Madagascan Entree
VARENGA
(Shredded Beef)
INGREDIENTS
⅔ onion
1¾ pounds beef chuck, boneless
7 cups water
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
SPECIAL UTENSIL
8″ * 11″ casserole dish
Serves 4. Takes 4 hours.
PREPARATION
Dice onion and parsely. Add all ingredients except parsley to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer at medium heat for 3 hours or until beef chuck can be shredded easily with a fork. (Add water as necessary to keep meat covered.)
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Transfer meat and liquid from pot to casserole dish. Roast for 30 minutes or until chuck at top is crispy and browned. Dice parsley. Garnish with parsley. Goes well with rice.
TIDBITS
1) Road rage occurs when drivers lose control of their temper and drive aggressively. If only there existed a cure for road rage. There isn’t such a thing, but there might be soon.
2) Madagascar recently suffered through a frightening year of van rage. In this case, van drivers became prone to road rage. No other car drivers fell prey to this anger. Indeed, drivers of hatch backs, pickup trucks, and all sorts of HondasTM were found to be particularly serene motorists.
3) Then Minister of Transportation, an avid anagramist, discovered that “van rage” was an anagram for “Varenga.” He said, “Why not have all van drivers eat Varenga every day?. Maybe our Varenga will calm them down.”
4) It did! All angry van drivers became pussy cats when they hit the road. Now, transportation officials all over the globe are frantically searching for food anagrams for “road rage.” This promises to be a daunting task as the words for “road rage” are different in all languages. The calming anagramic food will thus be another dish for each way of speaking.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
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.
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