cuisine

Durban Masala

Posted on September 25, 2016 by pauldelancey

South African Appetizer

DURBAN MASALA

durbanmasalaINGREDIENTS

½ teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1¼ teaspoons coriander
1¼ teaspoons cumin
¼ teaspoon fenugreek
¾ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon mace
⅛ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons turmeric

Makes ¼ cup. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to mixing. Mix with whisk until well blended.

TIDBITS

1) Durban is a city in South Africa. Durban rhymes with Durban. This is useful when constructing rhyming poems. In much the same way, gnome rhymes with Nome, a city in Alaska. Over 20,000 gnomes live in Nome, admired for their strong work ethic. They’ll guard your garden for amazing lengths of time and everyone knows much polar bears fear gnomes.

4) Gnomes first came to Massachusetts on the Mayflower, fleeing persecution from waffle eaters. Later, they worked their way south, guarding spice gardens along the way. The little guys eventually settled in Chancellorsville, Virginia–Why not?–to lead a safe, if not totally accepted existence.

5) Tragedy struck in 1863. General Stonewall Jackson was shot after the battle of Chancellorsville. Enraged townsfolk held a gnome fired the fatal shot and drove the wee ones out of town.

6) The gnomes drifted ever northwestward, until they reached Nome on the Bering Sea. They could drift no longer. They wore parkas to keep warm. The parkas covered their faces, just like the natives. You couldn’t tell the gnomes and the people apart. Sure, gnomes are much shorter than people, but you always keep your face to the ground during a blizzard. And 19th-century Nome always had blizzards. The townsfolk didn’t even notice the little folk until 1941, when World War II broke out. People. after kneeling, worked shoulder to shoulder with the gnomes to defeat the common foe. The gnomes gained acceptance into one career after another. Today, Nome’s the gnome genome sequencing capital of the world.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Xin Xim (chicken and shrimp stew)

Posted on September 17, 2016 by pauldelancey

Brazilian Entree

XIN XIM
(chicken and shrimp stew)

xinximINGREDIENTS

3 garlic cloves
⅓ cup lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil (2 more tablespoons later)
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1½ pounds boneless chicken breasts
1½ pounds boneless chicken thighs
1 pound jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon palm oil (aka dende), annatto oil, or olive oil (2½ tablespoons more later)
1 large onion
1 green bell pepper
3 plum tomatoes
1½ cups chicken stock
1 ounce dried shrimp or ground dried shrimp
1½ ounces gingerroot
¾ cup cashews
⅓ cup peanuts, roasted and unsalted
2½ tablespoons palm oil (aka dende), annatto oil, or olive oil
1¼ cups coconut milk
⅓ cup fresh cilantro
2 fresh malagueta peppers (These are really hot. Serrano and jalapeno peppers are milder and easier to find)

SPECIAL UTENSIL

food processor
Dutch oven
sonic obliterator

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION

Add garlic cloves to food processor. Blend until you get garlic paste. Add garlic paste, lime juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, pepper, salt, chicken breasts, chicken thighs, and shrimp to large mixing bowl. Turn the chicken and the shrimp until they are well coated. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Remove chicken pieces from marinade and pat dry with paper towel. (Keep marinade.) Add chicken pieces and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes on each side (10 minutes total) or until chicken turns golden brown. Remove and set aside.

Remove shrimp from marinade. Add shrimp and 1 tablespoon palm oil to Dutch oven. Sauté shrimp using high heat for 2 minutes or until shrimp starts to turn pink. Stir frequently. Remove shrimp with its marinade and set aside.

Mince onion. Seed and dice green bell pepper and plum tomatoes. Add onion and bell pepper to Dutch oven. Sauté for 5 minutes using medium-high heat or until onion softens. Add tomato, chicken pieces, and chicken stock. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer stew for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.

While stew simmers, add dried shrimp, gingerroot, cashews, and peanuts to food processor. Grind using low setting until you get little bits. Stop before they become paste. Add bits to Dutch oven. Stir until bits blend into the chicken stock. Simmer stew for 5 minutes on low heat.

While stews simmers, dice cilantro. (If at this time guests ask when will the meal be ready, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that negativity in your kitchen.) Add cilantro, marinated shrimp, 2½ tablespoons palm oil, coconut milk, and malagueta peppers. Simmer on low heat for 5 minutes and shrimp are pink and the chicken is tender. Serve with golden farofa (a Brazilian dish made from cassava flour) or rice.

TIDBITS

1) Xin xim is an anagram for Xi minx. My 1941 dictionary says a minx is a hussy or a wanton. Xi is something inconsequential and boring. Qi is a word that no one ever speaks because no one knows what it means. It’s worth a lot in ScrabbleTM, though.

2) However, the anagram for “Chicken and Shrimp Stew” is “Mr. Ken’s pecan witch dish.” Mr. Ken Appleby was an Englishman working in Madrid in 1587 for the Spanish Inquisition. He never learned Spanish. Didn’t make interrogating his prisoners difficult?

3) Yes, it did. While his fellow Spanish-speaking inquisitors we’re putting prisoners on racks and extorting confessions with assembly-line efficiency, Ken lagged behind something considerable. Because he couldn’t understand the anguished admissions of his heretics, he had to resort to charades to communicate.

4) Except a person tied down and stretched out to pro-basketball lengths made a poor charade partner. So, Ken never tied down his prisoners. He fed them his pecan pie. Ken’s pies were delicious. People would confess to anything to eat one and they did. His pies were to die for and they did. Especially witches, who as everyone knows, break out in hives when they eat pecans. Ken was able to find one witch after another. He began a rapid ascent up the inquisitor ladder.

5) Then Spain and England went to war in 1588. A death warrant was put out for Ken. His happy days over, Ken fled to Brazil. However, his fame as with pecan pies preceded him. His life was still in danger. Fortunately an anagramist said his dish was anagram for chicken and shrimp stew. The Brazilians called his new culinary creation, xin xim, because they have words for everything. There.

– 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

Support Taco Truck Tuesday

Posted on September 3, 2016 by pauldelancey

Citizens of America,FishTaco-

Marco Gutierrez says that if Donald Trump doesn’t win, there will be taco trucks on every corner. Whoa! That’s wonderful. That’s awesome! Tacos are the best food in the world. And we can have them if Trump loses. Whoa. There you have it, America, yet another reason to vote for me, Paul De Lancey, presidential candidate of the Bacon & Chocolate Party. Do you want tacos as close to you as the nearest street corner, whenever you want? Of course, you do.

Show your support for the incredible taco. Show your support for the incredible chefs who, in the hot, cramped quarters of their trucks, turn out one delicious taco after another. This Tuesday, just three days from now, go out and patronize your nearest taco truck. Drive for hours if need be. Surf the internet, talk to stranger after stranger, but find that taco truck. Bring back tacos for neighbors. Do a good deed and buy truck tacos for shut ins. Helping others, isn’t that why were put here on Earth?

So buy those street tacos. And don’t forget to get a picture of you eating that taco in front of that taco truck. So, show your support for tacos. Show your support for taco makers. Make your neighborhood at new Eden by encouraging the mobile taco makers to come to your corner. Oh gosh, I shiver at the prospect.

Remember this Tuesday, this Taco Truck Tuesday. Buy that taco. Get a picture of yourself in front of the truck or least a picture of the truck. Post the photo here. Post it on Facebook. Post it on Twitter  #TacoTruckTuesday, and any other social media you can thing of. Do it for yourself. Do it for your neighborhood. Do it for America. Especially on Tuesday, November 8, the Taco Truck Tuesday  where you vote.

MAKE AMERICA TACOS

 

– 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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Air Koryo Hamburger (World’s Worst Hamburger)

Posted on August 29, 2016 by pauldelancey

North Korean Entree

AIR KORYO-TM HAMBURGER
(World’s worst burger)

INGREDIENTSAirKoryoBurger-

1 pound ground whitish mystery meat that’s been lurking in the fridge for months OR mixed ground pork and turkey
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 teaspoons yellow mustard
4 leaves wilted lettuce
4 thin bits wilted onion
4 thick yellow buns

Makes 4 burgers. Takes 15 minutes and 30-to-60 minutes to cool down completely.

PREPARATION

Add ground mystery meat, salt, and sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Make four patties. Add patties to pan. Cook patties on low-to-medium heat for 2-to-4 minutes on each side or until no pink remains and the outside is still white. Do not brown in any way.

Remove patties from pan. While patties lose all warmth, 30 minutes should do it, spread mustard on each bun half. Do not under any circumstance toast or heat buns. Add onion slice, or fragment, to each bun bottom. Add patty to each bun top. Then put wilted lettuce leaf* on top on each patty. Ideally, the lettuce leaf should totally obscure the meat patty. Assemble burger.

To make it tasty, cook as above except: use beef, half the amount of salt, omit the sugar, use fresh lettuce and onion, use ketchup, and toast buns. Serve hot.

* = Don’t worry if you find only fresh lettuce at your supermarket. Simply put lettuce on patty while it’s being fried on its second side. Let lettuce cool down along with patty. Voilà, wilted lettuce.

TIDBITS

1) Air Koryo has been rated the world’s worst airline in the world for the last five years. Amazingly, there are people who are so eager to fly it that destinations don’t even matter. Flying Air Koryo is like stepping into a time warp. The airline uses propeller planes that haven’t seen service anywhere else for decades. Particularly valued seats are next to the noisy engines or where the plane shakes the most. Some people return year after year to fly Air Koryo’s unique aircraft. Enthusiasts, you bet.

2) Air Koryo’s “burger” comes with a paper bag having the ominous words, “For your refuses.”

3) North Korea clearly is a threat to the world. Almost as much as lutefisk vendors.

– 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

Shrimp Tempura

Posted on August 27, 2016 by pauldelancey

Japanese Appetizer

SHRIMP TEMPURA

INGREDIENTSShrimpTempura-

2½ cups vegetable oil (or enough to cover shrimp)
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
1 cup ice-cold water
1 pound shrimp, 21-30 count, peeled, deveined, with tails left on*

* = Don’t worry if you removed the tails. This dish will taste as good. You’ll need forks; it will be hot.

SPECIAL UTENSILS                                                                         Oops, I removed the tails. I was distracted

deep fryer or electric skillet                                                                        by earthquakes and T-Rexes.
Bushnell 303 Hand Held Time MachineTM.

Serves 6. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add oil to deep fryer. (Make sure there is enough to cover shrimp.) Preheat oil to 375 degrees. While oil heats, add flour, baking powder, cornstarch, and salt to large mixing bowl. Beat egg yolk in small bowl with whisk. Add beaten egg yolk and ice-cold water to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until combined mixture turns to batter and is still slightly lumpy. Dredge shrimp though batter until completely coated. Don’t batter shrimp tails.

Add shrimp to deep fryer. Don’t let the shrimp touch each other. Fry shrimp at 375 degrees for 1½-to-2 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Repeat for successive batches.

TIDBITS

1) So many recipes tell you to preheat. What if you don’t have time to preheat? What if your sweetie is coming over? What if you see monstrous, rolling earthquakes just outside your window and you had wanted to make something special for him on his birthday, probably the last one by the looks of it? Simply use your Bushnell 303 Hand Held Time MachineTM to travel back in time and preheat your oven. How far back? As far as the Cretaceous Period if you like**.

2) ** = Be sure to look out for carnivorous dinosaurs. Also, hold onto your oven when you time travel. Otherwise, it won’t go with you and you’ll will have risked by eaten by a T-Rex for nothing. And then, won’t you feel foolish? Oh, and your electric bill will be high.

– 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 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Fried Green Tomatoes

Posted on August 21, 2016 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
With Dipping Sauce

INGREDIENTS – DIPPING SAUCEFriedGreenTomatoesCornmeal-

2 stalks green onions
⅔ cup Dijon mustard
½ cup mayonnaise
⅓ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon white pepper

INGREDIENTS – TOMATOES

4 large or 2 pounds green tomatoes*
½ tablespoon salt (1 teaspoon more later)
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
¾ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
up to 2 cups vegetable oil

* = WARNING. This really is a lot of work if you’re using many tiny green tomatoes. If it takes more than 8 green tomatoes to make 2 pounds, consider cutting the amount of ingredients in half. Certainly, you’ll only get to eat only 1 pound of tomatoes this way, while people living in the land of big tomatoes get 2 pounds. However, you won’t be muttering to yourself and looking in the garage for an axe. Alternatively, move to the land of the big tomatoes. Oh, and leave your axe behind.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric skillet
3 mixing bowls

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes depending on the size of the tomatoes. Bigger tomatoes take less time. They really do.

PREPARATION – DIPPING SAUCE

Mince green onions. Add dipping sauce ingredients to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Cover and chill until tomatoes are deep fried.

PREPARATION – TOMATOES

Cut tomatoes into ¼” slices. Pat tomato slices dry with paper towel. Put slices on wire racks over plates. Sprinkle slices evenly with ½ tablespoon salt. Let sit for 30 minutes to draw out water.

While tomato slices sit, add cornmeal, flour, pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt to large, second mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Divide this cornmeal/flour mixture onto 3 plates. (This will keep the cornmeal/from clumping up from the moisture of buttermilk laden tomato slice.) Add buttermilk to third mixing bowl. Dip tomatoes slices in buttermilk. Dredge buttermilk-covered slices one at time through cornmeal/flour mixture until they are well coated.

Set skillet to 375 degrees. Add enough oil to coat tomato slices to skillet. Oil will be hot enough when a tiny bit of flour added to skillet will dance in the oil. Add as many tomato slices as possible to skillet without them touching each other. Fry 3 minutes on each side or until they turn golden brown. (Cooking time tends to go down a little with each successive batch.) Additional batches might be necessary. Drain on paper towels. Serve with dipping sauce.

TIDBITS

1) Tomatoes can be cut with a regular knife. But not with any uniformity. Sure, you’ll get the occasional .25″ thick slice, but more often than not you’ll get slices with widths of .28″ or even .35″. However if your neighbors know that your make half-inch wide slices, you will be shunned.

2) In cases like these, it’s best to bolt all the doors and pull down all the shades until you have gotten rid of your deformed tomato slabs. Thieves know that houses with drawn shades and bolted doors mean that desperate knife-wielding, tomato-disposing folks are at a home and leave them at home. So when you leave the homestead, bolt your doors and draw their shades. Thieves won’t know if you’ve stepped out or are destroying culinary crimes. They won’t take the chance.

3) So don’t slice tomatoes with a knife. Then with what? A mandoline. This kitchen device makes uniform tomato slices. Now you can raise your shades and go out into your anal retentive, tomato-loving neighborhood. Be accepted, even.

4) How did the mandoline get started? Renaissance mandolin players loved sliced tomatoes. But the knives way back were even less precise than the ones we use today. Thick-tomato-slice shame ran rampant. Frustrated mandoliners took to smashing their tomatoes with their mandolins. This is how pasta sauce got invented. This is how spaghetti with marinara sauce came about. This is how Italy became the culinary capital in the world.

5) Folk music became popular in America during the 19th century. Folk guitarists took over the role of pasta-sauce makers. However, wooden acoustic guitars were amazing fragile. Just a few tomato smashings would break them. So, the pasta-sauce industry invented the sturdy electric guitar. Those things could smash tomatoes forever.

6) In 1968, a word-changing event occurred. The band Iron Butterfly released the song “In a Gadda Da Vida.” It was great. It was immensely popular. Rock bands started earning big bucks playing music of all things.

7) Rich electric guitarists gave up making pasta sauce. Italian restaurants all over the world were in danger on closing. But they didn’t, Mandy Linne, lead singer for Beefsteak had a drug-induced vision. “Why not insert a blade into a fixed surface, couple that with an adjustable upper surface, slide the tomato along the adjustable surface until it meets the blade resulting in uniform slices?” Mandy L. passed out. Her idea did not. We are living in a golden age of uniformly sliced tomatoes.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Codfish Cakes

Posted on August 17, 2016 by pauldelancey

British Entree

CODFISH CAKES

INGREDIENTSCodfishCakes-

1 pound cod fillets
2 large potatoes
½ teaspoon salt
1½ tablespoons butter
1 small egg
1½ tablespoons minced onion
1 teaspoon parsley
⅛ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon tarragon
1 large egg
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup breadcrumbs

Makes 6 codfish cakes. Takes 2¼ hours, more if you spill the bowl with beaten egg on yourself and you need to change clothes and beat another egg.

PREPARATION

Cut cod into 1″ squares. Peel potatoes and cut them into fourths. Add potato and salt to large pot. Add enough water to cover. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until potato fourths are almost tender. Drain water. Mash potato fourths with potato masher or fork. Remove from heat.

Add cod to pan and cover with water. Simmer on low heat for 5-to-10 minutes or until cod becomes soft and begins to flake. Stir frequently. Drain water.

While cod simmers, beat small egg. Add cod, potato, butter, beaten small egg, onion, parsley, pepper, and tarragon to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Form mixture into 6 round, flat cakes.

Add large egg to second mixing bowl. Beat with whisk. Add breadcrumbs to plate. Dredge codfish cakes through breadcrumbs until completely coated. Dip coated codfish cakes into beaten egg. Refrigerate codfish cakes for 45 minutes or until they are firm.

Add oil to pan. Heat on medium-high heat until a little breadcrumb starts to dance in the oil. Add as many codfish cakes as possible to pan. (You might need to cook the cakes in batches.) Sauté cakes for 3-to-5 minutes on each side or until golden brown. (The time needed to cook the codfish cakes tends to go down with successive batch.) Serve via catapult or, more traditionally, on a plate. Goes well with tartar sauce.
TIDBITS

1) The codpiece was a bag, or piece of clothing, that was sown into men’s pants. Men kept their lunch in it. Most of the time, the lunch was the ever popular cod. Hence, the codpiece.

2) Pause and reflect how amazing that tidbit 1) is true. I thought I had made something up but no, it’s all factual.

3) Renaissance women, having noses, objected to the foul smell emanating from their husbands’ fish-laden groins. It got so bad, that women went on a sex strike in 1454. This was a great opportunity for the porn industry to start. However, the lack of hand-held cameras, the internet with its downloading capabilities, and DVD daunted even the most entrepid entrepreneurs.

4) The DVD-deprived House of York favored giving into their spouses’s demands. The House of Not York favored keeping their fish lunch near their manhood. Tempers rose. Thing were said and soon civil war broke out between the two houses. From 1455 to 1485. Biff! Biff!

6) Thank goodness, that bloody civil war is over. The House of Not York won. Men everywhere cheered.

8) Not so, with their wives. Fishy groins still stank. Intimacy between spouses remained intermittent.

9) However, the husbands still wanted their bed dancing. This need proved to be an opening for enterprising prostitutes. And so, prostitution became a thriving industry along with chocolate chip cookies. Such cookies placed on the bordellos’s window sills lured customers in again and again. Kinda like S&H Green StampsTM during the 1950s and 1960s or even like frequent-flier miles now.

11) How did these horizontal entrepreneurs stand the codfish stench of their customers? By smoking tobacco. Smoking deadens the sense of smell.

12) The wives soon found out this secret and took up smoking as well. Men came back to their wives. Relations were resumed. Babies were born. The population soared. The supply of jobs didn’t. Men became restless and rioted. Monarchs fear revolutions. Monarchs feared losing their heads.

13) Kings everywhere enrolled angry, aimless youth into their military. Armies expanded. So, did the opportunities for conflict. Soon, vast armies of armed, cod-stuffing youths fought each other all over Europeans for centuries.

14) Refrigeration came to America in 1911. American men no longer needed to keep cod in their shorts. Men and women no longer need to deaden their noses with cigarettes. People could smell flowers again. Gardening became America’s national pastime. All was well in the USA.

15) Tragically, refrigeration did not come to Europe until 1915, too late to stop World War I. Nasally impaired leaders all over the continents sent an entire generation to its doom. If only they had been able to stop and smell the roses.

16) Thanks to refrigeration and the calming ability to smell roses there has not another major conflict to speak off aside from the Unpleasantness of 1939-1945 and a few other spats. Yay.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Crispy Fish Taco

Posted on August 11, 2016 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

CRISPY FISH TACO

INGREDIENTSFishTaco-

⅓ cup mayonnaise
1½ cups coleslaw mix or shredded cabbage
2 tablespoons oil (2 additional tablespoons later)
8 corn tortillas
2 tablespoons butter
2 garlic cloves
1 pound cod, tilapia, or orange roughy fillets
½ tablespoon lime juice
½ teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup melon salsa (See above recipe) or mango salsa

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric skillet
9″ loaf pan

Makes 8 tacos. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add mayonnaise and coleslaw mix to mixing bowl. Mix with fork. Add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil to skillet. Heat oil to 375 degrees. The oil is hot enough if it sizzles when a tortilla is added. Add 1 tortilla at a time. Suté tortilla for 20 seconds on each side or until tortilla is crispy but still flexible enough to be folded. Fold tortilla in half and place it upright in loaf pan. Put a paper towel on each side of tortilla to drain off grease. Repeat for 8 remaining tortillas.

Melt butter in pan using medium heat. Dice garlic cloves. Add fish and lime juice to mixing bowl. Turn fish until well coated. Add garlic and cumin to bowl. Turn fish fillets until well coated with garlic and cumin.

Add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil to pan. Cook on medium heat until a few bubbles appear. Carefully add fish fillets to pan. (Holding the pan’s lid between you and the pan with our other hand is often a good idea in these situations.) Sauté for about 3 minutes on each side or until fish fillets flake easily with fork. Remove from heat. Put ⅛ of the fish flakes in a crispy tortilla. Add 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise/coleslaw mix to tortilla. Top with 2 tablespoons of melon salsa. Repeat for each taco.

TIDBITS

1) Psychic factors are afoot.

2) How do I know this?

3) An anagram for “crispy fish taco” is “psychic factors.”

4) Would I have gotten the same anagram with “crispy beef tacos?”

5) No, in that cash the anagram would have been “pbycee factors.”

6) There is no such thing as pbycee factors, although there are crispy beef tacos. Spooky.

7) So, what inspired me to make up a recipe for crispy beef tacos or even for the throw-caution-to-the wind crispy chicken tacos?

8) Psychic factors. Proof you cannot deny.

10) Who or what are responsible for these psychic factors making me make crispy fish tacos, specifically using cod as the seafood of choice?

11) Crayfish optometrists. Their organization is called Crayfish OpticsTM. Crayfish Optics wants to drive every human optician and optometrist in Louisiana out of business.

12) Why? There’s much more money to be made treating human eyes than those of crayfish. Always has been.

13) There’s also an urgent, ugly side to the crayfish optometrists desire to make people like me post recipes like this one. The crayfish know people will always will eat seafood. They want their cod brethren to give up their lives for our recipes, not themselves. It’s a fish eat fish world down there.

14) Why don’t cod notice these deadly attempts by the crayfish? I know there’s really no room for advancement for cod as such, but still, why not resist?

15) The cod don’t have time to notice how their being substituted into more and more recipes and menus. They obsess over every little detail in their little fish world. Cod are OCD. OCD is an anagram for cod. Proof you cannot deny.

16) Why hasn’t the vaunted Louisiana Marine Outreach and Intelligence Investigation Agency (LMOIIA) caught onto the nefarious plans of Crayfish Optics?

17) Simple, most Louisianans refer to crayfish as crawfish. So, the LMOIIA is only looking for activity from crawfish.

18) But how can the grate LMOIIA, try saying that real fast, be thrown off by such a simple trick as changing the “w” in crawfish?

19) Sad to say, Louisiana’s budget woes have affected all its agencies, none more than LMOIIA. LMOIIA’s people just don’t have the people or the resources to see through such a simple trick. The crawfish know this. They keep up on the state’s finances. Cod-killing bastards.

Chef Paul

LutheranCookbook

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World,  and my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, are available in paperback or Kindle on amazon.com

The cookbook is also available as an e-book on Nook

or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com

Categories: cuisine, humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shrimp Ceviche

Posted on August 4, 2016 by pauldelancey

Ecuadorian Appetizer

SHRIMP CEVICHE

INGREDIENTSCeviche-

8 limes or ¼ cup fresh lime juice
3 oranges or 1 cup fresh orange juice
1 large red onion
3 tomatoes
2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ cup fresh cilantro
⅓ cup ketchup
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Squeeze limes and oranges to get juices. Cut red onion into long, thin strips. Dice cilantro and tomato. Add enough water to cover shrimp to pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add shrimp to pot. Boil until shrimp turns slightly pink, about 2-to-3 minutes. Do not overcook, letting it turn completely red, as it will make the shrimp mushy. Remove shrimp with slotted spoon and let cool. Add lime juice, orange juice, red onion, cilantro, tomato, ketchup, pepper, salt, and vegetable oil to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add shrimp once it has cooled. Mix with hands until shrimp is well coated. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

TIDBITS

1) Shrimp ceviche is reddish-pink and tasty. Many Vikings had reddish hair and loved good tasting food. However, Vikings ate oatmeal all the time, bowl after bowl. This drove the Norsemen crazy. They started cheating at checkers and saying, “Sez you” to everyone they met.

3) The Viking women took to cooking lutefisk. the foulest smelling, most evil dish ever rather than cook another yet bowl of oatmeal. Some wives had even thrown themselves into fjords instead of doing that. Fortunately, lutefisk’s horrible smell drove the menfolk to raid foreign lands for tasty food and even gold, sometimes. The women stayed at home and played Runeble, basically ScrabbleTM with runes, and ordered Chinese takeaway.

4) In 1284, Bjorni Thorvald, discovered Ecuador, while looking for a Pokemon GoTM character. This news electrified all Scandinavia. Whole clans of blood-thirsty Vikings moved to Ecuador. This is why there are so many blue-eyed redheads there.

5) Thus, the Viking raids stopped. Relieved Europeans came out of hiding to build the Renaissance.

– 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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Beef Jerky

Posted on August 1, 2016 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

BEEF JERKY

INGREDIENTSBeefJerky-

1 pound flank steak, London broil or round steak
¼ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon pepper (Freshly ground is best)
¾ teaspoon liquid smoke
6 tablespoons soy sauce
5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Serves 4. Takes 13-to-20 hours.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

wire rack
baking sheet

PREPARATION

Slice beef across the grain into strips ¼” thick. Add all other ingredients to large mixing bowl. Mix ingredients with whisk until well blended and brown sugar dissolves completely. Add beef strips to bowl. Mix by hand until strips are well coated. Cover bowl or put in large, sealable plastic, bag. Place in refrigerator for 8-to-12 hours. Stir at least once.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Remove meat from marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Put wire rack on top of baking sheet. Place marinated strips on top of wire rack. Do not let strips touch each other. Bake at 160 degrees for 5-to-7 hours or until strips are ready. Strips will be ready when jerky is dry enough to easily tear off a piece, yet will not snap when bent. Preserve jerky strips from air and humidity by storing them in mason jars or sealable plastic bags.

TIDBITS

1) Origami flourished in Texas during the dark, final months of the Confederacy. The Union blockade ships had deprived the state of all sorts of fun things: fine linen, playing cards, refrigerators*, baseball bats, anything that reeked of fun. All they had left was paper. Which was used for spitwads and even sent to the front lines, where they proved utterly useless in thwarting the bluecoat advance. Soon however, the thriving art colony of Tyler, Texas experimented with making animals out of paper. The Texas Art of Origami was born. Drovers, far from sources of paper, turned to making thin strips of cooked beef for their origami material. And so, beef jerky was born.

2) *Culinary historians are at a loss to explain these apparent artifacts in the Texas of 1865.

– 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

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