international

Crabmeat Stuffed Avocados

Posted on April 16, 2022 by pauldelancey

Chilean Entree

CRABMEAT STUFFED AVOCADOS

INGREDIENTS

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

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

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

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

TIDBITS

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

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

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

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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

Cantonese Ginger Beef

Posted on April 13, 2022 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

CANTONESE GINGER BEEF

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

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

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

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

INGREDIENTS – FINAL

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

SPECIAL UTENSILS

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

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION – MARINADE

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

PREPARATION – SAUCE

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

PREPARATION – FINAL

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

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

TIDBITS

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

2) Britain also has the Easter Bunny.

3) The Easter originally came to America from Germany.

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

5) Germany also started two world wars.

6) Coincidence? Perhaps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Georgian Lobio (Bean Stew)

Posted on April 7, 2022 by pauldelancey

Georgian Entree

LOBIO
(Bean Stew)

INGREDIENTS

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

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

SPECIAL UTENSILS

spice grinder
potato masher

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

PREPARATION

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

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

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

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

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

TIDBITS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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German Bee Sting Cake (Bienenstich Kuchen)

Posted on April 4, 2022 by pauldelancey

German Dessert

BEE STING CAKE
(Bienenstich Kuchen)

INGREDIENTS – ALMOND TOPPING

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

INGREDIENTS – CAKE

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

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

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

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
8″ * 12″ baking pan
parchment paper

Serves 16. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – ALMOND TOPPING

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

PREPARATION – CAKE

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

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

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

PREPARATION – FILLING

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

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

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

A forgotten episode from the Great War

TIDBITS

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

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

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

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Honey Garlic Barbecue Chicken Pizza From Brunei

Posted on April 1, 2022 by pauldelancey

Bruneian Entree

HONEY GARLIC BARBECUE CHICKEN PIZZA

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

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

INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY

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

SPECIAL UTENSILS

roasting pan or baking pan
pizza pan
sonic obliterator

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

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

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

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

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

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

TIDBITS

1) Honey Garlic Barbecue Chicken Pizza is so tasty.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

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

Smoked Pork Ribs

Posted on March 26, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Entree

SMOKED PORK RIBS

INGREDIENTS

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

SPECIAL UTENSILS

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

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

PREPARATION

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

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

TIDBITS

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

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

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

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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

Ecuadorian Fritata

Posted on March 23, 2022 by pauldelancey

Ecuadorian Entree

FRITATA

INGREDIENTS

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

Serves 3. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

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

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

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

TIDBITS

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

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

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

 

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

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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

Chestnut Stuffed Cabbage Leaves From Azerbaijan

Posted on March 20, 2022 by pauldelancey

Azerbaijani Entree

CHESTNUT STUFFED CABBAGE LEAVES

INGREDIENTS – STUFFED CABBAGE

¾ cup fresh cilantro
⅔ cup fresh dill
1 medium tomato
1 large onion
1 cup chopped chestnuts*
1 pound ground lamb or beef
⅓ cup rice
⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 large cabbage head

INGREDIENTS – BROTH

1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons sugar
1¼ cups lamb or beef broth (Broth should match meat used above, if possible.)
1½ tablespoons vinegar

* = Chopped chestnuts can be found online.

Serves 6. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION – STUFFED CABBAGE

Dice cilantro, dill, and tomato. Mince onion. Add cilantro, dill, tomato, onion, chestnuts, lamb, rice, cinnamon, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended.

Cut off bottom of cabbage head. Cut out as much of the white, solid core as you can. (Doing these two steps will make peeling off leaves later much easier.)

Add enough water to cover cabbage head to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add cabbage head. Reduce heat to medium and continue to boil until leaves can be pulled back with a fork. Carefully remove cabbage. Drain. Wait until cabbage is cool enough to peel off the cabbages leaves.

Peel off cabbage leaf. Put 3 tablespoons lamb/chestnut mix from bowl in middle of cabbage leave. (The exact amount will vary with the changing sizes of the cabbage leaves.) Shape mix into a log, leaving 1½” uncovered along edges. Fold the short ends of the leaf to cover lamb/chestnut log. Then tightly roll leaf from the bottom. Repeat for remaining leaves save one. Reserve one leaf.

PREPARATION – BROTH

Melt butter in pan using low-medium heat. Stir enough to prevent bubbling, Remove from heat. Add sugar, butter, lamb broth, and vinegar to mixing bowl. Stir until well blended

Place reserved cabbage leaf in large pot. Add stuffed-cabbage logs to pan. Place them as closely as possible to each other to prevent unfolding. Slowly pour broth over cabbage logs. Place a lid over cabbage logs. (The lid should be a bit smaller than the pan so that it sits on the cabbage logs. (This also prevents unraveling.) Simmer at low heat for 45 minutes or until cabbage leaves are tender and the filling becomes tender.

TIDBITS

1) You can cook chestnuts in a pot.

2) You can cook them quite a lot.

3) You can cook them on a beach.

4) You can cook them with a peach.

5) You can cook them in an oven.

6) You can cook them with a coven.

7) But not one with witches.

8) For though they might grant riches.

9) They like their meat raw.

10) And that you can’t unsaw.

11) You can speed them in an electron collider.

12) Or something even much, much wider.

13) You can heat them with a torch.

14) You can heat them on a porch.

15) You can cook them in a house.

16) You can cook them for your spouse.

17) You can cook them while on a chair.

18) You can cook them everywhere.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

 

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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

Mauritian Napolitaines

Posted on March 17, 2022 by pauldelancey

Mauritian Dessert

SIMPLE NAPOLITAINES
(Sandwich Cookies)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons raspberry jam
2 9-ounce bottles pink cookie icing (Not cake icing)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
1 cookie sheet
parchment paper
1½” cookie cutter (Must be a cookie cutter)
sonic obliterator

Makes 20 cookies. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 335 degrees. Add butter and 2 cups flour to large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set or medium until butter and flour form a dough ball. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons flour on flat surface. Roll out dough until it is about ⅓” thick. Cut out dough circles with 1½” cookie cutter. Make them as level and smooth as you can. (I cannot stress this enough. Smooth cookie sides will make proper icing much easier later.) Cover cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place dough circles on parchment paper.

Bake dough circles at 335 degrees for 20 minutes or until the middle of a circle is no longer soft when pressed. Don’t let the circles turn brown! They should remain pale. Gently life parchment paper with circles and let cool on a wire rack or plate. (Leave circles on parchment paper.)

Once circles have cooled completely, spread ½ teaspoon raspberry jam over a baked circle. Gently place another circle over the jam to make a cookie. Repeat until all circles have been used.

Put cookies on large plate. Do not let them touch each other. Pour icing from bottles over cookies. Make sure to pour icing over the edge of the cookie tops so that the icing will flow down and coat the sides of the cookies. Do this all in one go. Let sit until icing hardens completely.

This is a hard one to do perfectly. There’s a reason dessert chefs differ from the other chefs. So appreciate why some things, particularly these cookies, can be expensive. And for the insensitive oafs who give you guff about your cookies, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need their negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) Napolitaines look a lot like UFOs.

2) By the way, Napolitaines is pronounced Napolitaines.

3) I’m glad I cleared that up.

4) UFOs really do resemble Napolitaines. There’s a reason for that.

5) Having a successful space program brings enormous international prestige.

6) If you were to ask people what are the ten greatest things about America, 93.6% would say, “NASA.” The remaing 6.4% couldn’t find a No. 2 pencil and so, couldn’t fill out the questionaire.

7) So what do you if you want to develop a space program but simply do not possess the vast resources of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration?

8) Well, what do you if you want to make crab salad, but you haven’t the money to buy crabmeat?

9) Why, you purchase krabmeat, a crabmeat substitute. It’s made of various seafoods and costs much less than the real thing.

10) Similarly, if you wish to fling manmade objects into space, you send up something small. Dispense with lunar modules, the Hubble telescope, space stations or other enormously heavy gadgetry.

11) Fling Napolitaines from the Earth instead.

12) A batch of Napolitaines is easy to make. All you need is butter, flour, raspberry jam, and pink cookie icing.

13) While even the simplest of Hubble telescopes involve: miles of circuitry, rare metals, scads of computing power, and other complicated gizmos.

14) The Apollo Program required gigantic rockets, specialize fuel, more frigging circuitry, with all of its parts engineered with incredible precision, and a reinforced launching pad to hurl its lunar modules to well, the moon.

15) What does it take to fling Napolitaines into outer space?

16) A really big slingshot.

17) So that’s what thrifty Mauritius did. It slingshotted hundreds of Napolitaines into space. Some made it to the moon, some to Neptune, and some even exited the Solar System. However, many Napolitaines never left our atmosphere and orbit our planet a few dozen feet in the air. The cookies in this recipe, at that altitude, resemble alien space ships. Except for the color. Orbiting UFOs are grey or off white. Napolitaines are pink. Now you know.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor

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

French Jambon Beurre

Posted on March 14, 2022 by pauldelancey

French Entree

JAMBON BEURRE

INGREDIENTS

1 24″-baguette (ficelle style, if you can find it)
¼ cup salted butter, softened
9 ounces ham, sliced
9 ounces Gruyère or Emmental cheese (optional)

Serves 3. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut baguette open lengthwise almost all the way through. Open baguette. Spread butter evenly on top and bottom. Place ham evenly along baguette bottom. Distribute cheese, if used, evenly on top of ham. Close and press baguette. Divide into 3 8″-long sandwiches.

TIDBITS

1) In 1972, Neil Diamond recorded the song, “Song Sung Blue.” It is a great song and has remained justly popular for 50 years.

2) If you substitute the words “Jambon Beurre” for “Song Sung Blue” you still have a truly great song. Okay, sing the song in your head with the new lyrics. See? Ya see? The song’s still superb.

3) Jambon Beurre is a simple, yet great sandwich. French sandwich lovers have eaten them for many, many years.

4) How many?

5) I don’t know.

6) But I do know that the French devoured a little over a billion jambon beurres in 2013.

7) That’s not current. That’s from about nine years ago, as of press time.

8) But it takes a long time to count that high. If a French woman, say Farine du Ble were to count one such sandwich every second, it would take her about 33 years to complete the tally. Clearly, the task is more than a one-woman job.

10) Perhaps France could eliminate all unemployment by hiring all those without jobs to count the jambon beurres being consumed. In February, 2022 had 2,977,000 out of work people. If these people were hired by the state to count a billion jambon beurres and took ten seconds to count each sandwich, it would take them about an hour. Maybe longer if the counting involved travel.

11) Now you know how important arithmetic can be.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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

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