Chatting With Chefs

Navajo Fry Bread

Posted on November 18, 2023 by pauldelancey

Navajo Appetizer

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NAVAJO FRY BREAD

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INGREDIENTS
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2 cups flour
3¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ cups milk, lukewarm
3 cups vegetable oil
¼ cup flour
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Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whish until well blended. Gradually add milk. Mix with hands after each addition. Knead for 5 minutes or until a smooth dough ball forms.
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Divide dough ball into 4 mini dough balls. Spread ¼ cup flour onto flat surface. Add mini dough balls. Flatten mini dough balls into discs ¼” thick. Let sit for 5 minutes. Make a tiny hole in the middle of the discs. (This prevents the discs from ballooning into a circle.)
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Add oil to large pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat until a bit of dough in the oil will start to dance. Gently add 1 dough disc into oil. Use spatula to press down on disc so that it is covered by oil. Fry dough disc for 0.5-to-2 minutes or until bubbles form on the top and the bottom turns golden brown. Carefully turn disc over with 1 or 2 spatulas. Fry until new bottom turns golden brown and the top bubbles.) Remove fry breads from heat and drain on paper towels. Repeat for remaining discs. Frying times might decrease with each fry bread.
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Use fry breads to make Navajo tacos or top them with honey or confectioners’ sugar to make a tasty dessert.
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TIDBITS
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1) The Navajo fry bread in the above picture is golden brown.
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2) The CL, Chef Legislature, mandates that all cooks know what Golden Brown means and how to bake and fry flour so that these dishes all come out Golden Brown.
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3) The CPD, Chef Police Department, will come for you if you don’t cook bread Golden Brown.
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4) On the other hand, if you master the art of cooking bread Golden Brown, everybody will love you. Crime in your neighborhood will fall to zero. Every financial decision will be golden. You will find gold nuggets just lying around as you take your daily walk. Anybody you fancy will desire your body, and you will be able to do the New York Times’ crossword puzzle.
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– 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.

Categories: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dinner Rolls

Posted on October 30, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

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DINNER ROLLS

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INGREDIENTS
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2¼ teaspoons dry active yeast
⅓ cup lukewarm water
¼ teaspoon sugar (7 teaspoons more later)
2½ tablespoons melted butter (2 tablespoons more later)
½ cup milk, lukewarm
½ teaspoon salt
7 teaspoons sugar
2¼ cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)
1½ tablespoons flour
no-stick spray
2 tablespoons melted butter
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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electric beater
8″ round casserole dish
bench scraper/chopper or long non-serrated knife
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Makes 15 rolls. Takes 2 hours 35 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add yeast and lukewarm water to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Sprinkle ¼ teaspoon sugar on top. Let sit for 10 minutes or until bubbles. Add 2½ tablespoons melted butter, milk, salt, and 7 teaspoons sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with spatula until salt and sugar dissolve. Let cool to room temperature.
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Add yeast mixture to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Gradually add 2¼ cups flour while mixing with electric beater set on medium. Mix until a slightly sticky dough ball forms. Dust flat surface with 1½ tablespoons flour. Remove dough ball to flat surface. Knead for 5 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Spray large mixing bowl with no-stick spray. Add dough ball to large mixing bowl. Rotate dough until covered with spray. Cover bowl with towel. Let sit for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
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Push down on dough. Roll dough into a log 15″ long and 1″ wide. Use bench scraper to cut log into 15 pieces. Shape 15 pieces into smooth balls. Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add smooth dough balls to casserole dish. Cover with towel and let sit for 1 hour or until fluffy. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until tops of rolls turn golden brown. Brush tops of rolls with 2 tablespoons melted butter.
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TIDBITS
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1) Doing dishes makes the kitchen clean, which makes you happy.
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2) But, pondering the infinite brings enlightenment.
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3) What will you chose?
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4) May I suggest alternating 5-minute bursts of each activity?
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5) While achieving enlightenment, I had the following stream of consciousness.
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6) Can you have a stream of consciousness while asleep or even unconscious?
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7) Unconscious is a hard word to spell.
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8) You can see that I spelled it right.
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9) You’ll have to take my word for it that I spelled it right on the very first try. Go me.
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10) Somehow this segues into how we developed before birth.
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11) Prehistoric peoples believed we started out as very tiny version of the baby that would eventually pop out of mama.
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12) How do we know this? Go to the Courgette Library in Bordeaux, France. Find the research department and ask to see the ground breaking Greatest Texts of Prehistory by Farine du Ble.
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13) Nowadays, culinary biologists say that we began as a single, undifferentiated cell.
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14) This cell doubled into two slightly unlike* cells.
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15) * = I used my thesaurus to come up with a different word for different.
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16) This doubling process kept going until we had nearly 15 slightly dissimilar cells like in the above photo.
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17) Eventually this doubling process stops. We don’t increase twofold the day before birth.
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18) But what if this repetitive course continues after birth?
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19) Eventually, we’d get as big as Uranus.
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20) We’d also possess a staggering number of specialized cells.
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21) We’d most likely quite sport an impressive number of super-hero skills.
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22) Which we’d need if we were truly as enormous as Uranus.
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– 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.

Categories: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tomato Pie

Posted on June 20, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Entree

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TOMATO PIE

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INGREDIENTS­
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1 tablespoon fresh basil
1½ tablespoons fresh dill
3 green onions
1½ tablespoons fresh oregano
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
2½ pounds tomatoes
½ tablespoon salt
¾ cup mayonnaise
¾ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
¾ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 9″ pie shell
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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mandoline (optional)
aluminum foil
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Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Preheat oven to 360 degrees, Dice basil, dill, green onions, oregano, and parsley. Use mandoline or knife to Slice tomatoes into slices ¼”-thick slices with mandoline or knife. Place tomato slices 1-layer deep on paper towels. Sprinkle slices with salt. Place paper towels on tomatoes. Pat tomatoes dry. Let sit 15 minutes. Pat tomato slices dry again with new paper towels. Add mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, basil, dill, green onion, oregano, and mayonnaise to mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended.
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Arrange ⅓ of the tomato slices over the pie crest. Spread ½ of the cheese/mayonnaise mixture over the tomato slices. Repeat. Arrange last layer of tomato slices over the 2nd cheese/ mayonnaise layer. Press these slices firmly into the cheese/mayonnaise. (This makes the layers come together.) Wrap only the edges of crust with tin foil to prevent the crust from browning excessively.
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Bake at 360 degrees for 35 minutes or until the mayonnaise/cheese mixture turns golden brown and begins to bubble. Garnish with parsley.
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TIDBITS
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1) Lucy of Olduvai Gorge had a brother called Tomato. His skeleton has yet to be discovered. That’s why know so little of him. While most homonids were content to be hunter-gathers, Tomato developed the tomato by careful cross pollination. He then scattered tomato seeds along his way to North and South America. It’s only fitting that we named the tomato after him.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
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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: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Boston Brown Bread

Posted on June 17, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

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BOSTON BROWN BREAD

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INGREDIENTS
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1 tablespoon butter
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup yellow cornmeal
¾ cup rye flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup raisins (optional)
1¼ cups buttermilk
½ cup molasses
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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3 coffee cans (Use the 14.5 ounce size or as near as you can get.)
aluminum foil
kitchen twine
8″*13″ casserole dish
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Serves 8.  Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease coffee cans with butter. Add allspice, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cornmeal, rye flour, wheat flour, and raisins (optional) to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended..
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Boil water. Add buttermilk, molasses, and vanilla  to medium mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add buttermilk into large bowl containing dry ingredients. Gently mix with spatula until just combined. This is the batter.
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Spoon batter equally into the 3 coffee cans. The batter should not reach higher than ⅔ the way up the cans. Cover the top of the cans will aluminum. Tie aluminum securely to the cans with kitchen twine. Add cans to casserole dish. Put casserole on middle rack in oven. Leave rack partway out. Pour boiling water into casserole dish until the water level is ¾ the way up to the top of the dish. (This method is safer and easier than lifting a dish full of boiling water into the oven.)
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Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour 20 minutes or until the top of a loaf will spring back when lightly touched or until loaves start to pull away from coffee cans. Remove aluminum foil. Place cans on cooling rack. Let cool for 1 hour. Turn over cans and tap the bottom to cans to get loaves to slide out. Goes well with cream cheese or baked beans.
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TIDBITS
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1) Boston Brown Bread is round. This is no accident.
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2) Bread Bread , however, is rectangular and made from bits and pieces of other bread loaves.
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3) Ned Ted Dredd bakes the most famous Bread Bread.
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4) It is said that Ned hails from Jamaica and wears dreadlocks. He’a also kinda scary. People dread seeing his dreads coming toward them.
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5) And that he is also a medical student at Kingston’s prestigious Kedd Medical University. It’s buildings are painted red to get its premeds used to the sight of blood.
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6) So, by all means visit Kedd Med Dread Dread Ned Ted Dredd’s Bread Bread Bakery.
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7) Any back in Boston, keen, lean, and mean Bob “Beantown” Beanstalk was drilling for samples deep into the Earth’s crust.
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8) For he was a, was a …
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9) Crustologist. You know the sort that drill into the crust looking for things that interest an amazingly small number of people.
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10) Anyway, “Beantown” was hopping–no, it’s spelled hoping–to find beetle exoskeletons in his core sample from one-mile down.
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11) For it’s well known that Ancient Egypt’s pharaohs and priests were absolutely gaga about beetles. They bred beetles to be pets. They held beetle relay races on religious holidays, They used rubies to fashion jewelry to look like beetles.
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12) Anyway, Beanstalk believed pharaohs dated back 10,000,009 years. Then if he could find similarly ancient beetles ‘neath the streets of Boston, then he would prove that Egypt was at one time adjacent to what is now New England.
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13) Incoming news! Just before press time, Boston Public Works just fired Bob Beanstalk. No reason was given.
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14) But just before getting the sack, and just before lunchtime, a hungry Bob looked at a brown, round soil sample. “Boy,” he said, “I am really hungry for some good, fresh bread.”
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15) As it so happened, Beanstalk’s wife  had filled his lunch pail with: butter, allspice, baking powder, salt, cornmeal, rye flour, whole wheat flour, raisins, buttermilk, molasses, vanilla extract, an 8″*13″ casserole dish, 3 round cans of coffee, aluminum foil, kitchen twine, six gallons of water, and two bunsen burners. After drinking all that coffee, frenetic Beantown’s synapses fired at an alarming rate and he soon created the first Boston Brown Bread out of the contents of his lunch pail.
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16) Now you know.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
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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: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Come Visit “Chatting With Chefs”

Posted on July 25, 2022 by pauldelancey

 

CHATTING WITH CHEFS

 

“Chatting With Chefs” is hoping to foster interaction between chefs and all who love food and food preparation. We would love to see you and anything of the following:

Recipes
Food pictures
Food reviews

Reviews of wines
Food and wine pairings
Restaurant reviews

Recommendations of restaurants and hotel with great food
Listings and description of food tours
Where to find ingredients that are hard to find in some regions or how to find them online

Information on legislation to help restaurants and workers in the food industry.
Information on restaurants that are hiring
Information on restaurants that are the best or worst to work for.

I’d like people to advertise* themselves, their restaurants, and their cookbooks.
* = For the time being, advertising will be on Fridays only. Advertising will also be limited to people and restaurants who contribute, at least a little, to discussions on this group’s site. We don’t want to get spammed. Also, advertisements of a non culinary nature are considered spam.

And, of course, we welcome discussion on anything that’s posted.

Again, please feel to visit and participate.

 

Paul R. De Lancey, Ph.D., an administrator of Chatting With Chefs

 

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: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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