history

Paul’s Banana Strawberry Nut Bread

Posted on March 11, 2017 by pauldelancey

American Breakfast

PAUL’S BANANA STRAWBERRY NUT BREAD

INGREDIENTS

3 bananas (overripe ones are better)
5 ripe strawberries
½ cup pecans
½ cup butter (softened or melted)
½ cup raisins
2 eggs
½ cup sugar
2¾ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
2¼ cups flour
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

spice grinder
electric beater
9″ x 5″ loaf pan

Makes 1 loaf. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel bananas. Put bananas and strawberrues in large mixing bowl. Mash or smoosh with potato masher or fork. Chop pecans or grind with spice grinder until all the pecan bits are quite small. Add butter, pecan bits, raisins, eggs, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla extract to mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set on medium or “cake.” With electric beater running, gradually add all the flour. Blend until the batter is smooth. Spray loaf pan with no-stick spray. Pour batter into pan. Put pan in oven. Cook for 45 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool for 20 minutes. Turn loaf pan over onto a plate.

TIDBITS

1) This is a moist and tasty bread. However, it would surely harden like a brick if left out under a hot, summer Sun and forgotten. Indeed, the Great Wall of China, built to keep out northern invaders, was constructed with banana-strawberry-bread bricks. These ingredients arrived via caravan along the great Banana Strawberry Road, stretching from Bananistan to Peking. The fruit bricks of Great Wall did their job until the advent of the Mongols, fierce fruit lovers who ate their way through. No country has a built a culinary wall ever since.

– 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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Brisket With Onions

Posted on February 25, 2017 by pauldelancey

American Entree

BRISKET WITH ONIONS

INGREDIENTSbeefbrisket

2 large onions
4 pounds beef brisket (first or flat cut with fat trimmed to ¼”)
4 garlic cloves
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon thyme
2 cups beef broth
2 teaspoons parsley

Serves 8. Takes 7 hours.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
slow cooker

PREPARATION

Cut onions into ¼” slices with mandoline or knife. Dice garlic cloves. Rub pepper, salt, and thyme onto brisket. Add onion slices, garlic, brisket, and beef broth to slow cooker. Cook and cook on high for 6 hours or until brisket is tender to the fork. Cut brisket against grain into 8 or 16 slices. Add brisket to bowls. Ladle liquid from slow cooker over brisket. Garnish with parsley.

TIDBITS

1) No one has ever found the buried treasure of Pierre le Fou, The Terror of the Caribbean.

2) Many historians and treasure hunters have combed dusty books found in nautical libraries. Ambitious souls have prowled bazaars, estate sales, and abandoned castles in search of le Fou’s maps. Still others have surfed the internet for clues before getting distracted by pictures of kittens and even hamster-powered model railroads.

3) However culinary historians believe that the path to Le Fou’s gold and pearls lies through the reading of recipes, this one in particular.

4) First of all, what about the title of this recipe, “Brisket with Onions?” I mean how likely was it that this dish was chosen out of thousands upon thousands of choices. Clearly, this recipe holds the clue to the French pirate’s loot. Indeed, the two nouns in the title, brisket and onions is an anagram for “Be No Skirt Ions.” If that isn’t pirate talk, then I don’t know what is. And “Be No Skirt Ions” clearly means gold. That’s proof you can deny. Now, all you have to do is decipher the hidden code in this recipe for the location of unimaginable wealth. Go for 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.

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Spaghetti Omelette From Cameroon

Posted on February 10, 2017 by pauldelancey

Cameroonian Breakfast

SPAGHETTI OMELETTE

INGREDIENTSspaghettiomelette

2 eggs
½ cup cooked spaghetti
1 stalk green onion
¼ small onion
1 small tomato
⅛ teaspoon white pepper or black pepper
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Makes 1 omelette. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat eggs with whisk until blended. Cut green onion into ¼” slices. Dice onion and tomato. Add spaghetti, green onion, onion, tomato, white pepper, salt, and oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until veggies soften and spaghetti starts getting crispy. Stir occasionally.

Pour beaten eggs over veggies. Cook at medium for 3 minutes or until eggs become hard enough to flip over. Flip egg mixture. Cook at medium heat for 2 minutes or until omelette is done to your desired level of doneness. Goes well inside ½ baguette as a sandwich filler.

Isn’t the very idea of a spaghetti omelette way cool?

TIDBITS

1) China invented spaghetti. They built Great Spaghetti Wall of China in 1155 to keep out the Mongol barbarians. It worked. The wall was too high to scale, too thick to batter through.

2) However, in the summer of 1213, Mongols under Genghis Khan approached the wall. Khan’s engineers studied and studied their obstacle. No use. The frustrated warriors threw tomatoes, one of their more non-lethal weapons, at the wall before turning away to head home. Suddenly hot rain, it was summer, deluged and penetrated the Great Spaghetti Wall for ten minutes. The pasta softened. So did the tomatoes. The Mongol horde, tired of endless yogurt meals, attacked the wall with two-tined forks. The cooked spaghetti was great. and so they ate their way through the wall. The Mongols poured into China and devastated the land.

3) The French built the Maginot Line in the 1930s to keep out the spaghetti-hating German army. Unfortunately, the French didn’t have enough pasta to build a wall along their entire northern border. The Germans, in 1940, simply sent their forces around the wall and defeated France. No nation has tried building a spaghetti wall since.

– 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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Tacos de Rajas con Crema

Posted on February 6, 2017 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

TACOS DE RAJAS CON CREMA

INGREDIENTStacosderajas

2 tablespoons vegetable oil (2 tablespoons more later)
4 poblano or Anaheim chiles
1 garlic clove
1 medium onion
½ pound Oaxacan cheese or queso fresco
1½ cups crema Mexicana or sour cream
12 8″ corn tortillas

Makes 12 tacos. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add 2 tablespoons oil to pan. Heat oil
on high heat until a tiny bit of tortilla starts to (We once thought the Earth looked like this.)
dance. Add poblano chiles. Stir the chiles
occasionally until the chiles blister and blacken all over. (Be careful when frying or sautéing at high heat. When stirring, hold a lid between you and the hot oil when stirring or tilt the pan away from you.) Put poblanos in plastic bags and let steam for 20 minutes. Remove from bags and rub skin off chiles. Discard skins. Seed poblano chiles and cut them into ½” wide strips.

While chiles steam, mince garlic clove and onion. Shred cheese. Add 2 tablespoons oil to, garlic, and onion to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and garlic soften. Stir frequently. Add poblano strips. Sauté for 2 minutes. Stir frequently. Add crema Mexicana. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 4 minutes or until crema thickens. Stir frequently. Add cheese, Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes or until cheese melts completely. Stir frequently.

Warm tortillas in pan on high for a few seconds or wrap them in a wet towel and microwave for 1 minute. Warming the tortillas makes them pliable enough to roll. Ladle 1/12th of the poblano/cheese sauce, about 2 tablespoons, onto each warmed tortilla. Roll up tortillas and serve.

TIDBITS

1) Before 1492, many believed the Earth was flat like a tortilla. Others, folks who ate oatmeal all day long, did not care. Then lost spice merchants from India accidentally showed up in Venice carrying peppercorns and basil. It was now possible to make the appetizer, caprese. Life was worth living.

2) Unfortunately, the land route to spice-laden India was blocked by meanies. Columbus, in the world’s first version of The Shark Tank, convinced Queen Isabella to sponsor his historic voyage of discovery. He and his brother Mercator had told her the Earth was round like a cylinder. Later Benedictine monks asserted our planet was rounded like the egg. Finally Peary, explorer and diner, after reaching the North Pole in 1909, concluded our planet is really shaped like a stuffed tomato.

– 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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La Bouillie (Hot Cereal from Chad)

Posted on January 31, 2017 by pauldelancey

Chadian Breakfeast

LA BOUILLIE
(Hot Cereal)

INGREDIENTSlabouillie

4 cups water (1 additional cup later)
1 cup ground rice or wheat flour
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon corn flour, wheat flour, or rice
1 cup water
⅓ cup milk
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 12 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add 4 cups water to pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Gradually add rice, stirring all the while. While 4 cups water comes to boil, add peanut butter, corn flour, and 1 cup water to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until blended. Once 4 cups water are boiling, add peanut butter/corn flour mix to pot. Mix with fork or whisk until completely blended and the cereal has reached your desired level of thickness. Stir frequently. Remove from heat. Add milk, lemon juice and sugar. Stir with whisk until completely blended.

TIDBITS

1) Abba “Willie” Aouzou, a prosperous date merchant in Abademi, Chad, loved American country music. His one, true dream was to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. While his fellow tribesmen sang traditional songs of their camel caravaning days, Abba sang the songs of Willie Nelson. While his neighbors ate couscous and quaffed hibiscus, Abba “Willie” Aouzou ate Texas chili and drank beer. The only thing he had in common with the folks around him was the Arabic language and a love of hot breakfast cereal.

2) Still, Abba’s love of beer proved an endless source of friction. “Willie, our beliefs forbid us to the drink alcohol.” Willie always replied, “But I have to drink beer. How else can I write a song about how my wife stole my pickup truck to run off with my best friend, the whiskey salesmen.”

3) In 1972, “Willie” Aouzou wrote about sharing a big bowl of chili with Willie Nelson. The song shot to the top of the North African country music charts. The Grand Ole Opry invited him to perform. He got a standing ovation. Secure in his success, Abba gave up beer and began writing twangy songs that fused honky tonk with the spirit of the Saharan caravans. Nashville went wild for him. A rising Swedish pop band named itself Abba in homage to him. His home town of Fi’ad, Chad went crazy as well, naming a hot breakfast cereal after him, “La Bouillie.” La Bouillie is nearly an anagram for his first hit, “Willie’s Bowl.” because there are a lot of wordsmiths in Fi’ad.

– 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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Pork Loin With Sherry and Red Onions

Posted on January 30, 2017 by pauldelancey

American Entree

PORK LOIN WITH SHERRY AND RED ONIONS

INGREDIENTSporkloinwithsherry

4 garlic cloves
9 pearl onions
2 tablespoons fresh parsley or 2 teaspoons dried
2 red onions
¼ cup butter
2 pounds pork tenderloin
1 cup sherry or red wine
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon rosemary
½ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

crock pot
mandoline

Serves 6. Takes 5 hours 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Dice garlic gloves, pearl onions, and parsley. Use mandoline or knife to cut red onion into ¼” slices. Add butter, garlic, pearl onion, and red onion to one or more pans. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic, pearl onion, and red onion soften. Stir frequently.

Add garlic, pearl onion, red onion, parsley, pork tenderloin, sherry, pepper, rosemary, and salt to crock pot. Cover and cook on high setting for 5 hours. Remove pork and gently tear along grain with knife and fork into ½” slices. Put pork slices on plates. Ladle liquid and onions on and alongside pork.

TIDBITS

1) Sherry and Red Onions were a song and dance team in the MGM studio during the 30s and 40s. While never quite achieving the same fame as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, many film critics rhapsodize wistfully over their love duet, “I Love You More Than Meatballs” in the unforgettable film, Dinner at Half Past Eight.

2) Tragedy struck the talented couple at the on-Broadway premier of the musical, A Second Piece of Pie. The audience loved it. Gallant gentlemen threw hundreds of rose bouquets at the lovely, but allergic Sherry who sneezed her way into the Guinness Book of RecordsTM. Adoring ladies threw red onions on stage in honor of the male star’s name. Unfortunately some of them swooned and this affected their aim adversely. Red “Twenty Bumps” Onions retired the very next day. So did the singer Cactus Bob Henderson as soon as he heard the news.

– 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 Soup (Chupe de Camarones)

Posted on January 21, 2017 by pauldelancey

Chilean Soup

SHRIMP SOUP
(Chupe de Camarones)

INGREDIENTSshrimpsoup

6 slices white bread
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 medium onion
1 small carrot
1 stalk celery
1 red bell pepper
2 cups water
½ cup white wine
1¼ pounds shrimp, deveined with shells still on
2 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ pound grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

colander

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Remove crust from bread. Add bread and evaporated milk to 1st mixing bowl. Let sit for 15 minutes. Mix with fork

While bread/milk mixture sits, mince onion. Dice carrot, celery, and red bell pepper. Remove shrimp shells from shrimp. KEEP shrimp shells. Add water, white wine, shrimp shells, carrot, and celery to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Pour pot through colander into 2nd mixing bowl. Discard shrimp shells, carrot, and celery.

Add onion, bell pepper, and butter to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and bell pepper softens. Stir frequently. Add oregano, pepper. salt, and thyme. Stir.

Add soaked bread and sautéed onion and bell pepper to pot. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir frequently Add shrimp and Parmesan cheese. Cook for 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink and cheese melts. Garnish with parsley.

TIDBITS

1) Tyrannosaurus Rexes had tiny arms.

2) Shrimp have tiny arms.

3) Coincidence?

4) No. Culinary archeologists–Woo hoo, spelled it right the first time–have long known that shrimp are descended from T-Rexes.

5) About 65 millions years ago a massive meteor hit Earth. The impact threw up so much debris that no sunlight got through. It was like going off daylight savings time, getting up at 6 a.m. and finding it still dark outside. Then you have to drive your kid to school in the dark and struggle to get in and out of the school parking lot. But you can’t get through the parking lot because one million other parents are driving their kids as well and oh my gosh, someone cuts in front of you and you were just trying to get out of the parking lot and you honk so your horn.

Oh my gosh, that parent who cut you off, just flipped you off!

“Jerk!” You honk again.

Oh my gosh, she flips you off once more.

“Eat lutefisk, telemarketer,” you find yourself saying.

She gets out of the car and strides towards you. You get out of your car. She sprays you with air freshener. You do the same to her. It’s about to get really ugly when the principal runs between the two of you. “Leave this parking lot at once,” he roars. So you and your nemesis get back in your car. But you can’t leave the parking lot, there are still two millions cars trying to turn left at the signal and the signal stays green for only twenty seconds.

6) Same with the extinction of the dinosaurs, except their parking lot was metaphorical.

7) And that long-ago meteor caused blocked out the Sun for decades, resulting in the death of most plants. The herbivorous dinosaurs died off for lack of food. The carnivorous dinosaurs starting dying off along with their prey.

8) Except for the T-rexes who happened to be at a convention by the ocean. One powerful hungry T-Rex, his name was Billy, saw a fish swimming close to the beach. His tiny arms were just the right size to grab this meal.

9) The rest of the rexes saw this and entered the ocean in search of sustenance. The numerous rexes began to deplete the fish supply. Fortunately, the kings of the dinosaurs didn’t need massive bodies, huge heads with dozens of knife like teeth to catch fish. So over time, the rexes diminished in size until they became the shrimp we see today.

10) Okay, okay, along the way they grew a lot of arms, but that development is harder to explain.

– 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

Tiramisu

Posted on January 17, 2017 by pauldelancey

Italian Dessert

TIRAMISU

INGREDIENTStiramisu

6 lady fingers
6 egg yolks
⅔ cup sugar
½ teaspoon rum extract or 2 tablespoons rum or Marsala wine
1 pound marscapone*
½ cup room-temperature espresso
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa

* = You could use cream cheese as a substitute, but then the ghosts of thousands of Italian chefs would arise to terrorize the world and you don’t want that, do you?

SPECIAL UTENSILS

8″ x 8″ casserole dish
double boiler (This utensil makes this recipe easier. However, the recipe is written for those who don’t have one. Life is fraught with difficult choices.)

Serves 6. Takes 6 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add egg yolks and sugar to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add rum extract. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add egg yolk/sugar mixture to pan. The pan needs to be just wide enough not to fall into to the pot that will go beneath it.

Add water to pot until it is 2/3 the way to the top. Heat on high heat until water is nearly boiling. Reduce heat to low and rest pan on the pot. Stir egg yolk/sugar mixture for 10 minutes or until it starts to thicken. Stir constantly. Remove from heat and cool in refrigerator for 15 minutes or until mixture is cold. Add marscapone. Mix gently with whisk until mixture is creamy.

Cut lady fingers in half along their lengths Drizzle lady-finger halves with espresso. Arrange the bottom halves of the lady fingers in casserole dish. Add ½ of the marscapone/egg yolk mixture over espresso and lady fingers. Smooth with spatula. Add lady-finger tops and the remaining marscapone/egg yolk mixture. Sprinkle with cocoa. Refrigerate for 5 hours or until tiramisu is firm.

TIDBITS

1) The Russia of 1611 to 1613 was ruled by a cat, Tsar Miiu. Miiu is the way Russian cats say “meow.” Now, cats do not ordinarily rule such a large country or even a smaller one like Belgium.

2) However, Tsar Miiu reign began during difficult times. Indeed, the years of 1598 are known as The Time of Troubles. Because they were troubling times. With lots of troubles. People were troubled by the troubling troubles.

3) On August 23, 1601, a young teen named Ivan stayed in bed. He should have been out helping with the harvest. Instead he daydreamed and daydreamed about the beautiful Reiko Go. The Gos ran a small restaurant in the nearby. As the only place serving Japanese noodles within thousands of miles, Go to Go’s pretty much had the Miso Soup market cornered. When the peasants didn’t have time to sit down, they ordered to go at Go to Go’s to go window.

4) Anyway, Ivan’s parents came in and raged at Ivan for his laziness. They called him: moss, a rock, a slug a sloth, and a sluggish sloth. Disgusted at this abuse, Ivan, a scant hour later, bolted out of bed and took off to Go to Go’s to see Reiko. He asked her to elope. Reiko said, “You’re as handsome as the perfect noodle, but I’d so as eat lutefisk as marry you. You have no money. You have no prospects. You’ve as much get up and go as a snail relying on plate tectonics for a burst of speed.”

5) There you have it, the first mention of plate tectonics. Reiko often mused about the Earth’s shifting plates during slow times at the restaurant. That Reiko had figured out the Earth was composed of a core composed of molten nickel, a mantle made of rockish stuff (This was a theory in its infancy, after all.), and a crust comprised of slowly moving plates. She could have revolutionized the world of science. But instead, she devoted herself to making the perfect noodle.

6) Reiko pointed her finger at the door. “Go, be like Dmitri, the son of our late Tsar.”
“But he’s dead, sweetheart. People say he staggered off a cliff.”
“Ivan, I don’t know that. I didn’t see that. No one saw him die. He could have journeyed to Paris for the perfect boeuf bourguignon.”

7) A light bulb went off over Ivan’s head. If no one saw Dmitri die and no one knew what he looked anymore like as it had been years since his last appearance and Dimitri had worn a cloth sack over his anyway due to his acne. So, Ivan showed up at the Russian Duma and proclaimed himself to be Dmitri, the true heir to the Russian throne. Most of the Russian nobles put up no resistance, having dined on lutefisk for lunch.

8) However, the nobility that had eaten chicken instead contested his claim. Civil war broke out. Battles raged all over the country. Crops were trampled and burnt. Foreign governments sensing opportunity, invaded. Land was taken. Citrus trees were chopped down. The Russian tangelo industry would never recover. More pretenders to the throne arose. Even more fighting occurred, enough to warrant an exclamation point! The Russian Duma met and withdrew support from all contenders. A new tsar needed to be crowned.

9) A that point Miiu, a cat, padded into the building, a mouse in his mouth. Boyar Koniev pointed at it. “That cat for Tsar.”
Boldin shook his head. “Nyet, that is only a cat. All it will do is catch mices and nap.”
“Bo ho,” said Koniev, “wouldn’t that be a huge improvement over all the tsars and claimants we’ve had lately?”
Everyone agreed and Miiu became Tsar. Miiu reigned for two years, By that time Russia had calmed down enough to raise a human to the throne. The new tsar’s chef and anagrammatist, created a new dessert in Tsar Miiu’s honor, tiramisu.

– 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.

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