anything. Oh, don’t tempt me with what.
2) This entree was first made for the “Hasselbacken” restaurant in Sweden in 1940 after the start of World War II. This dish was responsible for keeping Sweden at peace when nearly every other nation got sucked into the conflict. The Germans were told that if they invaded Sweden, the Swedish chefs would stop making Hasselback potatoes. The German commanders knew their soldiers, weary from invading one country after another would stop fighting unless they were fed delicious Hasselback taters. So, Germany never invaded Sweden. To this day, Sweden has a small army. It doesn’t need a lot soldiers. It has a legion of Hasselback-potato chefs.
– 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.
Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international
Tags: cheese, Chef Paul, chefs, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, Germany, Hasselback, Parmesan, potatoes, recipes, Stockholm, Sweden, Swedish, Våsterbotten, World War II
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Kourma Shurpa (beef vegetable soup)
Uzbek Soup
KOURMA SHURPA
(beef vegetable soup)
INGREDIENTS
1¼ pounds tri-tip or chuck
3 russet potatoes
2 medium carrots
1 green bell pepper
2 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
2 tomatoes
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ tablespoon cilantro
½ teaspoon coriander
¾ teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons dill
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt or salt
1½ quarts water
2 teaspoons parsley
Makes 10 bowls. Takes about 1½ hours.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Dutch oven
PREPARATION
Cut tri-tip into ½” cubes. Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into fourths. Cut carrots into round ½” slices. Remove seeds from bell pepper. Dice bell pepper, garlic, onions, and tomatoes.
Add tri-tip cubes and oil to Dutch oven. Stir occasionally. Sauté for 4 minutes on medium-high heat or until cubes brown. Add garlic and onion. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add bell pepper, carrot, tomato, cilantro, coriander, cumin, dill, parsley, pepper, and salt.
Add water. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to warm and simmer for 30 minutes or until carrot becomes tender. Stir occasionally. Add potatoes. Simmer for 30 minutes or until potato fourths are tender. Stir occasionally. Garnish with parsley and serve to guests who will be agog with your knowledge of Uzbekistan.
TIDBITS
1) Uzbek is an anagram for bezku.
2) Kudzu is an extremely fast growing vine that’s spreading all over parts of the southern United States.
3) Bezku is a fast growing beet that’s growing all over Uzbekistan.
4) For the longest time, the Turkmen government was aghast about the proliferating bezku.
5) Then came last month’s announcement that Beetball would be added as a sport for the Summer Olympics. Now athletes all over the world are clamoring for beets.
6) Beetball is played very much like volleyball but with a beet instead of a volleyball. So, tough agile hands are a must for the successful participant.
7) Oh, also good eyesight, excellent eyesight, superb eyesight. You really don’t want to get hit in the nose by a beet hurtling toward you at 80 miles per hour, because you didn’t spot it in time.
8) The best beetball players hail from Mongolia. Genghis Khan trained his warriors to dodge arrows by hurling beets at them. Sure, he could have trained his fighters by loosing arrows at them, but men with arrows in their heads or heads invariably prove to be slow learners.
9) That reminds me, the phrase, “That beats all,” really came from “That beets all,” and is a deadly serious statement. Nothing beats beets for tough army training.
10) Genghis Khan and the succeeding khans of Mongolia nearly conquered Europe in 1241. No European army could withstand the Mongols. The Mongol horsemen, toughened by months of beet throwing, easily dodged the arrows of Russian, Hungarian, and Polish archers.
11) It looked really grim for the nascent French pastry industry.
12) Then suddenly in 1242, the fiercesome, all conquering Mongol armies withdrew to Mongolia. Their khan, Ogadai, had tied and the Mongols true to their tradition, had returned to their homeland to elect a new leader. How did Ogadai die?
14) Well, Sven Svenson of Sweden poisoned the Mongol leader with lutefisk. Sven knew that just as no Western army could stand up to the Terror of the East, no man could survive eating lutefisk, or even smelling and looking at it. Apparently though, Sven was okay with run-on sentences.
15) Indeed, lutefisk warfare is the primary reason the tiny Viking armies consistently overwhelmed the much larger armies of Ireland, England, France, and Germany. We hear the expression, “God save us from the fury of the Norsemen,” but it used to be, “God saves us from the horror of lutefisk.”
16) Anyway, Svenson was decapitated by the Mongols, which certainly was a bummer for Sven.
17) The United States and the European Union still permit the making and even the selling of lutefisk to adults and innocent children. Why? Why? Because we all know how lutefisk saved Western civilization in 1241. There is even the suspicion that Western armies maintain vast stockpiles of lutefisk, but no one will talk.
– 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.
Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international
Tags: archers, armies, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, Dutch, European Union, Genghis Khan, Himalayan, Hungarian, khan, kourma shurpa, lutefisk, Mongol, Mongolia, Norsemen, Ogadai, pink Himalayan salt, Polish, recipes, Russian, salt, soup, United States, Uzbek, Viking, Western civilization
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Honduran Nacatamales
Honduran Entree
NACATAMALES
INGREDIENTS – DOUGH
6 cups masa harina or corn flour
1 cup lard, shortening, or butter
1 teaspoon salt (1 more teaspoon later)
3 tablespoons orange juice
5 tablespoons lime juice
4 cups chicken stock
INGREDIENTS – FILLING
⅔ cup rice
2½ pounds pork
3 large potatoes
3 garlic cloves
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
1 sweet green chile pepper
1 medium tomato
3 tablespoons cilantro
1½ tablespoons cumin
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon achiote paste (or ½ teaspoon paprika plus ½ teaspoon vinegar)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Makes 18 nacatamales. Takes at least 3 hours.
INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY
12 10″-x-10″ banana-leaf squares*
A roll of aluminum foil
Multiple big pots (4½ or larger. Extra pots enables you to cook more nacatamales at once.)
Good restorative drink to keep you going.
* = Banana leaves can be found in Mexican or Asian grocery stores. If they can’t be found, just use the tin foil without them. Oh, banana leaves are curved, not square at all. Bastards.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater
cooking twine or butcher’s twine
PREPARATION – INITIAL
Soak banana leaves in large pot. You really need to make the banana leaves flexible.
PREPARATION – DOUGH
Add masa harina, lard, and 1 teaspoon salt to first, large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on low. With electric still set on low, slowly add orange juice, lime juice, and chicken stock. Mix until it has the consistency of mashed potatoes. Rev up electric beater to high setting or until it starts to become fluffy. Cover dough and let sit for 30 minutes.
PREPARATION – FILLING
While dough is sitting, cook rice according to instructions on package. Cut pork into ½” cubes. Peel potatoes. Slice potatoes into ½” cubes. Dice garlic cloves, green bell pepper, onion, sweet green chile pepper, and tomato. Add pork cubes, cilantro, cumin, pepper, salt, and achiote paste to second, large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until pork cubes are well coated with spices.
Add vegetable oil, coated pork cubes, and potato cubes to pan. Sauté on medium heat for 20 minutes or until potatoes soften. Stir frequently. Add garlic cloves, green bell pepper, onion, sweet green chile pepper, and tomato. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently.
PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY
Remove banana leaves soaking in pot. Heat water on high heat until it is scalding hot. Add banana-leaf square to pot. Keep leaf in pot until it becomes flexible. Remove banana leaf. Place ⅓ cup of dough in the middle of the banana leaf. Smooth dough with wet hands until it is about 2″ from the edges of the banana leaf.
Add equal amounts of pork cubes (about ⅓ cup), over the middle of the dough, followed by cooked rice (about 2 tablespoons) and potato cubes (about 1½ tablespoons). Add another ⅓ cup of dough over potato cubes. Smooth top layer of dough gently with wet hands. Fold bottom edge of banana leaf over filling until it reaches the top half of the leaf Gently fold in edges to make a square. Gently–Don’t break the banana leaf–tie kitchen twine around filled banana-leaf square.
Place the filled banana-leaf square over the center of an aluminum-foil square. (The aluminum-foil square large enough to wrap the banana square. Tightly fold bottom edge of foil over filled banana-leaf square. Tightly fold sides of aluminum foil over banana square, then the top side. Tie the aluminum-foil covered square like a parcel with kitchen twine. Repeat process for each banana leaf. There should be a banana leaf softening in the pot while constructing each nacatamale.
Put metal rack in bottom of each pot. Add water to each pot until level is ½” above the racks. (Aluminum cookie cutters work quite well as a substitute for wire racks.) Bring to boil using high heat. Cover and reduce heat to low. Add a single layer of nacatamales to rack. Simmer for 45 minutes. Add water as necessary to keep level ½” above the rack. Remove nacatamales from pots. Repeat for each batch of nacatamales. Remove all twine and tin foil and serve to adoring guests.
If your sweetheart makes this for you, propose marriage immediately.
TIDBITS
1) Nacatamales were invented by Señor Naca Tamale, chef to the royal governor in 1689. They were delicious, so much so that Governor Alfonso Bondigas knew he would win a million pieces of gold if he could send just one nacatamale to the Spanish king, Charles II.
2) So, in 1690, Governor Bondigas sent 100 nacatamales with the annual fleet carrying gold to Spain. They got eaten by the crews.
3) In 1691, Governor Bondigas sent 200 nacatamales with the fleet. 100 got eaten by the crews. The rest got eaten by gourmet rats.
4) In 1692, Governor Bondigas sent 400 nacatamales. The sailors devoured 100, the gourmet rats another 100, and the rest spontaneously combusted. No one saw that one coming.
5) Pirates captured the annual Nacatamale fleet in 1693, tamales having by that time become more valuable than gold.
6) In 1694, the Honduran governor sent 1,600 nacatamales with the nacatamale fleet. Unfortunately, First Mate Pedro Migas placed the nacatamales in the same room where he dried the crew’s socks. When half of the socks fled to a parallel dimension–a journey they continue to this day–they took all the nacatamales with them. By the way, culinary quantum physicists say trans-dimensional aliens took a great liking to nacatamales and can often be found at nacatamale stand through out Central America. You have to look closely for them; their disguises are excellent.
7) In 1695, Governor Bondigas tried catapulting the nacatamales to Spain. They only made it two miles out to sea where they utterly destroyed a pirate fleet. Karma, you bet.
8) In 1696, Señor Bondigas noticed a little boy skipping rocks all the way across a small stream. Could this work with nacatamales? No.
9) Spurred by the efforts of 1697, nacatamale skipping became the premier event of the Spanish-American games. All Honduras went sports mad. Every young man in that land spent every spare moment practicing to win the gold medal in nacatamale skipping. This naturally left no nacatamales left to be shipped to Spain.
10) The banana bug wiped out the banana crop in 1698. No banana leaves, no nacatamales.
11) In 1699, banana growers all used their leaves to make beer. Banana-leaf beer was enormously popular that year. You can only find this beer in a few Honduran villages. The brand is El Banano.
12) In 1700, the Nacatamale Fleet finally made it to Spain with fifty million nacatamales. But Charles II had died two weeks before. His successor, Philip of Anjou, grandsom of Louis XIV exported them all to Britain as a good-will gesture. The British loved the nacatamale. Lasting global peace seemed likely. But the British gobbled the nacatamales up in just one week, got sick of them, and in revenge declared war on France. Wars would rage across Europe for another 245 years. The new Spanish King blamed Governor Bondigas who died broken hearted. However, the legacy of the good man lives on in the millions upon millions of postal packages wrapped in the manner of the nacatamale.
– Chef Paul
My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World, and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com
As an e-book on Nook
or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com
Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international
Tags: achiote, banana leaves, bananas, Britain, Charles II, Chef Paul, cilantro, cookbook, cumin, entree, gold, Honduran, Lous XIV, masa harina, nacatamales.Honduras, Paul De Lancey, Philip V, pirate fleet, quantum physicists, recipes, socks, Spain, Spanish, war
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Fish and Chips
British Entree
FISH AND CHIPS
INGREDIENTS
2½ pounds potatoes (King Edward or Maris if you can get them.)
1⅓ cups flour (3 additional tablespoons later)
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt or salt
1¼ cups (10 ounces) beer
2 cups peanut oil
5 cups (or enough to cover fish) vegetable oil
4 7-ounce cod, pollock, or haddock fillets
3 tablespoons flour
malt vinegar (to be added by guest)
SPECIAL UTENSIL
deep fryer
Makes 4 servings. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes
Note:: Cooking times vary a lot between fryers or with the amount of food you put in them, so you’ll need to check the fryer periodically.
PREPARATION
Peel potatoes. Slice potatoes along their lengths into ½” by ½” strips. Add potato strips to first bowl filled with cold water. Let soak for 1 hour to remove starch. Pat the potato strips with paper towels until the strips are completely dry.
This is important. If you leave moisture on your potato strips, then your chips, if you are British, or your French fries, if you’re American, will not turn out well and the Earth will leave its orbit and spiral into the Sun. Enough said.
While potato strips are soaking, add 1⅓ cups flour, pepper, and salt to large, second mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly with whisk. Add beer. Stir with whisk until there are no lumps and mixture has the consistency of whipping cream.
When the potato strips have only 15 minutes left to soak, pre-heat oven to 200 degrees. (You will be making this entree in batches. Put fried fish and completely done fries warm in oven until everything is ready.) Add peanut oil and vegetable oil to deep fryer. Heat oil to 275 degrees. Carefully add ¼ of potato strips to deep fryer. Fry potato strips for 5 minutes or until any of them start to brown. There are now officially French fries or chips. (Pauses for ceremony.) Remove chips from fryer, drain, and set aside. Repeat for each batch of potato strips.
Add 3 tablespoons flour to third bowl. Add fish fillets, one at a time to bowl. Turn fish fillets around until they are coated with flour. This flour keeps the batter from slipping off later. Add flour-covered fish fillets to mixing bowl with batter. Slowly turn fish fillets until they are thoroughly covered with batter.
Increase heat on deep fryer to 375 degrees. Carefully add fish fillets to deep fryer. Fry for 6-to-10 minutes or until batter is crisp and golden brown. Turn fillets two or three times with wooden spoon to ensure even frying. Remove fish fillets with slotted spoon and place on wire rack above plate and let drain.
Add partially cooked French fries to deep fryer for second time. Keep heat at 375 degrees. Fry French fries for 10-to-20 minutes or until they are golden brown and crispy. Remove French fries with slotted spoon and dry with paper towels.
Serve fish and chips and malt vinegar to adoring, appreciative guests. Dredge unappreciative guests through any remaining batter. You were cooking with hot oil, for goodness sake.
TIDBITS
1) Gratuitous Capitalizing of Words has not been allowed in English speaking countries since 1945. Indeed, World War II was fought to preserve our minimalist capitalization approach.
2) You see, Germany capitalizes all nouns. Germany wants the whole world to capitalize nouns. Why does Germany want all this capitalization? Who would benefit from this?
3) The German ink makers. Capitalized letters take more ink than small letters. More capitalized letters means more ink. More ink means more income for the ink makers. No German government from 1814 to 1945 was strong enough to resist the dictates of the German Ink Makers’ League, GIML. So, when GIML told their leaders to invade one country after another to open up new market for ink, their governments obliged.
4) Things looked bad for the minimal-capitalizing countries in mid1940. The British Expeditionary Force was trapped against the beaches of Dunkirk. If this force had surrendered, Britain, the last hold out against German Capitalizing aggression, would have had to give up all resistance.
5) Fortunately in 1940, a young physicist named Peter Sakes, was in a London pub waiting for his fish and chips. Boom! A gigantic explosion blew apart the kitchen walls. Hot cod and hot potato strips flew into the eating and drinking areas. Patrons ran screaming from the establishment. A light clicked in Sakes’ head. Perhaps the same process used to explode fish and chips could be employed to make nuclear fission. A nuclear bomb would surely stop the invincible German armies.
7) Prime Minister Churchill agreed and gathered all British scientists to develop the atomic bomb. Well, the whole thing took longer than expected; the heat from cooking oil proved insufficient to trigger a nuclear chain reaction. So the Americans came on board with their Manhattan Project and by August, 1945, had an atomic bomb to use on Japan.
8) The atomic bomb came too late to use on Germany which had already surrendered. However, the mere hope the bomb had brought to Churchill had given him to will to resist. We owe our freedom and our small-lettered nouns to Mr. Sakes and his idea. Here’s to him and fish and chips!
– 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.
Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international
Tags: atomic bomb, British, British Expeditionary Force, Chef Paul, Churchill, cod, cookbook, De Lancey, Dunkirk, entree, fish, fish and chips, German, ink, Japan, London, malt vinegar, Manhattan Project, potato, pub, recipes, scientists, World War II
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Vidalia Onion Pie
American Entree
VIDALIA ONION PIE
INGREDIENTS
3 Vidalia onions
4 tablespoons butter
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons flour
¼ cup milk
1 cup sour cream
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 9-inch pie shells
⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Makes 2 pies. Takes 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Thinly slice Vidalia onions. Add butter and onion slices to pan. Sauté on medium-heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add onion and its drippings, eggs, flour, milk, sour cream, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Blend well with whisk. Pour into pie shell. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Bake in oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Lower temperature to 325 degrees and bake for an additional 20-to-40 minutes or until center of pie is firm.
TIDBITS
1) Vidalia onions are too flat to be used in onion bowling. You need a completely round onion for onion bowling. The onion’s root must not stick out.
2) Don’t show up at the Onion Bowling Championship in Scalene, Iowa with ovoid and misshapen onions. Your onion will go into the gutter time after time. People will laugh at you. And have you tried to pick up a 7-10 split with a lumpy onion? Well, it’s difficult!
3). The roundest onions come found Roundia, Tennessee.
4) Onion bowling was particularly popular during the Civil War. Union and Confederate armies fighting in Tennessee would periodically declare three-day truces to hold onion-bowling tournaments. A good time was had by all. The Southerners usually won, having been raised since infancy to bowl onions.
5) Many culinary historians believe onion bowling would have won out over baseball in the South had the Rebels won the war. But the Yankees prevailed, Reconstruction followed, and the Southern states had to adopt baseball as their primary sport in order to be readmitted to the Union.
– 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.
Categories: cuisine, history, humor
Tags: American, baseball, bowling, Chef Paul, Civil War, cookbook, entree, infantry, onion, Paul De Lancey, pie, Rebels, recipes, Reconstruction, Southerners, Tennessee, Union, Vidalia, vidalia onion, Vidalia onion pie
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Peanut Brittle (Pé de Moleque)
Brazilian Dessert
PE DE MOLEQUE
(peanut brittle)
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup light corn syrup
2⅓ cups raw, unsalted peanuts
1¾ cup sugar
SPECIAL INGREDIENT
baking pan
big, badass knife
Makes 25 squares. Takes 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Grease baking sheet with butter. Add corn syrup, peanuts, and sugar to pot. Cook using medium-high heat for 5-to-15 minutes or until the mixture has turned dark brown and carmelized. Stir frequently. Remove from heat. Pour caramelized sugar/peanuts into baking pan.
Let peanut brittle in pan cool. When peanut brittle has almost set, mark squares with thin cuts from a knife. This will make breaking the brittle apart easier. At least, that’s the theory. After the brittle has set, you might have to push down on those thin cuts with a big, badass kinfe.
If the brittle shatters into irregular shapes, shrug and say to your guests, “Look at the nice peanut brittle I made for you.” If people fuss, shake your big, badass knife at them. You don’t need that negativity in your life. And after they’ve fled, there’s even more yummy peanut brittle for you.
TIDBITS
1) Road construction was much simpler in early 19th-century Brazil. Workers poured sand where they wanted the road. The specialists took over from there and strew stones over the sand. Adults did not press the stones in the ground. Stones on the ground were beneath them. Literally, hee hee.
Ahem! So, kids, called were hired to walk up and down the road stomping stones into the sand. Kids everywhere, to this day, are excellent stompers. However, the stomping skills of Brazil’s kids during the early 1800s have never been rivaled. Brazil’s smooth roads were the envy of the entire world. Indeed, while people in America have the phrase, “As smooth as a baby’s bottom,” South Americans still say, “As smooth as a Brazilian road.”
2) These roads came to be called pé de moleque or kid’s feet. Similarly, hot dogs are named after the chihuahuas of 18th-century Mexico who tracked down banditos, while the word succotash derives from the not-so-good vacuum cleaners sold by Tash Appliances from 1923 to 1924.
– 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.
Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international
Tags: banditos, Brazil, Brazilian, Chef Paul, chihuahuas, cookbook, De Lancey, dessert, Mexico, pé de moleque, peanut brittle, Peanuts, recipes, succotash
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The Isosceles Bermuda Triangle
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.
Categories: humor, international
Tags: beneficial, Bermuda, Bermuda Triangle, cartographer, Haiti, Miami, murders, Paul De Lancey, Port au Prince, triangle
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Paul De Lancey's Blog 