cuisine

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

Posted on January 15, 2017 by pauldelancey

Taiwanese Soup

BEEF NOODLE SOUP

INGREDIENTSbeefnoodlesoup

5 garlic cloves
1 inch ginger root
6 scallions (white part of green onions)
1 Roma tomato
2 Thai chiles or red chiles
8 cups water (or enough to cover short ribs)
1⅓ cups Chinese rice wine or sherry
¾ cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Sichuan chili bean sauce
(doubanchiang), Korean gochujang. or bean sauce
4 whole star anise pods
3 pounds beef short ribs
1 cup chicken stock
1¼ pounds Asian wheat noodles or linguine
¼ cup mustard greens or spinach
¼ cup baby bok choy, bok choy, or Napa cabbage
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro

SPECIAL UTENSILS

8 quart pot
tongs

Makes 8 bowls. Takes 4 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves. Peel and grate ginger root. Cut scallions into ¼” slices. Dice tomato and Thai chiles. Add garlic, ginger, scallion, tomato, water, rice wine, soy sauce, brown sugar, chili bean sauce, and star anise into pot. Bring to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Add short ribs. Cover and simmer on low heat for 2½ hours or until meat is tender to the fork, but is still on the ribs. Turn off heat, remove lid, and let sit for 1 hour. Remove meat from pot with tongs and place on flat surface. Push bones out of short ribs. Shred beef with fork.. Return shredded beef to pot. Add chicken stock. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

While soup simmers, cook noodles according to instructions on package. Dice mustard greens, baby bok choy, and cilantro. Add noodles to bowls. Add mustard greens and bok choy to bowls. Ladle soup over mustard greens and baby bok choy. Garnish with cilantro.

TIDBITS

1) Not too many years ago, Susan Chang of Poway, California, posted the following question on FacebookTM, “If we took all the cooked noodles in the world and tied them together, would they reach all the way to Mars?” No response. Susan asked the same question, but added a picture of two kittens playing with noodles.

2) The post went viral. Suddenly, billions of people had to know. Purchases of noodles went up a thousand fold. The entire economies of thirteen smallish countries switched over to making noodles. Greenland built sixty million hot houses to raise wheat. Ten million babies were named after noodles, “Noodlo if they were boys or “Noodla” if they were girls.

3) Soon the world had billions of miles of noodles, enough to cover every road in the world. This naturally made traveling anywhere difficult, unless, of course, you had a JeepTM equipped with noodle tires. But we didn’t have many of those vehicles. Most factories still churned out noodles.

4) Time to cook those noodles. On May 5, all seven billion people cooked noodles. The steam from all that water boiling formed a thick cloud over the entire Earth. The cloud lasted an year. No sunlight got through at all; dinosaurs that somehow survived the meteor from 65 million years ago, died up for good. People tied noodle after noodle together. Soon a string billions of miles long circled the globe countless times. We know it was countless because no one tried counting it.

5) Sally was chose for the honor of stretching the string to Mars. Being five foot seven and standing on her tippy toes and extending her hand to sky, she managed to lift the noodle end seven feet to Mars. This was short of the Red Planet as all could see. So, Sally stood on her boyfriend Bob’s shoulders. Still short of Mars. A troupe of Chinese acrobats came over. Although they stood seventeen people tall, a GuinnessTM record for noodle standing they were still not all the way to Mars.

6) Bushnell AviationTM lent a helicopter. One person, Dwayne, held onto the helicopter and then another person held on to him, and so on. However, even though Wayne was a weight lifter, even he couldn’t hold up 15,000 pounds of people for long. He let go. Fortunately every fill into the community swimming pool, establishing Guinness records for the largest number of people to successfully perform a cannonball into a community pool and for the largest tidal wave in Wyoming.

7) Then NASA and the European Space Agency, seeing people actually performing scientific experiments got into the act. A space shuttle spooled out the noodle string as it traveled Mars. The string measured 135 billion miles, enough to get to that planet when it was closest to Earth.

12) Unfortunately, Mars was farther away than that. The phlegmatic population, there being a global cold, shrugged and built a noodle string three time longer than the first, which is still whipping around the Earth. NASA tried again. It worked! It did. It did. All the way to Mars. Sally clipped the string in two. ESA carried the second string all the way as well. The noodle strings stayed in place as the extremely cold temperatures of space froze them into super strong poles.

13) Then Amos Keeto, at Bushnell ConstructionTM said, “We have extra noodle, enough to make rungs between the noodle poles. The people of Earth, did just that. Now, if you have space suit and have enough supplies, you can climb to Mars. Way cool.

– 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.

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Banana Fritters From Djibouti

Posted on January 12, 2017 by pauldelancey

Djiboutian Breakfast

BANANA FRITTERS

INGREDIENTSbananafritters

3 ripe bananas
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar
⅛ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup flour
¼ cup butter
2½ teaspoons honey (½ teaspoon per fritter)

Makes 5 fritters. Takes 25 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add bananas to mixing bowl. Mash bananas with fork. or squoosh with hands. Add cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until batter is well blended. Add flour. Mix with fork until well blended. Add oil to pan. Heat butter on medium heat until it starts to bubble. Ladle ¼ cup of batter at a time to pan. Flatten with spatula. Do not let fritters touch each other. You might need to cook in batches. Cook one side for 3 minutes on medium-high heat and then for 2 minutes on the other side or till fritters are golden brown all over. Drizzle each fritter with 1 teaspoon honey.

Note: cooking times tend to go down with each batch. This is true even with the batch. Watch the fritters carefully and adjust cooking times and even temperatures accordingly. Remember golden brown, always golden brown. These fritters are crumbly, so be sure to get the spatula completely under the fritter when flipping them. Flip carefully.

TIDBITS

1) “Shipoopi” is also a rousing song from the great musical The Music Man. Shipoopi rhymes with Djibouti. This is no accident. Artists and song writers in particular need solitude to create works of genius. Life in American cities is rife with telemarketers, neighbors blasting music, car horns blaring, television commercials, and door-to-door lutefisk vendors knocking at your door. The Djibouti of 1943 to 1966 had none of those distractions.

2) The Golden Age of Musicals was also 1943 to 1966. This is no coincidence. The great song writers all stayed in quiet, quiet Djibouti where they never had an idea driven out of their head.

3) But in 1967, Djiboutians began agitating for independence. The demonstrations were mainly non-violent and orderly. However, they were too loud and cacophonous for the sensitive ears and minds of the song writers. The writers left the country. But they had no place to go. Djibouti had been the world’s last haven of quiet. The Golden Age of musicals ended. “Shipoopi” remains an homage to this once tranquil land. “Djibouti, Djibouti, but you can eat there yet.”

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Piragi

Posted on January 11, 2017 by pauldelancey

Latvian Entree

PIRAGI

INGREDIENTS – DOUGHpiragi

⅓ cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar (3½ more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons yeast

¾ cup butter
1½ cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
3½ tablespoons sugar
1 egg yolk (1 entire egg later)
1 tablespoon sour cream
5 cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

1 pound bacon
1 small onion
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY

2 tablespoons flour
1 egg

SPECIAL UTENSILS

2 cookie sheets
pastry brush
parchment paper

Makes 30. Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

Add 1 teaspoon sugar and warm water to mixing bowl. Whisk until sugar dissolves. Sprinkle yeast over sugary water. Let sit for 10 minutes or yeast becomes foamy.

While yeast foams, add butter to small pot. Melt butter using medium-high heat. Add milk, salt, and sugar. Heat until milk is almost ready to boil. Stir constantly. Remove from heat.

Add milk mixture into mixing bowl with yeasty water. Add egg yolk and sour cream. Gradually add flour. Blend with electric beater set to low until dough forms. Cover bowl with thin towel and let sit for 1½ hours.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While dough rises, dice bacon and onion. Add vegetable oil, bacon, and onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add pepper and salt. Remove from heat and let cool in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

While dough rises and filling cools, knead dough by hand or by bread machine for 20 minutes or until dough is elastic. Dust roller and flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough to flat surfarce. Roll out dough until it is ¼” thick.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Separate egg. Make 3″ circles in dough. A drinking glass works well for this. Add 1 teaspoon to center of dough circle. Brush a thin strip of egg white along edges of dough circle. Fold dough circle in half. Use tip of fork to seal edges together. Repeat until all dough and filling is used. These are the piragi.

Put parchment paper on cookie sheets. Place piragi on parchment paper. Beat egg yolk with fork or whisk. Brush egg yolk over piragi. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 12 minutes or until piragi turn golden brown

TIDBITS

1) “Piragi” is an anagram for “Air Pig.” It’s a hidden bit of history, but many of our commercial planes were once flown by pigs.

2) Oil prices soared during the Oil Embargo of 1973 So did the price of aviation fuel. Airlines became frantic in their search to reduce fuel costs. One way was to reduce of a fully-loaded plane. So, for a brief time, stewardesses threw passengers out the emergency door, starting with those who didn’t listen to the pre-flight safety instructions. The technique worked! Fuel costs plummeted.

3) So did ridership. A dead passenger is not a return passenger. Plus, people became skittish about booking a flight when it might mean being ejected over the Atlantic. Passengers became downright resentful toward stewardesses. Indeed, the very word “stewardess” became a curse word. This is the reason they are now called flight attendants. It’s kinda like calling used cars “pre-owned.”

4) The average feral pig weighs 125 pounds. (Only wild pigs can be trained to fly jets. Who knew?) The average man tips the scale at 170. A small difference to be sure, but enough over the course of millions of flights to cut fuel costs to the point of keeping air travel economically viable. Whew.

5) Unfortunately, the pig pilots buzzed workers at pork rendering plants. In 1974 alone, four crashes resulted from such behavior. This being the 70s, airlines listened to customer concerns and fired their pig aviators. There are persistent whispers, however, that shadowy governmental agencies still employ pig pilots in covert operations. These critters are tough. Don’t discuss bacon around them.

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Chicken Vindaloo

Posted on January 9, 2017 by pauldelancey

Indian Entree

CHICKEN VINDALOO

INGREDIENTS – MARINADEchickenvindaloo

3 garlic cloves
1½” ginger root
3 medium tomatoes
¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
4 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons white vinegar (2 more tablespoons later)

INGREDIENTS – OTHER

2 pounds boneless chicken thighs
2 medium potatoes
3 medium onions
2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
2 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons white vinegar

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

Serves 6. Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION

Add all marinade ingredients to blender. Blend on medium setting until smooth. This is the marinade. Cut chicken thighs into 1″ squares. Add marinade and chicken squares to large mixing bowl. Mix until chicken is well coated. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours.

While chicken marinates, peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into ½” cubes. Mince onions. Add ghee and onion to large pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add marinated chicken. Cook for 5 minutes on medium-high heat. Stir occasionally. Add potatoes, chicken broth, and 2 tablespoons white vinegar. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 50 minutes or until potato is tender. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) After 75 years and invoking Crown Really Official Secrets (CROS), I can finally tell the heroic story of Mrs. Linda Voo.

2) It was 1941. The Battle of Britain was over. The Nazi air fleet had failed in its attempt to bomb the British people into submission. It was time to take the war to the German aggressors. But how? The British army was minuscule compared to Germany’s and had no way to land on the continent. Aha, by air! The British Air Royal Force, BARF, would attack the Hun’s war factories by air.

3) Though there was that delay when Winston Churchill secured the regisnation of the dyslexic Sir Orbert Abcon from the War Nimistry. It took over a month to correct the names he misspelled. Later that year, the newly renamed RAF commenced a massive bombing campaign of Berlin and the industrial centers of the Ruhr Valley.

4) What the bombers actually destroyed were a modern-art school–amazingly still thriving in Hitler’s Germany, but then again the Fuhrer was a frustrated art student and who knew he cottoned to modern art?–and two-dozen pig farms–the German war machine loved pork.

5) Take a deep breath to recover from the run-on sentence of the previous tidbit.

6) The continued futility of the RAF’s bombing campaign went on for months. Then in November, 1941, Lieutenant Nigel Voo failed to come back from a raid. The squadron was supposed to blow up a ball-bearing plant in Hamburg. Instead the heroic Voo and his crew were shot down after dropping bombs on nearby Anfurt’s annual ParcheesiTM tournament.

7) This tragedy enraged his wife, Linda, a tea lady at Biggins Hill airbase. She threw her teapot to the ground and shouted at the airmen, “You bloody idiots. You couldn’t find your way to a cod-and-chips store if you were standing in front of it. The Three Blind Mice have nothing on you lot.”

“Well now, see here, Mrs. Voo, those are unkind words, they are. We get lost, we do. It’s tough reading a map and trying to see landmarks especially at night,” said the squadron leader.

“Too right, you get lost, you ninnies. Why don’t you ask for directions?”

“Well, mum, we’re men. We don’t like to ask for directions. I mean they’re the enemy and were are flying thousands of feet above the ground. We couldn’t ask even if we wanted.”

“‘Tis bloody possible. I’ll show the likes of you.”

8) And she did. She flew in the lead plane. Whenever the squadron got lost, Mrs. Voo bungee jumped out the plane and asked a local farmer for directions. Sure, there was a war of annihilation going on, but German farmers always act courteous to any lady who drops in. The RAF’s bombers never missed a target what with Mrs. Voo and a thousand others like her flying with them . Germany was doomed.

9) Mrs. Voo’s code name was the anagram, Vindaloo. The British government even created an entree in India with that name just to provide cover.

– 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.

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Shrimp Fried Rice

Posted on January 8, 2017 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

SHRIMP FRIED RICE

INGREDIENTSshrimpfriedrice

1 cup rice
2 medium carrots
1″ ginger root
2 stalks green onions
2 eggs
½ tablespoon sesame oil (1 more tablespoon later)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons canola oil or olive oil
¾ pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
½ cup snow peas or snap peas

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor or grater
spice grinder
wok or skillet

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to directions on package. Grate carrot using food processor or grater. Grind ginger root in spice grinder. Dice green onions.

Add eggs to small mixing bowl. Whisk eggs. Add 1 tablespoon sesame oil to wok. Heat oil with medium-high heat until a tiny bit of egg dances in the oil. Add eggs. Sauté egg for 1 minute. (Do not stir.) Flip egg over with spatula. Add egg to flat surface. Cut egg into ¼” wide strips.

Add 1 tablespoon sesame oil, soy sauce, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk or fork. Add canola oil to wok. Heat on medium-high heat until tiny bit of ginger dances in the oil. Add shrimp. Sauté shrimp for 2 minutes or until shrimp turns pinkish orange. Stir and flip shrimp occasionally. Remove shrimp and set aside. Keep canola oil. Add ginger, carrot, and snow peas to wok. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until carrot and snow peas soften. Stir frequently.

Add egg strips, rice, green onion, sesame oil/soy sauce mixture to wok. Sauté on medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Add shrimp. Stir. Serve in bowls immediately.
TIDBITS

1) The children’s game, CandylandTM, was invented way back when in prehistoric times by Philippe and Miriam Davout. The Davouts were devoted parents and persistent entrepreneurs. Hence, the saying that’s been passed down through the millennia, “As loving as a Davout hug. As novel as Davout fire.” Another stone-age adage that we know is, “As ugh as Ogg’s mastodon mignon.” But Chef Ogg deserves his own tidbit series after a recipe and so we return to the Davouts.

2) Anyway, little Yvette Davout didn’t have much to do. She had no school to go to. And what would the teacher have taught her? “Stay inside your cave. The pumas lurking outside will eat you.” That’s it. Her parents taught her. No need for school.

3) This attitude persists to this day. However, the truth be told, not many people nowadays do not get eaten, or even seriously challenged, by pumas. So, this view is kinda hard to challenge.

4) Meanwhile back at the cave, Yvette fussed and fussed. She couldn’t go out to see the Murat sisters. And after, their daughter Lucy got eaten by pumas, Daddy and Mommy Murat wouldn’t let their remaining girls visit Yvette anymore.

5) It got hot during Olduvai Gorge summers, particularly in a cave. Sweat rolled down Yvette’s sloped forehead like Eddie the Eagle doing a ski jump. She needed a distraction before she went stir crazy and ran outside to eaten by pumas.

6) Then one glorious noon, a thought, the first of the day, popped into Miriam’s head. She explained it to Philippe. He smiled. “Yo ho, Miram, that a’s glorious idea, wife.” They chattered excitedly about rules, then stopped abruptly. Miriam slapped her head with a rock. It didn’t hurt, her skull was thick. Cave folk did this all the time.

7) Miriam, having waited for the author’s intrusion to stop said, “Boo hoo, we don’t have the requisite technology to fabricate the many colors needed to paint this game’s playing cards.”

8) That was quite a complex statement for the time. Philippe, having neither a dictionary nor even a ThesaurusTM, had to guess at its meaning. Then he too smashed something to his head. It was a large chunk of obsidian. It splintered into nice sharp dice-like cubes.

9) The Davouts looked at each other. Light bulbs, at once a metaphor and an artifact, lit up above their heads. “Let’s make dice–the first use of this word–out of these, these DICE,” said Philippe and they did. They finished the game lickety split.

10) Little Yvette loved the game. She played it and played it until the sharp edges of the obsidian dice sliced off too many of her fingers. Distraught and bored, she took up painting. It was tough painting with two fingers on her hand, hence the crudely shaped hunters and mastodons we see depicted in the Lascaux caves.

11) Yvette eventually gave her dice to her own daughter, Sabine. Sabine too was forbidden to go outside the cave or to play bloody Candyland. She took to cooking instead. Being smart like all dawn-of-humanity Davouts, Sabine took to chopping onions with her Candyland dice. She called this technique dicing and so do we. There you go.

– 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.

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Miso Pork Ramen

Posted on January 7, 2017 by pauldelancey

Japanese Soup

MISO PORK RAMEN

INGREDIENTSmisoporkramen

1 pound pork
1 garlic cloves (2 additional cloves later)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 eggs
2 garlic cloves
1″ ginger root
5 stalks green onions (white and green parts used in separate places)
2 tablespoons mirin
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 cups pork or chicken broth
3 cups water
3 tablespoons miso
¾ teaspoon salt
½ pound ramen noodles

Makes 8 bowls. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Slice pork into strips 2″ long, 1″ wide, and ¼” high. Mince 1 garlic clove. Cut green onions into white and green parts. Add pork strips, mince 1 garlic clove, and soy sauce to mixing bowl. Stir until pork strips are coated. Let marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour.

While pork marinates, add enough water to 1st pot to cover eggs. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add eggs to boling water. Boil from 8 minutes for soft-boiled eggs to 12 minutes for hard boiled eggs.

While eggs boil, dice 2 garlic cloves. Grate ginger root. Cut white parts of green onions into ¼” slices. Add mirin, sesame oil, 2 diced garlic cloves, ginger root, and white parts to 2nd pot. Sauté at medium heat for 2 minutes or until fragrant and green onion softens. Stir frequently. Add broth, water, miso, and salt to 2nd pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Cut ramen noodles in half. Add ramen and pork with its marinade. Reduce heat to warm-medium. Simmer for 3 minutes or until noodles are soft. Stir occasionally.

While 2nd pot simmers, peel eggs and slice them in half. Cut green parts of onions into ¼” slices. Add ramen noodles/liquid to bowls. Garnish bowls with egg halves and sliced green parts.

TIDBITS

1) This is Number One Son’s favorite dish. Whenever asked what he wanted to eat, he’d say, “Ramen.” He’s always made me so proud, from his birth to this very moment. He’s kind, sympathetic, loving, smart, and diligent. I love him so. Number One Son, this recipe honors you.

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Llokuma

Posted on December 30, 2016 by pauldelancey

Kosovan Dessert

LLOKUMA

INGREDIENTSllokuma

1 large egg
1 cup plain yogurt
⅓ cup sparkling water.
1 tablespoon baking powder
3⅓ cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups vegetable oil (or as needed to make a ⅓” deep layer of oil in pan)

Makes 48 pieces. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add egg to 1st mixing bowl. Beat egg with whisk. Add yogurt. Whisk until well blended. Add sparkling water and baking soda. Whisk again until well blended. Add 3½ cups flour, baking powder, and salt to large 2nd mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Add egg/yogurt/baking soda mixture from 1st mixing bowl. Knead with hands until you have a well blended dough that doesn’t stick to your hands.. Add a little more dough if it does. Let dough sit for 30 minutes. Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Press flour with hands or rolling pin until dough is ⅓” thick. Cut dough into 1½” squares.

Add oil to skillet until it is ⅓” deep. Heat oil using medium-high heat until a tiny piece of dough will dance in the oil. Use spatula to carefully add as many dough squares to oil that will fit without them touching each other. Flip squares as soon as they start to brown. This will take from 25-to-40 seconds and depends greatly on the heat of the oil. (Also, cooking time tends to go down a little with each successive batch, so proper vigilance is a must.) Remove when both side have turned golden brown. Repeat for following batches. Place on paper towels to remove oil. Serve hot. Goes well with yogurt dip or confectioner’s sugar.

TIDBITS

1) The interstellar space drive was developed in Kosovo right after it’s independence in 2008. Behar Krasniqi had an “ah ha” moment at breakfast and by late afternoon he’d designed a computer chip that would turn the 1967 VolkwagenTM into a mighty machine for traveling across the galaxies.

2) Krasniqi’s process required huge amounts of plums as fuel. So much so that weight had to be cut elsewhere. Fortunately, the Kosovan Space Agency (KSA) knows how to shrink its astronauts until they are three inches tall. Llokuma served both as pillows and as food. Unfortunately, on March 4, 1999, Behar’s wife, Adriana left the office window open. A wintry gust blew the computer chip off its shelf. It chip was never found. We’re not going to the stars soon. Bummer.

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Kufte Bozbash (Meatball Soup)

Posted on December 29, 2016 by pauldelancey

Azerbaijani Soup

KUFTE BOZBASH
(Meatball Soup)

INGREDIENTSkuftebozbash

1 medium onion
1 pound ground lamb. beef, or combination
2½ tablespoons rice
2 teaspoons mint
¼ teaspoon pepper (¼ more teaspoon later)
1 teaspoon salt (½ more teaspoon later)
½ teaspoon savory
¼ teaspoon turmeric
4 dried sour plums
2 teaspoons tomato paste
5 cups beef stock
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
4 medium potatoes
1 cup canned, drained chickpeas

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince onion. Add onion, lamb, rice, mint, ¼ teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, savory, and turmeric to large mixing bowl. Use hands to form 4 large meatballs. Remove pits from dried sour plums. Push a plum into the center of each meatball. Smooth over poked hole.

Add tomato paste, beef stock, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and ½ teaspoon salt to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. While liquid comes to boil, peel potatoes. Cut potatoes in half. Gently add meatballs to pot. Reduce head to low heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Do not stir; this can break the meatballs apart. Add potato halves. Simmer on low for 30 minutes or until potato is tender. Add chickpeas. Simmer on low for 5 minutes. Ladle soup into bowls. Each bowl gets 1 meatball and 2 potato halves.

TIDBITS

1) Drive-in movie theaters are popular in Azerbaijan. Horror movies are the preferred films. However, the snack shacks over there serve only meatball soup instead of popcorn.

2) Movie goers get startled when the monster jumps out of the closet. They spill hot meatball soup on their clothes. Really hot meatball soup. They take off their clothes. Couples look at each other and decide the movie is stupid and find something better to do. Young Azerbaijani males constantly take their dates to the drive in. Azerbaijan’s population is exploding. Indeed, the world’s population has doubled since I was young, all fueled by the surging meatball-soup-drive-in craze.

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Baked Potato Chips

Posted on December 27, 2016 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

BAKED POTATO CHIPS

INGREDIENTSbakedpotatochips

1 medium russet potato
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon rosemary
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline (This device helps a lot in making thin, consistent slices quickly.)
2 large cookie sheets.
Good oven mitt (Normally, this is a given, but you might be using it a lot in this recipe.)

Makes 60 potato chips. Takes 1 hour.                                Adult potato chips form circle to protect baby chip.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Use mandoline to slice potatoes lengthwise and 1/16″ or ⅛” thick. Add potato slices, garlic powder, rosemary, salt, and olive oil to large mixing bowl. Toss potatoes slices until they are thoroughly coated.

Spray cookies sheets with no-stick spray. Add potato slices to cookie sheets. Do not stack slices or let them touch each other. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-to-30 minutes or until slices turn golden brown. Change the cookie sheet from the top rack to the bottom rack and vice versa after 10 minutes. (Vigilance is necessary as baking times vary with the thickness of the potato slices.) Remove individual chips from oven as they become done. Let potato slices, now heroically renamed as potato chips, cool on paper towels.

TIDBITS

1) The tenth Crowned Heads of European Poker Championship was held in late June, 1914. Kaiser Wilhelm II lost his temper after his full house was beaten by Czar Nicholas II’s straight flush. Wilhelm smashed the pile of potato chips–the poker chips of the time–in the middle with his fist. He instantly regretted his display of temper. However Tsar Nicholas, Nicky, to the other players, merely smiled. “No chips, no gambling. You know this means War.”

2) So, the heads of Europe settled down to the kid’s card game, War. Unfortunately, the ruler’s war ministers were to far away to hear Nicky’s “No chips, no gambling.” They only heard, “This means war.” They did see Willy’s fist smash the potato chips. Phone calls were made. Armies crossed borders. World War I started. This is why we play poker with plastic 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 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Carnitas

Posted on December 18, 2016 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

CARNITAS

INGREDIENTScarnitas

4 pounds boneless pork shoulder or loin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons lime juice

1 large onion
½ cup fresh cilantro
¼ cup orange juice

3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 orange
¾ cup shortening or lard
8 9″ or 20 5″ flour tortillas

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

Makes 8 or 16 carnitas depending on size of tortillas. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Chop pork into 1″ cubes using cleaver. Add pork, chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt, and lime juice to large mixing bowl. Turn pork cubes until they are well coated. Cover and let marinate for 30 minutes.

While pork marinates, dice small onion and fresh cilantro. Add diced onion, cilantro and orange juice to small mixing bowl. This is your salsa.

Mince garlic cloves. Cut medium onion into slices ¼” thick. Separate orange into sections. Add shortening to Dutch oven. Melt shortening using medium-high heat. Add marinated pork, garlic, sliced onion, and orange sections. Cook on medium-high heat for 15 minutes or until pork cubes brown on all sides. Stir frequently. Cover Dutch oven and reduce heat to low and simmer for 1½ hours or until pork cubes are tender to the fork. Stir every 5 minutes.

Uncover Dutch oven. Continue to simmer pork/veggies for another 30 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated or been absorbed. Microwave all tortillas for 30 seconds. Top each tortilla with an equal amount of pork/veggies and salsa.

TIDBITS

1) It seems hard to believe, but culinary historians assure us that cars were once made with carnitas. It’s true, carnitas is an anagram for satin car.

2) It all goes back to 1910 and Mexico. The tightly knit Mexican aristocracy monopolized the nation’s political power, wealth, and satin. Black satin dresses were all the rage among high society. No wealthy woman would think of appearing in public without one. That was fine. That left just satin for peasant women to wear on weddings, bar mitzvahs, and the such.

3) Then in early 1910, Doña Josefa Enero regarded her Allis Chalmers with disdain. Although her motorman kept the car purring and shiny, something was missing. Something that made her embarrassed to be riding in it in public.

4) “Cinco albondigas!” she shouted. The car was made of metal! A true lady with Spanish blood could not been seen wearing a metallic vehicle. Satin! Satin! She needed to be clothed in a satin car.

5) So, the Eneros ordered a satin car for everyone in their family. Their neighbors, the Tortas, the Flans, and the Ceviches did as well.

6) Naturally, with the whole Mexican elite making their cars out of satin, there was no material left for the peasantry.

7) No satin for the peasantry. No weddings. No bar mitzvahs. No docile peasantry.

8) One evening in early 1910, an angry Nita Menudo dipped six habañero peppers in Doña Febrero’s tea before serving. Her mistress’ mouth erupted in fire. She slapped Nita. Nita ran crying all the way home.

9) Her irate husband, Roberto, took to the hills. Realizing that was useless, he came back.

10) “I will avenge you!” he roared. He clutched a knife and headed to the Febrero estate. The Revolution of 1910 – 1930 had begun.

11) It was a long walk–Nita was always driven–and by the time he got there, he was too tired to attack anyone. He limped home in shame. “We need transportation,” said Roberto’s astute neighbor, Ernesto Flautas, “if we wish to launch raids against our greedy pig masters.”

12) “O drato,” said Roberto, “we have no money to buy metal to make a car. Ai, yi, yi.”

13) “Que frijoles you are,” said Nita. “We have vast herds of wild pigs destroying our crops. Slaughter the pigs and let the meat bake in the hot sun until it becomes tough as metal. Then you make your cars. Then you can attack the rich. Then we can be free.”

14) So, the Mexican peasants made car out of pork. The people called the car “Nitas” after the woman who hatched the idea. Hence, “carnitas.”

15) The Revolution would rage for twenty years. This dish was created to honor the car that won it.

 

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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