cuisine

Fried Doughnut Bites

Posted on November 25, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

FRIED DOUGHNUT BITES

INGREDIENTSFriedDB-

1 large egg
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (1 cup more later)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plus a bit more later)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup vegetable oil
flour to dust hands
1 cup confectionary sugar

PREPARATION

Use whisk to mix egg, sugar, milk, and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Add flour, salt, baking powder. Mix again, this time with fork. (You’ll go crazy getting the flour out of the inside of a whisk.)

Heat 1 cup vegetable oil in skillet to 375 degrees. Drop dough balls of about 1-to-2 teaspoons in size into heated oil. (Dust hands with flour between making each dough ball. The flour keeps dough from clinging all over your hands.)

Fry dough balls for 2 to 3 minutes or until golden brown. Be sure to taste a few dough balls before serving. Don’t want to serve ones that aren’t done. Turn frequently when cooking. (No, don’t turn yourself around. You’ll get dizzy. Turn over the dough balls.)

Put cooked doughnut bites in paper towels to absorb grease. Roll in confectionary sugar if desired. Most people will want this last step.

TIDBITS

1) This dish was originally supposed to be called “Fried Doughnuts.” However, doughnuts made this way don’t look like the round doughnuts with the whole in the middle.

2) It’s also why members of my family helpfully, even gleefully suggested the following names: Doughnut Crumbles, Fat Balls, and Fat Bombs.

3) The family was unanimous in liking them, though.

4) I think a great slogan for a doughnut shop would be, “Our doughnuts are made from real dough.” Might make you think what donuts from donut shops are made from.

5) Law enforcement officials like to eat doughnuts on stakeouts because they can eat them and still keep a hand free for emergencies and both eyes on the place they’re watching.

6) Doughnuts were considered real treats on cattle drives during the Old West

– 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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Peanut-Butter Pie

Posted on November 22, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

PEANUT-BUTTER PIE

INGREDIENTSPeanutButterPie-

4 ounces cream cheese
1 cup confectionery sugar
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons evaporated milk
1 cup whipping cream
1 8″ ready graham cracker pie crust

SPECIAL ITEM

electric beater

PREPARATION

Add cream cheese to large mixing bowl. Use highest setting on electric beater to fluff cream cheese. Add confectionery sugar. Fluff mixture with beater set to highest level. Add peanut butter and evaporated milk. Fluff once more. Add whipping cream. Combine with electric beater set on blend or mix.

Spoon the mixture into the pie crust. Put pie in freezer. Check pie after 30 minutes to see if the filling has set.

TIDBITS

1) π, everybody’s favorite transcendental number, equals approximately, 3.14159.

2) Indeed Cal Tech used to have a cheer that went:
Tangent, secant, cosine, sine
Three point one four one five nine.

3) Cal Tech is renowned for the scientific prowess of their alumni. It is not nearly as well respected for its football teams. However in 1968, Cal Tech’s footballers did defeat my school, UC San Diego.

4) After that humiliation, the UCSD student body voted to not offer anymore football scholarships, partly because UCSD wanted to concentrate more on academics and intramural sports, partly to save money, and mostly because we could certainly field a team that could lose to Cal Tech without giving scholarships to the players.

5) The students were wrong. Without scholarships, not enough prospects showed up next year to field a team. UCSD dropped football. And so it goes.

– 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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Bosna (Austrian Sandwich)

Posted on November 20, 2013 by pauldelancey

Austrian Entree

BOSNA

INGREDIENTSBosna-

12 bratwursts
6 wide rolls
½ yellow onion
1 tablespoon curry
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons ketchup

PREPARATION

Grill bratwursts at low heat for about 5-to-10 minutes or until they start to brown. Turn once. Toast rolls in toaster or panini grill. Slice onion into rings. Place onion rings and sprinkle curry evenly over bottom halves of rolls. Spread mustard and ketchup evenly on top halves of rolls. Assemble roll bottom, 2 bratwursts, and roll top for each sandwich.

TIDBITS

1) For those people who always complain that family vacations are boring, that trips to the Grand Canyon are so old school, may I suggest an exciting tour based on the ingredients of this recipe?

The National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin. Come visit the alluring world of mustard.

For the world’s best Dijon mustard, go to Dijon, France and take in the Amora Mustard Museum.

1st German Bratwurst Museum in Holzhausen, Germany. Bratwursts were first mentioned in 1404 and in 1432 became one of the first foods to be regulated. Save your money and fly there.

Vidalia Onion Museum in Vidalia, Georgia, where you can you learn the story of this illustrious sweet onion. “Please do not pick the onions.”

Currywurst Museum in Berlin, Germany. Germans love their currywurst. Indeed, Germany is a great place to do a food-museum trek.

National Bread Museum in Seia, Portugal, where you not only get to see the wonders of bread history, but you get to eat bread made at the museum’s fine restaurant. The museum even has a room dedicated to entertaining children. Does this mean food fights for the kids? They didn’t say.

See these museums without delay. The Yokohama Curry Museum closed its doors in 2007. Do you want to go through life regretting not seeing The National Mustard Museum or the National Bread Museum? I think not.

– 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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Zapiekanka, Polish Sandwich

Posted on November 17, 2013 by pauldelancey

Polish Entree

ZAPIEKANKA

INGREDIENTSZapiekanka-

1 baguette
1/3 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 pound sliced ham or deli-meat of choice
1 cup grated cheese of choice
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mayonnaise
no-stick spray

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut baguette in half and slice each half open. Cut onion and red bell pepper into thin slices. Add onion, bell pepper, turmeric, pepper, and butter to frying pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion is soft.

Add onion/bell pepper mixture, ham to baguette pieces. Top pieces with grated cheese. Spray baking tray with no-stick spray. Put tray in oven. Bake at 325 degrees for 5 minutes or until bread is crispy and cheese is melted. Remove tray from oven. Squirt, or spread, ketchup and mayonnaise over each piece.

TIDBITS

1) In 1857, native Indian soldiers, sepoys, in the British army believed the new gunpowder cartridges were greased with cow fat and pig fat. This grease insulted the religious beliefs of the Hindu and Muslim soldiers who had to bite the cartridges before using them. This mistake in greasing by the British sparked a major native rebellion.

2) The rebellion resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, embittered the Indians toward the British, and greatly widened the rift between Hindus and Muslims. This gulf persisted resulting in the bloody religious riots of 1947 and three wars between India and Pakistan. Today, these two countries have nuclear weapons pointed at each other.

3) If only Britain had greased its cartridges with olive oil. Today, we also have vegetable oil. A fragile peace prevails over 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.

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Bruna Boner (Swedish beans)

Posted on November 16, 2013 by pauldelancey

Swedish Entree

BRUNA BÖNER
(Swedish beans)

INGREDIENTSBrunerB-

1 pound bag pink beans
6 cups water
4 teaspoons, or half-stick, butter
8 ounces brown sugar
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons corn starch

PREPARATION

Put beans in large pot. Add enough water to cover beans with a few inches to spare. Let soak overnight or at least 10 hours. The beans will be crunchy if not sufficiently soaked. (You do not want to wake up, twenty years later, in the middle of the night screaming, “Why? Why did I not soak the beans long enough?”)

Drain the water. (This gets rid of any dirt on the beans.) Add 6 cups water. Cook on medium heat for 40 minutes. Stir every few minutes. Add more water if the water no longer covers the beans. Covering the pot with a lid also keeps water from evaporating.

Add butter. Cook on low-to-medium heat for 40 minutes. Stir every few minutes to avoid burning. Add more water if the water no longer covers the beans.

Add sugar. (If the brown sugar comes out of the box as a brick, saw it in half.) Cook on low-to-medium heat for 40 minutes. Stir every few minutes to avoid burning. Add more water if the water no longer covers the beans. (Engrave this advice in your memory.)

Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup vinegar, teaspoon by teaspoon, according to taste. If needed, thicken beans by adding cornstarch.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe comes from my grandmother Anna Erickson who was born in Murrum, Sweden, in 1889. I miss her.

2) Her family came to America through Boston, having heard of the hardships of Ellis Island in New York.

3) She grew up in Shickley, Nebraska. She later went back with my mother to visit. The whole town went to an outdoor movie, but was distracted by a rather lengthy meteor shower.

4) I grew up with this sort of Swedish food. Where the weird, modern Swedish pizzas came from I don’t know. It’s also strange that Bruna Bonër, or Brown Beans, uses pink beans. Wacky Swedes.

– 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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Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Posted on November 14, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Entree

CREAMY GARLIC MASHED POTATOES

INGREDIENTSCreamyMashPot-

1 1/2 pounds new or small potatoes
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

PREPARATION

Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into eight pieces. Put potato pieces into large pot. Add enough water to cover potato bits. Bring water to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Drain potatoes.

While potato is cooking, mince garlic cloves. Put garlic and butter in pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes. Stir frequently.

Add whipping cream, garlic, salt, and pepper to pot with potato pieces. Mash potatoes with potato masher. Use whisk to further blend ingredients together. Serve hot. (But of course, alll chefs are hotties.)

TIDBITS

1) Butter might promote fertility in women.

2) Cholesterol in butterfat helps develop children’s brains and nervous systems.

3) Butter contains arachidonic acid. I have no idea what arachidonic acid is. Clearly, I didn’t eat enough butter when I was a kid. However, I do know a spider is an arachnid.

5) The best, or at least most enjoyable, horror movie about spiders are: Tarantula (1955), Earth Versus the Spider (1958), The Giant Spider Invasion (1975), Kingdom of the Spiders (1978), and Arachnophobia (1990).

6) The best spider-horror movie with a cameo appearance by Clint Eastwood is Tarantula.

7) The most fun spider movie is Charlotte’s Web. It features a talking spider and a talking pig. There is another great movie about a talking pig is Babe. Hollywood thinks pigs are cuter than spiders.

– 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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Dijon Mustard

Posted on November 12, 2013 by pauldelancey

French Appetizer

DIJON MUSTARD

INGREDIENTSDijonMustard-

1/2 medium yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup mustard, dry
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

colander
airtight jar

PREPARATION

Mince the onion and garlic. Put wine, onion, garlic in pot. Cook at high heat until wine boils. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Pour mixture through colander into mixing bowl. Let liquid cool.

Add mustard to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until mixture is smooth. Add wine/garlic/mustard, honey, vegetable, and salt to pot Simmer for about 10 minutes or until liquid thickens. (Don’t look down too long at pot. The vapor will make your eyes sting.) Let cool. Pour into airtight jar. Keep refrigerated. The Dijon mustard will get slightly milder over the next 5 days.

TIDBITS

1) Ancient doctors used mustard to cure toothaches, epilepsy, and PMS, increase blood circulation, clear sinuses, and stimulate appetite. It had indifferent success in curing death as shown by the mustard found in King Tut’s tomb. Listen to the comedian Steve Martin & the Toot Uncommons sing the praises of King Tut.

2) Many cultures scatter mustard seeds around the home to repel evil spirits. Bear traps are a good way to tackle bad spirits taking on animal form. Leaving lutefisk outside your door wards off all spirits ethereal or corporal, including mimes selling aluminum siding door to door.

3) Indeed, people in medieval Paris could buy mustard by the wheelbarrow. This facts suggests lots of door-to-door mimes ran around back then. On the other hand, there is scant evidence of 13th-century Parisian homes, stone, wood, or otherwise, being adorned with aluminum siding.

4) Canada is the largest producer of mustard. There aren’t many evil spirits in Canada. See?

– 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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White Cake

Posted on November 8, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

WHITE CAKE

INGREDIENTSWhiteCake-

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 egg whites
2 cups flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups milk
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

2 9″-round cake tins
electric beater

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Let butter soften at room temperature. Put butter and sugar in large mixing bowl. Use “cake” setting on electric beater for 5 minutes or until butter and sugar becomes creamy.

Blend in eggs and egg whites one at a time using “cake” setting on electric beater. Add flour, baking powder, and salt to mixing bowl. Blend all using “cake” setting. Add milk. Blend one last time using “cake” setting on your electric beater until batter is smooth.

Spray cake tins with no-stick spray. Spoon or pour batter into cake tins. Put tins in oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-to-35 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean or when the cake springs back when touched with a spoon.

TIDBITS

1) Queen Marie Antoinette was told that the poor Parisians couldn’t afford to buy bread anymore. She said, “Let them eat cake,” which was more expensive. This ignorance and callousness so inflamed the French poor that they started the French Revolution.

2) Thousands of the nobility died at the guillotine during the Revolution. Thousands more peasants died during the White Terror reaction of the nobility. France became so unstable that Napoleon was able to seize power in 1799. Napoleon plunged Europe into nearly constant warfare for the next sixteen years. Hundreds of thousands of people perished. People couldn’t every tweet outrage.

3) The French government since then has heavily regulated the price of bread.

– 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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Korean Hamburger

Posted on November 4, 2013 by pauldelancey

Korean Entree

KOREAN HAMBURGER

INGREDIENTSKoreanBurger-

1/2 yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 pounds ground beef.
2 tablespoons gochuchang (hot Korean paste)
1/2 tablespoons gochucharu (or red pepper flakes)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 large tomato
5 leaves Chinese cabbage or Napa cabbage
5 ounces hot pepper-jack cheese
5 hamburger buns

PREPARATION

Mince yellow onion and garlic. Add onion, garlic, ground beef, gochuchang, gochucharu, and soy sauce to mixing bowl. Combine with hands. (Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after doing this. The spices now on your hands will raise four-alarm fires if they come in contact with your face.) Cut tomato into 5 slices.

Make 5 patties from the meat mixture. Fry patties in pan at medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side or until sides begin to brown or juices from the patties run clear. Add a 1-ounce slice of pepper-jack cheese to each patties are fry for 1 minute more or until cheese starts to melt. Assemble the burgers with: buns, patty, tomato slice, and cabbage leaf.

TIDBITS

1) Kim Jong Un, the current leader of the communist monarchy that is North Korea is said by the country’s media to be “born of heaven.”

2) As proof of his divinity, or at least greatness, the country’s government point to the lair of a North Korean unicorn. Mind you this was not the home of your run-of-the mill unicorn. Oh no, this was the abode of the unicorn ridden by Tongmyong, the mythical founder of Korea. This discovery occurred in December, 2012. This site is the only existing unicorn site. It is feared that all other such sites failed to open when they realized how outclassed they were by North Korea’s.

3) Kim Jong Un’s dad, Kim Jong II, also ruled North Korea. He too was heaven sent. We can believe it as he bowled a perfect 300 in his first game and shot five holes-in-one on his first time golfing. When he died, North Korea’s sacred mountain, Paektu, glowed red, which is way cool.

4) The most popular restaurant in Pyongyang, the country’s capital, is the New Diplo with two reviews on TripAdvisorTM.. Unfortunately, it is only available to diplomats. Career change, anyone?

– 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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Vegetable Mafe From Senegal

Posted on November 2, 2013 by pauldelancey

Senegalese Entree

VEGETABLE MAFE

INGREDIENTSVegetableMafe-

1 small cooking pumpkin (1 cup)
1 medium onion
1 large tomato
1 turnip
2 brown potatoes
2 large carrots
1/4 head cabbage
1 cup fresh spinach
1/4 cup peanut oil
2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter

Makes 9 bowls. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut pumpkin shell into large pieces. Remove seeds and those gooey strings that go along with the seeds. Cut off edible pumpkin part from outer skin. Cut edible part of pumpkin into cubes no bigger than 1/2″. Mince onions. Dice tomatoes, turnips, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and spinach.

Add onion and peanut oil to pot. Sauté onion at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add pumpkin, tomato, turnip, potato, carrot, cabbage, and spinach to pot one at time, sautéing for 1 minute on medium-high heat as each new veggie is added. Stir frequently.

Add tomato sauce, water, black pepper, and cayenne pepper to pot. Simmer on low heat for 1 hour 15 minutes or until veggies are tender. Add peanut butter to pot. Simmer for 10 minutes on warm-to-low heat. Stir occasionally. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) Pumpkins are a fruit. Who knew? They have been grown for 7,000 years. The first were grown in Central America. I grew a pumpkin when I was a kid, way too late to be the first grower.

3) Linus, of the comic strip “Peanuts,” believed in the Great Pumpkin. The Great Pumpkin would arise out of the sincerest pumpkin batch in the land and distribute gifts to all good children. Clink on the following link to hear Linus explain the Great Pumpkin.

4) You can make a lot of other dishes out of pumpkins, such as pie, cupcakes, bread, scones, French toast, ice cream, waffles, soup, curry, cheesecake, pasta sauce, chowder, muffins, cannelloni, stuffed shells, roasted pumpkin seeds, casserole, cookies, and stuffed pasta shells.

– 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

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