Monthly Archives: June 2015

Poulet Yassa (chicken stew)

Posted on June 23, 2015 by pauldelancey

Guinean Entree

POULET YASSA
(chicken stew)

INGREDIENTS

3 pounds boneless chicken
3 garlic cloves
6 medium onions
⅔ cup lemon juice
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup chicken stock
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

Dutch oven

Makes 6 bowls. Takes at least 6 hours, including refrigeration.

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic. Thinly slice onions. Add chicken, garlic, onion, lemon juice, and pepper to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until chicken cubes are thoroughly coated. Marinate chicken in refrigerator for at least 5 hours or overnight.

Remove onion slices and chicken cubes from large mixing bowl. (Keep lemony marinade.) Add chicken cubes, onion slices and oil to Dutch oven Sauté at high heat for 10-to-15 minutes or until onion softens and chicken is no longer pink on outside. Stir frequently. Add lemony marinade from large mixing bowl, chicken stock, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, Dijon mustard, and salt to Dutch oven. Simmer at low heat for 30 minutes-to 1 hour or until chicken is done and most of the liquid is gone. Goes well with couscous or rice.

TIDBITS

1) The Great Chicken Festival is held in December in Cacciatore, Alaska. Chickens from all over the world come to see and to be seen. Highlights of the festival are the clean-and-jerk weight lifting event and the Great Chicken Golf Invitational. You’ll have seen nothing like it.

2) The World Chicken Festival occurs in September in London, Kentucky. Contests include the rooster crowing, clucking, and strutting, survival egg dropping, and chicken-wing eating. London, Kentucky is located in the Daniel Boone National Forest. Daniel Boone was the first man to successfully tame Eastern Kentucky’s huge herds of feral chickens. This is why we know about him.

– 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: Alaska, Chef Paul, chicken, chicken wing, cookbook, Daniel Boone, egg, entree, golf, Guinea, Guinean, invitational, Kentucy, London, national forest, poulet yassa, recipes, rooster, stew, World Chicken Festival | Leave a comment

When My Family Stopped Ruling the World

Posted on June 18, 2015 by pauldelancey

200 years ago my great, great, great, great grandfather, Napoleon I, lost the battle of Waterloo. In doing so, he lost control of Europe, his position as emperor of France, and my birthright to rule France and intimidate the rest of the world. Bummer. But it’s fun to speculate what I would do if I were emperor. Let’s go! I’d:

1) Ban lutefisk. How how did we allowed this atrocity to go unchecked?

2) Abolish all Federal income taxes.

3) Impose imperial income taxes. We’re an empire now, remember?

4) Coffee trucks will cruise by the millions around all neighborhoods in the morning. This will increase productivity to an amazing extent, heralding in a new era of prosperity.

5) The Cubs will win the World Series. Imperial decree seems to be the only way to bring this about. Besides, Cub fans have suffered a lot.

6) Grade inflation will stop in schools. Teachers will get paid more. Bacon & Chocolate will be part of school lunches.

7) It will be illegal to advertise any story or post on the internet with, “You won’t believe” or “what happens next will shock you.

8) Twizzlers will become the world’s currency.

9) Tacos will be free everywhere on my birthday.

10) Computers will no longer freeze.

11) Spammers will be charged a penny for every person they spam. This will eliminate the need for income taxes. Yay!

12) People who don’t signal before they turn will spontaneously combust.

13) Air travel will be fun. Okay this last one is a stretch.

– Paul R. De Lancey, Emperor of the World

Categories: humor, international | Tags: air travel, bacon, Bacon & Chocolate, chocolate, coffee, computers, Cubs, De Lancey, Empire, French, imperial, income taxes, lutefisk, Napoleon, prosperity, taxes, teachers, Waterloo | Leave a comment

Khachapuri (Georgian cheese roll)

Posted on June 15, 2015 by pauldelancey

Georgian Entree

KHACHAPURI

INGREDIENTS

¾ cup milk
1 teaspoon sugar
2½ teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
2⅔ cups flour (4 additional tablespoon later)
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour (3 additional tablespoons later)
1 tablespoon butter (2 additional tablespoons later)
1 pound Muenster or mozzarella cheese
½ pound feta cheese
¼ pound ricotta cheese
2 eggs (2 additional eggs later)
2 tablespoons flour (1 additional tablespoon later)
1 tablespoon flour
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter

SPECIAL UTENSILS

parchment paper or at least, no-stick spray
food processor
2 x 9″ pie tins
clothes dryer

Makes 2 loaves. Takes 2¾ hours.

PREPARATION

Add milk and sugar to small pot. Cook on low-medium heat until mixture is lukewarm. Stir constantly. Remove from heat and add yeast. Stir until well blended. Let cool for 10 minutes. Add olive oil, 2⅔ cups flour, and salt. Stir until mixture becomes a lumpy dough ball. Let sit for 30 minutes.

While dough ball sits, dust a flat surface with 1 tablespoon flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Knead dough by hand until you are at peace with the world or 8 minutes. Grease large mixing bowl with 1 tablespoon butter. Add knead dough ball to greased, first mixing bowl. Turn dough ball around until it’s coated with butter. Cover bowl and let sit for 1 hour.

While dough rises, cut Muenster and feta cheeses into ½” cubes. Add grated Muenster, feta, and ricotta cheeses to food processor. Blend until only a few cubes remain. Add 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons flour. Blend until mixture is smooth. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

After dough has risen, dust flat surface with 1 tablespoon flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Flatten dough ball with hands. Divide dough ball in half. Flatten dough halves until they are 11″ wide and about ⅛” thick. Add parchment paper or no-stick spray to pie tins. Add flattened dough halves to pie tins. Add half of cheese/egg/flour mixture to center of each dough half. Pull edges of dough to the center until there is only a round 1″ hole in the middle. Pinch edges together.

Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees or until bread loaves are starting to brown. Use spoon or shot glass to press a 3″ hole in the center of the loaves. Add an egg to each 3″ hole. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes or until loaves turn golden brown and eggs are slightly set. (The eggs will continue to cook after being removed from the oven.) Remove from oven and brush each loaf with 1 tablespoon butter.

Serve hot to adoring guests. Put pairs of unappreciative guests in pairs of matched socks. Put sock-clad guests in clothes drier. When one of the matching socks disappears, as often happens, it’ll take one of the complainers with it. Repeat until your home has only happy people in it.

TIDBITS

1) This entree is from the country called Georgia. This Georgia is near Russia and Iran. There is also a state in America called Georgia. It is near Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

2) Both Georgias are named after Madamoiselle Georgia Chat. We know little about Mlle. Mousse save that she was born in Tours, France about 708. She was also extraordinarily beautiful. Okay, we know that. Oh, she was also fabulously rich. All right, we know that as well. So, you’d think she’d be a hot marriage prospect for all the local barons. Why did she never marry?

3) Mademoiselle Georgia never considered giving up her independence and she had a giant, pet rabbit Snuggles to protect her. How gigantic? Sources yield varying heights from twelve feet tall to the preposterous sixty-seven feet. Given the fact that Snuggles was also a ninja, you can see why the local nobility thought twice before courting her. On it went. Georgia performed scientific experiments. She even invented the briquette for barbecuing while Snuggles swung his one-ton hammer. at local lords and door-to-door salesmen.

4) Then in 732, Abd Al-Raman with his Berber tribesmen invaded the Frankish kingdom. The Franks assembled their forces at Tours under Charles the Pippinid. The Muslim Berbers were famed for their cavalry. The Franks had the fiercest infantry in all of Europe. Unfortunately, the Franks at the time were notorious for their allergy to horses.

5) The Muslims should have won. Europe should now be eating koushry instead of croissants. What happened? Snuggles happened. He shoved his way past the sneezing Frankish infantry and swung his mighty hammer over and over again at the massed Berber cavalry. Soon, the overmatched Berbers fled, but not before one of them shot an arrow through Snuggles’ heart.

6) Two bards saw the battle and would travel the world singing Snuggles’ praises. One settled in America, the other near Russia. Locals impressed by Snuggle’s deeds wanted to renamed their lands after him, but balked at his cutesy name. They settled on Georgia instead and there you have it.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international | Tags: Alabama, America, Berber, briquette, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, Europe, feta, Florida, France, Frankish, Franks, Georgia, Georgian, hammer, infantry, Iran, khachapuri, marriage, Muenster, olive oil, rabbit, recipes, ricotta, Russia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Tours | Leave a comment

My Not-To-Do List

Posted on June 14, 2015 by pauldelancey

This blog is directly inspired by the talented and hilarious Kathy Minicozzi who was in turn inspired by the renowned humorist David Sedaris.

Here are the things I resolve not to do today. Takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Okay Paul, you cannot do this.

1) I will not cook or eat lutefisk.

2) I will not foment revolution anywhere.

3) I will not lose a sock in the dryer.

4) Because I will not do clothes today.

5) I will not engage in the illicit fruitcake market.

6) I will not voluntarily upgrade any of my electronic devices.

7) I will not race to the be the first to reach the South Pole. I’ve already lost. It happened about a century ago. Why try?

8) I will not attack the weeds in my backyard with my weed whacker for another day. The tenuous truce still holds.

9) I will not sing at any karaoke bar. The whole world rejoices.

10) I will not befriend North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on Facebook.

11) I will not say, “I love you,” to my printer.

– Paul R. De Lancey, great no-doer

Categories: humor | Tags: apocalyptic, fruitcake, hunks, karaoke, Kathy Manicozzi, Kim Jong Un, lutefisk, Lutheran, mushrooms, Paul De Lancey, Paul R. De Lancey, printer, revolution, South Pole, thriller, to do list | 2 Comments

Mumu From Papua New Guinea

Posted on June 13, 2015 by pauldelancey

Papua New Guinean Entree

MUMU

INGREDIENTS

8 ounces carrots or 2 medium
8 ounces sweet potatoes or 1 large
8 ounces banana or 1½ medium
8 ounces papaya or ½ medium
4 ounces spinach
12 ounces pork
6 ounces peas or similar green vegetable
12 ounces chicken
1 or 2 banana leaves or cabbage leaves* (enough to cover pot)
20 ounces coconut cream total (5 times at ¼ cup) or 2 14-ounces cans coconut milk.

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 2 hours.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

outdoor grill
grill-safe pot and lid

PREPARATION – COCONUT CREAM (If you can’t find it in stores.)

Chill coconut milk cans in refrigerator for 24 hours. Open cans and scoop out the thick cream on the top. Keep 20 ounces, or 2½ cups, of coconut cream. Use the rest of the coconut cream and the liquid in the bottom of the cans to make coconut-based smoothies

PREPARATION – ONCE YOU HAVE COCONUT CREAM.

Wash and peel carrots, sweet potatoes, banana, and papaya. Remove papaya seeds. Chop carrots, sweet potatoes, pork, bananas, papaya, peas, and chicken into 1″ cubes.

This dish is made with 5 layers. Spread ingredients evenly for each layer. Top each layer with ¼ cup of coconut cream. Make the first layer by adding carrot and sweet potato to pot. Make the second layer by adding pork. Make the third layer by adding banana and papaya. Make the fourth layer by adding chicken. Make the fifth layer by adding peas and spinach. Top everything with banana leaves.

Cover pot and place on grill. Never stir ingredients. Grill on medium heat for 15 minutes or until you see juices bubble. Reduce heat on grill to low and simmer for 1-to-1½ hours or until everything is done to your liking. Okay, okay, you’ll to take a fork and peek and the doneness of the various layers, but no stirring.

TIDBITS

1) The stability of the entire world is threatened by an emerging superpower, Papua New Guinea. Hah, you say. Where is Papua New Guinea? North of Australia. What does it produce? Rain and mud, according to Allied soldiers fighting there in World II. What could such a country do? Buy a lot of SPAM or … conquer the Pacific Ocean.

How? I’m glad you asked. Culinary historians know the best mud for beauty care comes from Papua New Guinea, or PNG. The demand for this mud in American and European spas grows fantastically every year. Soon, PNG will be awash with the world’s money. PNG can then allocate its new billions to buy used aircraft carriers, fighter planes, bombers, tanks, and landing craft listed irresponsibly on eBay.

2) This is where the nightmare starts PNG has a population of 4,600,000. (I counted them twice last Tuesday.) Even if the country puts just 10% of its people in the military, it will have a striking force of 460,000. Who has the population, the might to stop them? Not neighboring Nauru with its tiny population of 11,000 and maybe soldiers.

3) Emboldened by this easy conquest, Tuvalu, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Tonga, with their combined population of 260,000 will fall like leaves in a Wisconsin autumn. This disaster will have worldwide ramifications. Does anyone doubt the Palauan contingent keeping the peace in The Land of Oz will remain under such dire circumstances? No, they will go home to fight a war of liberation. The whole idea of UN peace-keeping forces will unravel. Minor skirmishes will become full fledged regional wars. So it goes.

4) Soon, Micronesia and Vanuatu will topple. I don’t know much about them so let’s move onto the Solomon Islands and Fiji–biggish but still smaller than PNG. We cannot let these two nations fall. We cannot let PNG monopolize the best snorkeling sites in the world. Have you snorkeled at Key Largo? Well, let me tell you, the snorkeling at Fiji is much better. And by the way, conquest of these countries would enable PNG to block all airborne and seaborne trade across the Pacific. The snorkeling industry and the world economy would collapse.

5) What can Americans do? Simple. Use local mud! Cut off the funds for PNG’s drive for conquest. Insist on backyard mud whenever your toddler makes you a mud pie. Be sure to ask for good ol’ American mud when getting a mud treatment at your spa. It’s good for your face. It’s good for the world.

6) Use the blank space at the bottom of this page to make a mud drawing. Do other cookbooks let you do this? No, I don’t think so.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: aircraft carriers, Allied, American, Australia, banana leaves, Chef Paul, coconut, cookbook, cream, culinary, De Lancey, entree, European, fighter planes, Fiji, grill, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, mud pie, mumu, Nauru, Pacific, Pacific Ocean, Papua New Guinea, recipes, snorkeling, spam, spas, sweet potatoes, tanks, Tonga, Tuvalu, UN, Wisconsin, World War II | 2 Comments

Baked Vidalia Onion

Posted on June 7, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Entree

BAKED VIDALIA ONION

INGREDIENTS

1 Vidalia onion
1 tablespoon butter
1 beef bouillon cube
½ teaspoon sherry

Makes 1 onion. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes. If you wish to serve everyone in the world, multiply ingredients by 7,000,000,000. You will need a big oven and most likely will want some help.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice off a thin disk from the top of the onion. Peel the onion. Do not remove the root. Use potato peeler to make a cone-shaped hole in the middle of the onion. The hole should be about 1″ wide at the top and taper to a point at the bottom. The hole should stop 1″ from the bottom of the onion. Cut onion into thirds down the sides, stopping ½” from the bottom. Goodness.

Place a pat or slivers of butter equal to 1 teaspoon into each of the three cuts on the sides of the onion. Add bouillon cube and sherry in the onion’s cone-shaped hole. Wrap tightly in foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until onion is tender. Place tray underneath to catch drippings. Open foil slowly to let hot steam escape. Serve in a bowl as there will be broth.

TIDBITS

1) N.B. Ull was just one of thousands of wildcat oil men looking for oil in Hawaii in the 1880s. Why were oil men looking for oil in Hawaii? The weather, of course, it’s great there. And the sunsets and those drinks with the pink umbrellas and the hula dancers swaying back and forth and . . . Anyway, the oil men drilled and drilled and eventually gave up to go back to the beaches to watch the sunsets and swaying native dancers and . . . Anyway, Mr. Ull persevered month after month and Pow! A black, plume spurted into the sky. Only it wasn’t oil. It was something culinary..

2) Anagrammists rushed to the spot and rearranged N.B. Ull and Oil to form the anagram Bouillon. Unfortunately, whenever anagrammists gather in great numbers they get agitated, especially when there are no drinks with pink umbrellas in them because failed oil men have drunk them all. In this case, the excited wordsters fomented revolution against the Hawaiian Monarchy. Businessmen, fearing anarchy, successfully petitioned the U.S. to annex these idyllic islands. Something to think about whenever you enjoy bouillon or rearrange a word’s letters.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, history, humor | Tags: American, anagram, baked, baked Vidalia onion, bouillon, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, Hawaii, hula, monarchy, oil, onion, recipes, U.S., Vidalia | Leave a comment

Words To Live By

Posted on June 6, 2015 by pauldelancey

1) Do what you can do. If you can do it, then you can do it.

2) Don’t do what you can’t do. If you can’t do it, then you can’t do it.

3) Not everything you can do should be done. Mixing root beer with a pint of Scotch bonnet sauce comes to mind.

4) Turn off the burners on your stove when your done.

5) Run from rabid ducks.

– Paul De Lancey, Life Counselor

Categories: humor | Tags: beneficial, counselor, De Lancey, ducks, life, murders, rabid, root beer, scotch bonnet | Leave a comment

Tourtiere (Canadian Meat Pie)

Posted on June 5, 2015 by pauldelancey

Canadian Entree

TOURTIERE
(meat pie)

INGREDIENTS

1 pounds ground pork
½ pound ground beef
1 medium onion
1 small brown potato
1 garlic clove
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground clove
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon thyme
1¼ cups water

1 small egg
1 pastry for 9″ double-crust pie

SPECIAL INGREDIENT

9″ pie pan

Takes 2 hours

PREPARATION

Dice onion. Peel potato. Slice potato into ½” cubes. Add top thirteen ingredients, ground pork to water, to large pan Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Cover, reduce heat to low-medium, and simmer for 30 minutes or until onion and potato are soft. Stir occasionally, enough to keep ingredients from burning. Add water as necessary to keep mixture moist.

Line pie pan with layer of pastry. Add pork/beef/potato mix to pie pan. Let cool at room temperature, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover pork/beef/potato mix with top layer of pastry. Use fork to push edges of the pastry layers together. Use knife to make 6 1″ slits in top pastry layer. Add egg to small mixing bowl. Beat with whisk. Brush top pastry layer with thin egg coating. Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) I wish I had known about the following event when I was more athletic, agile, and the intellectual terror of the world. But whatever you skill level, run, jump and hop to the Rock, Paper, Scissors World Championship in Toronto, Canada. Rock, paper, scissors (RPS) is often called the best non-violent resolution to conflicts the world over. It must be so; Canadian RPS grand masters have successfully kept their country out of major conflicts for decades. Culinary personal trainers will tell would be contestants dedicate 30 minutes each day to finger-flexing, wrist-twisting, and elbow-bending exercises if they wish to do at all well at the championship. Cross training by playing chess is often recommended as well.

2) The more aquatically minded tourists head to Nanaimo, British Columbia, for its four-day marine festival. All sorts of fun events take place, but really everyone is looking ahead to the the World Championship Bathtub Race (WCBR) which takes place on the last day. It’s a 36-mile race across the Georgia Straits which presumably is nearby. Serious contestants $3,000 on their tubs outboard motors. And after the race, why not cruise the Canadian coast in your tub? Traveling by airplane, car, train, or even cruise ship is so 2014. Just be sure to carry a good life jacket and stay close to shore, and avoid big ships.

3) Perhaps the best Elvis impersonator festival in the world occurs in the summer at the Collingwood Elvis festival which thank goodness, is held in Collingwood, Ontario. This festival draws a variety of people . . . Oh heck, no it doesn’t. Only lovers of Elvis’ music will go. Oh, and Elvis impersonators. Expect to see lots and lots of Elvis impersonators. This is a good thing, however, if you love Elvis’s music and if you don’t love his songs, then why are you attending an Elvis festival?

4) Clear your musical palate by attending the Accordion Extravaganza! in Edmonton, Alberta. Pop in on all sorts of concerts, workshops, dances, and competitions, all featuring the accordion. Accordion lovers will melt in ecstasy here. Accordion haters will spontaneously combust. Culinary psychologists speculate that the three leading causes of divorce are: 1) monetary problems, 2) infidelity, and 3) irreconcilable–Woo! I spelled that word right on the first try–differences over accordion music.

5) Looking for something to do after your significant other combusted? Then make your way to the Poutine Festival in Drummondville, Quebec. Poutine, perhaps Quebec’s most famous dish, consists of French fries, beef gravy, and cheese curds or mozzarella. Listen to wonderful music while tasting caloric culinary greatness. Heart specialists are standing by.

6) Sluggish after overindulging with poutine? It’s delicious, who could not? Then have someone take you to Calgary, Alberta, International Festival of Animated Objects.. Puppet shows and performances with other animated thingys touch on dark, troubling themes. Even though, many of the shows are supposed to be family friendly, it all seems rather ominous.

7) Clear your head of scary puppets by attending any number of Scottish festivals around Canada, where they eat Scottish food, dance to Scottish music, and do all sorts of Scottish things.

8) Continue to embrace your inner Northern Europeaniness by raiding your way to the Icelandic Festival in Gimli, Manitoba, in August. The festival features a Viking encampment AND demonstrations of Viking warfare. Woot! Way Cool! Way Cool! I want to go there. I want to go. Take me with you, I’ll be ever so good. I’ll cook and clean, and everything. There is also a Viking parade which is also way cool. And don’t forget the crowning of the Fjalkona, the Maid of the Mountain. The Fjalkona is held to be the female incarnation of Iceland. Heavy responsibility, you bet! This is festival is so cool. Please take me with you.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: accordion, Accordion Extravaganza, Alberta, bath tub, bath tub race, British Columbia, Calgary, Canadian, Chef Paul, Collingwood, cookbook, De Lancey, Drummondville, Elvis, entree, festival, Fjalkona, Gimli, Icelandic, impersonator, Maid of the Mountain, Manitoba, Nanaimo, Ontario, paper, poutine, Quebec, recipes, rock, scissors, Scottish, Toronto, tourtiere, Viking | Leave a comment

Draniki (Potato Pancakes from Belarus)

Posted on June 3, 2015 by pauldelancey

Belarus Entree

DRANIKI
(potato pancakes)

INGREDIENTS

1 small onion
6 medium brown potatoes
1 egg
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
up to 6 tablespoon vegetable oil
6 tablespoons sour cream (optional)
6 teaspoons dill (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Food processor

Makes 12 draniki. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince onion. Peel potatoes. Use the side of a grater with the tiny raised holes to grate potatoes as fine and liquidy as possible. Oh gosh, don’t do it this all; it’s hell. Preserve your sanity, use food processor to mince potatoes to teeny, tiny bits.

Add potato, onion, egg, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Blend well with whisk. Add 1 tablespoon oil to pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Oil is ready when a tiny potato bit will dance around in the oil. Add 1/12th, about ¼ cup, of potato/onion mixture to pan. Sauté with medium-high heat for 1½ minutes or until bottom of pancake is golden brown. (Lift pancake with spatula to see. X-ray vision works tool.) Flip pancake and sauté for another 1½ minutes or until the new bottom side is golden brown as well.

Repeat for each draniki, potato pancake. Add vegetable oil as needed. If desired, top each draniki with ½ tablespoon sour cream and/or ½ teaspoon dill.

TIDBITS

1) There are probably millions upon millions of people who would go to church more often if its ceremonies were, well, more exciting. If you belong to this group, why not head to Belarus for its Ivan Kupala festival? If your heart races at the sight of fireworks and the opportunity to leap over roaring fires, then this is the ceremony for you. It used to be a pagan festival, but it was taken over by church leaders and converted to a celebration of John the Baptist. It’s on July 6. See you there.

2) By the way, if you’re in line for confession, don’t bother offering to switch sins with the people around you. They will invariably look at you askance and edge away.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: Belarus, Chef Paul, confession, cookbook, De Lancey, dill, draniki, entree, festival, Ivan Kupala, pancakes, potato, potato pancakes, recipes, Saint John, sour cream, X-ray vision | Leave a comment

Pom Casserole

Posted on June 1, 2015 by pauldelancey

Suriname Entree

POM CASSEROLE

INGREDIENTS

2 pounds chicken breasts
2 pounds taro or pomtayer*
2 celery stalks
1 large onion
4 tomatoes
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ cup orange juice
1¾ tablespoons parsley
2 tablespoons olive oil (2 more tablespoons later)
1 teaspoon allspice
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups chicken broth
no-stick spray

* = Pomtayer is so, so hard to find in many parts of American. Give yourself the Culinary Explorer’s Badge if you find pomtayer. So far, the awarding of this badge is on the honor system.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

9″ x 13″ casserole dish

Makes 12 bowls. Takes 1.5-to-2 hours to prepare.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Peel taro. Grate or shred taro. Dice celery, onion, and tomatoes.

Add taro, brown sugar, orange juice, and parsley to large mixing bowl. Mix by hand until taro is well coated. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, allspice, celery, onion, and tomatoes cubes to first pan. Sauté on medium high-heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Reserve 3 tablespoons juice from first pan.

Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, chicken cubes, pepper, and salt to second pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken cubes turn golden brown. Stir occasionally. Add chicken broth and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Remove chicken from second pan and pour remaining broth into mixing bowl with taro mix. Blend with fork. Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Put half of taro/chicken broth from mixing bowl to casserole dish and spread evenly. Spread celery/onion/tomato mix from first pan on top. Spread chicken cubes evenly on top. Cover with remaining half of taro/chicken broth. Spread evenly. Drizzle top layer with reserved 3 tablespoons of juice from first pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour-15 minutes or until top is golden brown and set.

TIDBITS

1) Because of the font I’m using, Pom, the name of this entree, looks a lot like Porn. Probably more people have indulged in Porn than Pom.

2) Britain found that 50% of women love chocolate more than sex. Clearly, my there is a need for my advice on culinary romance. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a Ph.D. in economics and you know how many of us there are in the world. Here they are, my greatest culinary sex tips. Some of them might even be true.

3) Chocolates make women feel slightly more romantic. So you see, chocolate is a really good gift.

4) Pecans help a man’s sex life. Pecans have a lot of zinc. Zinc helps men produce more testosterone.

5) Just clink glasses together when toasting in France. Clink one glass at a time. Don’t cross any person’s arm while clinking. Follow all these rules or be cursed with seven years of bad sex.

6) The Romans used anchovy entrails to make an aphrodisiac. The process itself of gutting the anchovy, however, is far from being a turn-on.

7) Ancient Romans, and there were a lot of them, held celery to be a powerful aphrodisiac. Modern scientists say celery contains androsterone. This pheromone, released by men’s sweat glands, attracts females.

8) The Karma Sutra says ginger is a potent aphrodisiac The FDA says ginger is generally recognized as safe. There you go.

9) Cabbage is hot, hot, hot. Recent English research has cabbage being the best natural aphrodisiac. Many other dishes are also aphrodisiacs. These include: grilled oyster, grilled asparagus, grilled bananas, honey-grilled shrimp, grilled Parmesan potatoes, and grilled carrots One can only imagine if you serve your sweetheart all of the above at once.

10) Chicago’s Smell and Taste Research Foundation holds that lavender and pumpkin pie produce the most sexually exciting smells for men. Having a man over for lavender chicken and a pumpkin pie for dessert really loads the odds in your favor. Unless, of course, your man has a migraine. But it’s okay even then, for the German nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) believed drinks mixed with lavender cured migraines. You’re still in action.

11) Korean red ginseng is supposed to increase arousal in menopausal women. A daily dosage of three grams a day is the correct amount. It’s not clear if red ginseng from another country is okay. Or what about Korean orange ginseng? Is it the real sexual McCoy? Does it only give those women a slightly amorous feeling, like one chocolate doughnut? Do you need to get a kitchen scale in order the get exactly the prescribed three ounce of Korean red ginseng? Clearly, future research is needed.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international | Tags: amorous, aphrodisiac, attracts females, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, German, Karma Sutra, Korean, migraine, pheromone, pom, potent, recipes, Romans, sexual, Suriname, turn-on | Leave a comment

Monthly Archives: June 2015

Poulet Yassa (chicken stew)

POULET YASSA
(chicken stew)

When My Family Stopped Ruling the World

Khachapuri (Georgian cheese roll)

KHACHAPURI

My Not-To-Do List

Mumu From Papua New Guinea

MUMU

Baked Vidalia Onion

BAKED VIDALIA ONION

Words To Live By

Tourtiere (Canadian Meat Pie)

Draniki (Potato Pancakes from Belarus)

Pom Casserole

POM CASSEROLE

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Paul’s archives

Monthly Archives: June 2015

POULET YASSA (chicken stew)

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POM CASSEROLE

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POULET YASSA
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