cuisine

Stuffed Pionono From Uruguay

Posted on April 23, 2022 by pauldelancey

Uruguayan Entree*

STUFFED PIONONO

INGREDIENTS – PIONONO

4 eggs (2 hard boiled eggs later)
2½ tablespoons sugar (2½ tablespoons more later)
½ cup flour
2½ tablespoons sugar
⅓ cup sugar
⅛ teaspoon salt
no-stick spray

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

2 eggs, hard boiled
5 ounces ham
1 tomato
1 cup grated cheese (your favorite)
5 tablespoons mayonnaise

* = This is often made as a dessert. To do so, ladle dulce de leche over the rolled up pionono and substitute sweet ingredients for the above savory ones.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
10″ x 14″ baking sheet
parchment paper
sonic obliterator

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION – PIONONO

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Separate eggs into yolks and whites. Add yolks and 2½ tablespoons sugar to medium mixing bowl. Whip yolks with electric beater until mixture becomes creamy. Add flour. Mix with whisk until well blended.

Add egg whites, 2½ tablespoons sugar, and salt to small mixing bowl. Whip until mixture until soft peaks form. Use electric beater set on lowest level to fold egg whites into yolk/flour mixture.

Spray baking sheet with no-stick spray. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper. Spray parchment paper with no-stick spray. (This makes removing the pionono easier late on.) Gently pour in the egg yolk/egg whites/flour mix onto the parchment paper. Level mixture with spatula. Make sure mixture reaches all the sides of the baking sheet.

Bakes 400 degrees for 8 minutes or until egg mixture turns golden brown and becomes spongy and flexible.. Use edges of parchment paper to remove egg mixture from baking sheet. Keep pionono or doughy/egg mixture on parchment paper. Cool doughy egg mixture by placing it on a damp towel. Gently roll up pionono and parchment paper. Surround pionono with damp towel. Let Cool.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While pionono cools, dice hard boiled eggs, ham, and tomato. Add all filling ingredients to 3rd mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended.

Gently unroll the pionono. Gently separate pionono from parchment paper. Use spatula to evenly and gently spread filling over pionono. Carefully and tightly roll up filled pionono. Carefully cut pionono into 6 pieces along its width. Serve to adoring guests. Use sonic obliterator on those who thought you weren’t gentle or careful. You don’t need such negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) A black op is a clandestine, usually illegal, action launched by a government agency or private organization to wreak havoc on another country. These tend to be rather secretive affairs and never discussed on social media. Nope, neither before or after the operation.

2) “Pionono is an anagram for “onion op.”

3) An onion op is a clandestine, usually illegal, action launched by a government agency or private organization to wreak havoc on another nation’s cuisine.

4) Typically an onion op will do something like inserting minced onion into every aspect of a nation’s dairy supply.

5) After a successful such op, the victim country will have all its milk taste like onion. Its buttered toast will taste like onion. Ice cream will taste like onion. Malts will taste like onion. Oh this is too horrible to contemplate any further.

6) Suffice it to say, this onion op would decimate the dairy industry forever. The effects then cascade to all other industries. The nation’s economy collapses.

7) The afflicted country would be ripe for take over. All the invaders would need to say is, “Our dairy products taste like dairy products. All you need do is to get them to reply, “We accept you as our new overlords.” And that will be that.

8) This recipe uses no onions.

9) So if someone cooks you this recipe and uses onions, he is a foreign agent trying to carry out an onion op on your homeland.

10) I thought you should know.

 

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: cuisine, international, politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Crabmeat Stuffed Avocados

Posted on April 16, 2022 by pauldelancey

Chilean Entree

CRABMEAT STUFFED AVOCADOS

INGREDIENTS

2 large avocados
6 ounces crabmeat
2 tablespoons minced bell pepper
2 tablespoons minced celery
2 teaspoons lemon juice
¼ cup mayonnaise
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon minced shallot or onion
4 leaves lettuce
6 olives

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Peel avocados and cut them in half lengthwise. Remove pits. Add crabmeat, bell pepper, celery, lemon juice, mayonnaise, pepper, salt, and shallot to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until crab mix is well blended. Shred lettuce.

Arrange lettuce evenly over 4 plates. Fill avocado hollows with crab mix. Top avocado halves with neat little mounds of remaining crab mix. Cut olives in half. Garnish each avocado half with 3 olive haves. Place filled-and-topped avocado halves on shredded lettuce.

TIDBITS

1) The early peoples of Central America subsisted on avocados. The tribes living along the Pacific coast of South America lived on potatoes. Naturally, no one likes to eat only potatoes or even just avocados. So, soon a lively avocado-potato trade developed. Then culinary ingenuity propelled these peoples into a golden age with the harnessing of corn into tortillas. Before long a brilliant mind, Chef Ozomatli, constructed the first potato taquito with guacamole sauce.

2) This golden age didn’t last. Robbers ambushed the potato and avocado traders. To meet this threat, the great Aztec empire arose around Mexico. Its armies threw volley after volley of avocado pits at the heads of the robber gangs until the thieves broke and fled. The Incan warrior, however, was invulnerable in his suit of potatoes. These innovations were enough to maintain the great empires until the arrival of the musket carrying, metal-armor wearing Conquistadors.

3) In desperation, local chieftains attempted to attack the Spanish fleets by making canoes out of gigantic avocados. Unfortunately, crabs ate these vessels as soon as they put out to sea. Resistance collapsed. Spain would rule this corner of the world for 300 years. This dish commemorates the destruction of the avocado fleets by the crabs. So some good came out of all this turmoil.

 

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: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cantonese Ginger Beef

Posted on April 13, 2022 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

CANTONESE GINGER BEEF

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

¾ pound sirloin steak or flank steak
2 teaspoons sesame oil or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon mirin or rice wine
1 tablespoon light soy sauce or soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

¼ cup chicken stock
4 teaspoons oyster sauce or hoisin sauce
¾ teaspoon light soy sauce or soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch

INGREDIENTS – FINAL

1½” ginger root
3 scallions or green onions
1 cup peanut oil or vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSILS

wok (optional, not to be confused with an EwokTM. Although having an Ewok would be cool.)

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION – MARINADE

Cut steak against the grain into as thin as possible slices. Cut these slices into 1″ squares. Add all marinade ingredients to large mixing bowl. Stir with hands until cornstarch is no longer visible and steak squares are well coated. Let sit for 20 minutes.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

While steak marinates, Add all sauce ingredients to small mixing bowl. Stir with fork until cornstarch is no longer visible.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Peel ginger root. Cut ginger root into thin strips or rounds. Cut scallions into ½” long pieces. Add peanut oil and marinated steak squares to wok. Sauté at medium-high for 3 minutes or until steak squares brown. Stir enough to ensure even browning. Remove steak squares and drain on paper towels. Remove all but 1 tablespoon oil from work.

Add ginger strips and scallion pieces to work. Sauté for 30 seconds. Stir frequently. Return steak squares and add sauce to wok. Stir fry using medium-high heat until liquid starts to boil and steak squares are cooked through. Stir frequently.

TIDBITS

1) America has the Easter Bunny. It is both a symbol of the Resurrection and of fertility.

2) Britain also has the Easter Bunny.

3) The Easter originally came to America from Germany.

4) But Germany hasn’t really celebrated the Easter Bunny for a long time.

5) Germany also started two world wars.

6) Coincidence? Perhaps.

7) Australia doesn’t have an Easter Bunny either. In 1859 or so, someone released rabbits into the wilds. The rabbits bred like rabbits. Soon, rabbits were displacing all sorts of native critters and munching acres upon acres of crops. Farmers hated that. So, Australia periodically wages a campaign against the rabbit hordes. But the rabbits keep coming back. Farmers still hate them.

8) Thus, the land Down Under doesn’t have an Easter Bunny. It has the Easter tilby. A tilby looks a bit like a rabbit. The tilby has great sex, producing eight babies a year. This number is apparently, less than what the rabbit can do. But even so, the Easter tilby isn’t as celebrated as the Easter Bunny is in other lands.

9) America, Britain, Germany, and even Australia aren’t the only nations with a rabbitish animal celebrating fertility.

10) Oh no, the Cantonese region of China honors fecundity through cattle.

11) What is the singular form of cattle? Technically, there isn’t one. However, extensive research –Watching hours of the TV show Rawhide–gives us “beeves” as an alternative word for “cattle.” “Beef” is the singular form of “Beeves.” There you go.

12) It might seem strange for a beef to symbolize fertility. Would a bee have been a much better representative for reproduction?

13) Yes, it would have. Except that in 1884, a British newspaper, The Lion, wrote an article about Canton’s annual Bee Festival. Only The Lion didn’t say that. A misprint turned the celebration into the Beef Festival.

14) Hundreds of thousands of tourists thronged Canton to honor beef., spending millions of pounds while there. The Cantonese government knowing a good thing when they saw it, officially renamed the event, The Beef Festival. Local restaurateurs developed this dish to serve their British guests. Now you know.

 

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: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Vanilla Pudding

Posted on April 10, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

VANILLA PUDDING

INGREDIENTS

3½ tablespoons cornstarch
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
2½ cups milk
1 tablespoon butter, softened
½ tablespoon vanilla extract

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add cornstarch, salt, and sugar to saucepan. Mix with spatula. Add milk slowly, while stirring gently with spatula. Heat for 5 minutes using medium heat or until mixture thickens. Stir constantly to prevent burning. Remove from heat. Add butter and vanilla. Stir gently with spatula until well blended.

Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour 30 minutes or until mixture firms into pudding.

TIDBITS

1) Stars are made from vanilla pudding. How do we know this?

2) Stars are white.

3) Vanilla pudding is white.

4) The Sun is hot. That is because it’s yellow and not made from vanilla pudding.

5) If you were somehow able to catapult your vanilla pudding millions of light years away it would be far too small to be seen, even by the Hubble telescope

6) Indeed, you would need to buy trillions of pounds of: cornstarch, salt, sugar, milk, butter, and vanilla extract to fling a visibile vanilla-pudding star into the far reaches of space.

7) But don’t do it. Every van in the world would be needed to deliver your ingredients. The global economy would collapse. Oh my gosh, we’d have nothing left to make cake! For millions of years! What would we do for birthdays? I beg of you, reconsider this giant-star project!

 

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: cuisine, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Georgian Lobio (Bean Stew)

Posted on April 7, 2022 by pauldelancey

Georgian Entree

LOBIO
(Bean Stew)

INGREDIENTS

1 pound dried red kidney beans*
6 cups water
8 cups water
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon salt
3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
⅓ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup walnut halves
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ tablespoon ground fenugreek**
1½ tablespoons pomegranate molasses or juice
¾ teaspoon pepper

* = Red kidney beans MUST be properly boiled. Eating kidney beans that haven’t been boiled for 10 minutes can make you quite sick. They’re quite safe and tasty once sufficiently boiled them. Discard the water used to soak the beans.
** = To be authentic, this recipe should use blue fenugreek. It’s widely available in its native country and extremely difficult to find elsewhere. Please let me know if you discover a source. Thank you.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

spice grinder
potato masher

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes 24 hours to soak beans.

PREPARATION

Add red kidney beans and 6 cups water to large pot. Let sit for 24 hours.

Drain beans. Add 8 cups water, beans, bay leaves, and salt to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Boil for 12 minutes. Stir enough to keep beans from burning. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 1 hour 40 minutes or until beans become tender. (They really must tender.) Check pot every 10 minutes and add 1 cup water, if needed, to keep at least 1½ cups of liquid in the pot. Stir enough to keep beans from burning. Drain water, saving 1½ cups liquid for later use.

While beans cook, dice garlic, and onion. Mince cilantro. Grind walnut halves in spice grinder until you get walnut powder. Add garlic, onion, and olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add fenugreek, cilantro, and walnut powder. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 minute or until mixture becomes fragrant.

Add beans and reserved 1½ cups liquid to large pot. Mash beans with potato masher until only ¼th of the beans remain whole. Stir with spoon until thoroughly blended and the beans and water achieve the consistency of a thick stew.

Add garlic/onion/walnut mixture, pomegranate molasses, and pepper to beans in large pot. Mix with spoon until well blended. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove bay leaves and serve hot.

TIDBITS

1) Desperadoes, bandits, and gunslingers terrorized the Old West.

2) Everyone’s heard of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and the Dalton Gang.

3) But no one knows anything the greatest outlaw of them all. Giorgi Beridze.

4) Beridze terrorized the Great Western Ailroad, GWA, from 1869 to 1875.

5) It should have been called the Great Western Railroad, But the typesetter made a mistake when publicizing the railroad’s inaugural run. Thereafter, passengers called it Typo Road. Many, however, figured Ailroad to be a startling bit of honesty from GWA’s president.

6) Anyway, Mr. Beridze who has been waiting patiently since Tidbit 1 to have his exploits related to recipe-reading world, so disrupted Great Western’s schedules that the company thought it was about to go under.

7) Then on May 10, 1875, Beridze’s Gang’s raided one last time. The outlaws swarmed the train as it huffed its way to the top of Willow Summit, Texas. They expertly and efficiently rounded up all the train’s employees. The bad men forced the conductor to open the doors to the baggage car.

8) In swarmed Hercules Smith. This desperado grunted as he hurled one heavy sack after another to men waiting on the ground. Down to the hard ground fell the bandits below. Sure they caught the sacks, but the savvy railroad had filled the bags with anvils. Irate passengers quickly overwhelmed the lone anvil tosser. A scant hour late, lawmen easily rounded up the concussed Beridze and gang. Judge Noah Moore sentenced Beridze to hang.

9) His jailers asked Beridze what he wanted for his last meal. He requested this dish, Lobio. His jailers road off to find the ingredients: red kidney beans, water, bay leaves, salt, garlic cloves, cilantro, walnuts, olive oil, blue fenugreek, pomegranate molasses, and pepper. A number of those fixings proved impossible to find in 1875 Texas. They had to travel to Beridze’s home country, Georgia. Beridze’s buddies busted him out two months before the jailers returned.

10) Beridze, now anvil shy, fled the country. Embarrassed GWA officials decided the best thing to do was to hush up the whole affair. That’s why we never hear about the daring Beridze.

 

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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German Bee Sting Cake (Bienenstich Kuchen)

Posted on April 4, 2022 by pauldelancey

German Dessert

BEE STING CAKE
(Bienenstich Kuchen)

INGREDIENTS – ALMOND TOPPING

½ cup butter (6 tablespoons more later)
5 tablespoons sugar (3 tablespoons more later)
1 tablespoon honey
1½ tablespoons heavy whipping cream (½ cup more later)
1⅓ cup slivered almonds
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

INGREDIENTS – CAKE

2¾ teaspoons yeast
2⅔ cups flour
5 tablespoons butter (1 tablespoon more later)
3 tablespoons sugar
⅔ cup milk, lukewarm (2 cups more later)
1 egg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
parchment paper

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

6 tablespoons vanilla pudding powder
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (½ teaspoon more later)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
8″ * 12″ baking pan
parchment paper

Serves 16. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – ALMOND TOPPING

Add ½ cup butter to pot. Melt butter using low-medium heat. Stir gently and frequently. Add 5 tablespoons sugar and honey. Stir constantly until sugar melts and liquid is well blended. Add 1½ tablespoons heavy whipping cream and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract. Stir with spatula until well blended. Remove from heat. Fold in slivered almonds. Just before cake is ready to be bake, use low heat to make topping lukewarm and spreadable.

PREPARATION – CAKE

Add all cake ingredients except 1 tablespoon butter to mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Knead for 15 minutes or until mix becomes a smooth and pliable dough. Remove dough. Grease mixing bowl with 1 tablespoon butter. Return dough ball to mixing bowl. Cover with cloth and let rise for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. 15 minutes before dough has finished rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cover baking pan with parchment paper. Add dough to baking pan. Smooth dough until it is level. Use spatula to spread almond topping over dough. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until cake turns golden brown and a toothpick inserted into middle of cake comes out clean. Remove from heat and let cool for10 minutes. Grab opposite sides of parchment paper, remove cake, and place on serving plate.

Let cool for another 15 minutes. Cut cake into 16 rectangles, 2″ * 3″. Use serrated knife to cut each rectangle lengthwise into 2 thin layers.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While cake cools, add pudding powder 1 cup milk and ½ cup heavy whipping cream to mixing bowl. (Prepare according to instructions on package.) Cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

After filling has chilled, use spatula to carefully spread equal amounts of filling on bottom half of the cake rectangles. (The ones without the slivered-almond topping.) Place cake rectangles with slivered-almond topping on rectangles covered with filling.

A forgotten episode from the Great War

TIDBITS

1) World War I was mostly a static affair as it became incredibly difficult to dislodge the enemy infantry defending their trenches.

2) Then a German beekeeping general thought, why not use bees? After all, everyone flees bees.

3) So, on March 13, 1915 the Germans sent boys and girls carrying this cake to the British lines. The Tommies loved this dessert. So did the bees. The bees dive bombed the British soldiers who fled en masse. The Germans were on the verge of total victory. Then the wind shifted toward the German lines. Countless soldiers on both sides suffered repeated stings. The Great Bee Sting Truce was agreed upon and lasted for two weeks. After that, Bee Sting Cake got banned as a weapon of war.

 

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: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Honey Garlic Barbecue Chicken Pizza From Brunei

Posted on April 1, 2022 by pauldelancey

Bruneian Entree

HONEY GARLIC BARBECUE CHICKEN PIZZA

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

1 teaspoon cornstarch
¾ cup water
3 garlic cloves
⅔ cup barbecue sauce
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 chicken breast
1 large bulb garlic (about 12 cloves)
½ tablespoon olive oil (1 more tablespoon later)

INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY

2 green onions
1 pre-made crust (store bought or your own)
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ pound grated mozzarella cheese
½ tablespoon sesame seeds

SPECIAL UTENSILS

roasting pan or baking pan
pizza pan
sonic obliterator

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add cornstarch and water to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork until cornstarch dissolves. Mince 3 garlic cloves. Add cornstarch/water blend, minced garlic cloves, barbecue sauce, honey, and soy sauce to pot. Bring to boil at medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Lower heat to low-medium and simmer until sauce thickens. Remove and set aside. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add chicken cubes to pot. Stir until sauce coats chicken cubes. Marinate until garlic bulbs in next step are done roasting.

Cut off top of garlic bulb. Drizzle ½ table spoon olive oil onto bulb. Place garlic bulb on roasting pan. Roast in oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until garlic starts to bubble. Remove and set aside.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

While chicken marinates in sauce and garlic bulb roasts, dice green onions. Remove chicken with slotted spoon. (This makes spreading the sauce much easier.) Brush crust edge with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Brush sauce evenly sauce over crust except for the edge. Squeeze out the roasted garlic cloves from the garlic bulb. Cut roasted garlic cloves into 3 pieces each. Sprinkle roasted garlic pieces over sauce. Add chicken cubes evenly over pizza. Sprinkle cheese over pizza. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until cheese and crust brown. Sprinkle pizza with green onion and sesame seeds.

Serve to adoring quests. Zap unappreciative ones with sonic obliterator.

TIDBITS

1) Honey Garlic Barbecue Chicken Pizza is so tasty.

2) It also can help you succeed at work as the following book demonstrates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Quick Barbecue Sauce

Posted on March 29, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

QUICK BARBECUE SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

½ cup brown sugar
½ tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 cup ketchup
1¼ teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons water
½ tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Makes 1½ cups. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Put any unused sauce in Mason jar. Store in refrigerator.

TIDBITS

1) King Arthur reigned in Camelot. He had a circle of knights that kept the peace and enforced his decrees. But his knights showed themselves time and time again to be extremely jealous of their prestige and social ranking compared to the others.

2) This constant jockeying for power came out in the open at mealtimes as the head of the table conferred the most prestige on the knight who sat there. This place went to the king whenever he was around. Similarly, the next two most powerful knights sat on opposite sides of the table and one chair away from the head knight. And so on. Everyone could easily calculate his importance at the court just by counting chairs.

3) Naturally, all knights felt they deserved a chair closer to the king. Differences arose. Elbows were thrown. Insults such as “Yea verily, your mater” got bruited about. Knights drew swords. Blood got shed. King Arthur realized he’d have no knights left unless something happened. And happen it did. One fine May day, Arthur and his knights gathered on the castle green for Smoked Pork Ribs. The knights all sprawled around a giant cauldron of Quick Barbecue sauce. The cauldron’s roundness meant no jockeying for the most prestigious spots; there weren’t any. The reason for conflict disappeared.

4) King Arthur saw this and decreed a Round Table for his court’s meals. The knights celebrated feasts there in perfect harmony. A just and lasting peace descended on Camelot. Then Sir Kay noticed that you could determine your value to King Arthur simply counting the number of chairs you were away from him. Civil War broke out. The Kingdom of Camelot fell apart. This is why our leaders always consult books on dining etiquette for meals held for visiting heads of state.

 

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: cuisine, history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Smoked Pork Ribs

Posted on March 26, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Entree

SMOKED PORK RIBS

INGREDIENTS

2 pounds pork ribs
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1½ tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons salt
¼ cup barbecue sauce

SPECIAL UTENSILS

smoker
electric thermometer
wood chips (oak, apple, hickory, pecan, cherry, or mesquite)

Serves 4. Takes 5 hours. Time includes preheating the smoker. Times vary with smokers.

PREPARATION

Preheat smoker to 250 degrees. Add wood chips to smoker. While smoker heats, use brush to spread ribs with yellow mustard. (This helps keep the following rub on the ribs.) While smoker preheats, add brown sugar, chili powder, onion powder, paprika, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Rub mixture evenly over both sides of ribs.

Add ribs to smoker rack. Insert electric thermometer in the middle of the ribs. Avoid the bones. The ribs are done when the internal meat temperature reaches 190 degrees or when the meat retracts . Remove from heat. Brush ribs with barbecue sauce. Return ribs to smoker. Smoke for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Tear pork into individual ribs.

TIDBITS

1) The pork ribs shown above look like a butterfly. Indeed, pigs often hide in swarms of butterflies. Since they spend so much time together, it is important to compare pork ribs with butterflies.

BENEFIT                            PORK RIBS   BUTTERFLIES
Pollinate flowers                      no                  yes
Boost tourism                          no                  yes
Provide antibiotics                   no                  yes
Keep insects under control      no                  yes
Are Tasty                                  yes                 no

There you have it, a surprise 4-to-1 victory for the butterfly.

 

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: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ecuadorian Fritata

Posted on March 23, 2022 by pauldelancey

Ecuadorian Entree

FRITATA

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds pork loins
1 pound pork ribs
1 white onion
1 shallot or ½ red onion
2 teaspoons cumin
4 teaspoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
4 cups water
1 cup orange juice
2 avocados

Serves 3. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut pork loin into 1″ cubes. Separate pork ribs. Dice white onion and shallot. Rub cumin garlic, pepper, and salt onto pork loin cubes and pork ribs. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour 30 minutes.

While pork marinates, dice white onion and shallot. Add marinated pork, white onion, shallot, and water to large pan. Cook for 30 minutes at medium-high heat or until liquid disappears. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add orange juice. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes or until liquid disappears. Stir frequently to prevent burning and to ensure even browning of pork cubes and pork ribs.

Cut each avocado into 6 slices. Add pork to plates. Place 4 avocado slices to the side. Fritata is also often served with sides of: fried plantains, boil yucca, corn, potatoes, and banana.

TIDBITS

1) Pork cubes and avocado slices are natural enemies. The reason for this antagonism has long been lost in the mists of prehistory.

2) Culinary anthropologists, however, speculate that the demise of the dinosaurs 64 million years ago left a power vacuum on Earth. That led to an intense power struggle between pigs and avocados.

3) The Great Porcine-Avocado War ended when the pigs’ ribs decided they had no stomach for conflict and refused to fight anymore. This internal division curtailed the pigs’ desire for aggression. The war ended. And to this day, peace-keeping pork ribs have been placed between pork cubes and avocado slices on plates everywhere. Now you know.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and culinary historian

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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