international

Madagascan Varenga (Shredded Beef)

Posted on February 5, 2022 by pauldelancey

Madagascan Entree

VARENGA
(Shredded Beef)

INGREDIENTS

⅔ onion
1¾ pounds beef chuck, boneless
7 cups water
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

8″ * 11″ casserole dish

Serves 4. Takes 4 hours.

PREPARATION

Dice onion and parsely. Add all ingredients except parsley to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer at medium heat for 3 hours or until beef chuck can be shredded easily with a fork. (Add water as necessary to keep meat covered.)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Transfer meat and liquid from pot to casserole dish. Roast for 30 minutes or until chuck at top is crispy and browned. Dice parsley. Garnish with parsley. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) Road rage occurs when drivers lose control of their temper and drive aggressively. If only there existed a cure for road rage. There isn’t such a thing, but there might be soon.

2) Madagascar recently suffered through a frightening year of van rage. In this case, van drivers became prone to road rage. No other car drivers fell prey to this anger. Indeed, drivers of hatch backs, pickup trucks, and all sorts of HondasTM were found to be particularly serene motorists.

3) Then Minister of Transportation, an avid anagramist, discovered that “van rage” was an anagram for “Varenga.” He said, “Why not have all van drivers eat Varenga every day?. Maybe our Varenga will calm them down.”

4) It did! All angry van drivers became pussy cats when they hit the road. Now, transportation officials all over the globe are frantically searching for food anagrams for “road rage.” This promises to be a daunting task as the words for “road rage” are different in all languages. The calming anagramic food will thus be another dish for each way of speaking.

 

– 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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Norwegian Sour Cream Porridge (Rømmegrøt)

Posted on February 2, 2022 by pauldelancey

Norwegian Breakfast

SOUR CREAM PORRIDGE
(Rømmegrøt)

INGREDIENTS

2 cups sour cream
½ cup flour, wheat flour, or semolina (½ cup more later)
½ cup flour, wheat flour, or semolina
3½ cups warm milk
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar
2 tablespoon melted butter

Serves 5. Takes 35 minutes.

* = This was part one to pin down. Outside of Scandinavia, most people would eat it for breakfast. It is mostly eaten in Norway as part of a day-long Christmas feast. It’s usually served with cured meats.

PREPARATION

Add sour cream to pot. Simmer at low-medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir frequently. Sprinkle ½ cup flour onto sour cream. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir constantly. Use shallow spoon to skim off butter fat as it comes to the surface. Reserve butter fat. Add ½ cup flour. Stir constantly.

Slowly whisk in milk. Cook at medium heat for 10 minutes or until porridge thickens. Use whisk constantly to prevent lumps. Add salt. Stir enough to blend in salt. Add porridge to serving bowls. Ladle reserved butter fat and melted butter into bowls. Sprinkle bowls with cinnamon sugar.

TIDBITS

1) Just change the cinnamon sugar streaks in the above photo to red and you’ll see a lava flow through white rock. Culinary anthropologists believe this porridge reminds Norwegians of the days when their country was rife with active volcanoes. Indeed, culinary historians, a lively bunch if there has been one, say that constant lava flows made farming impossible. This left plundering foreign lands for precious metals and jewelry the only way to support themselves. Thus, the Vikings were born.

2) You might wonder why, until now, we’ve never heard of Norwegian volcanoes. That’s because Vikings didn’t adopt an alphabet for the entire populace, the Young Fouthrak runes, until 1100 AD. But the Norwegian volcanoes ceased erupting thirteen years earlier. And as our culinary historians are quick to point out, 1087 is the year of the last major Viking raid. Now you know. Volcanoes.

 

– 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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Spanish Shrimp in Crispy Batter (Gambas en Gabardina)

Posted on January 30, 2022 by pauldelancey

Spanish Appetizer

SHRIMP IN CRISPY BATTER
(Gambas en Gabardina)

INGREDIENTS

1 egg
½ cup water
1 cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
⅛ teaspoon saffron (or ¼ teaspoon safflower)
¾ pound jumbo shrimp (20-25 count, peeled and deveined)
2 cups oil (vegetable or olive)

SPECIAL UTENSIL

deep fryer or skillet with tall edges

Serves 8. Takes 25 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add egg and water to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add flour and salt. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add baking soda and saffron. Mix batter with whisk until well blended.

Add oil to deep fryer. Heat oil using medium heat. until a little bit of batter starts to dance in the oil. Roll shrimp in batter until they are completely covered. Shake off any excess.

Carefully drop shrimp one at a time into the hot oil. Do not let them touch each other. Let shrimp deep fry for 2 minutes they become crispy and turn golden brown. Remove shrimp with slotted spoon or regular spoon and let dry on plate covered with paper towel. Goes well with parsley and lemon wedges.

TIDBITS

1) Shepherds use sheep dogs to move their flocks of sheep. No other animal does this job as well. Similarly, clover drovers use shrimp to corral their herds of clover. (An unattended clover is prone to wander off anywhere and get into all sorts of mischief.)

2) Four-leaf clovers are more than worth their weight in gold. For these clovers will provide good luck as long as you keep them on your person. (Take that genies, with your paltry three wishes.) So, four-leaf clover drovers employ shrimp in crispy batter. Culinary veterinarians tell us this is because the whole process toughens up the shrimp something considerable, making them more than a match for the wily four-leafers. Just like boot camp toughens up marine recruits.

 

– 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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Sun Dried Tomato Butter

Posted on January 27, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

SUN DRIED TOMATO BUTTER

INGREDIENTS

1¼ ounces sun dried tomatoes*
2 tablespoons fresh basil
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons fresh parsley
1 cup butter, softened

* = or 4 tablespoons ground

SPECIAL UTENSILS

spice grinder
electric beater

Makes 1⅓ cups. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince sun-dried tomatoes in spice grinder. (Don’t add so much at a time that your grinder can’t handle the load). Mince basil, garlic, and parsley.

Add butter to mixing bowl. Cream butter with electric beater set at medium. Add all other ingredients. Cream with electric beater set on medium until well blended. Chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Place unused tomato butter in sealed container. It should keep for a week in the fridge.

TIDBITS

1) We all know the saying “Red sky at night, sailors delight.” For a night’s red sky the setting Sun’s rays are traveling through a thicker than usual concentration of dust particles. This event foretells high pressure and stable air coming in from the west.

2) I suppose this means easy sailing if your boat’s heading to the west. But what if your ship is heading east, wouldn’t a red sky indicate foul weather in the morning? Perhaps this saying needs to be made more robust?

3) Anyway, a red sky at night also means a rising moon will be red at night. Quick witted sailors soon associated red moons with smooth sailing. It was but two shakes of a lamb’s tail to think that red moons brought luck.

4) Then in 1822, during a red half moon, First Mate Tom Albacore won and won and won playing poker. At port, the next day, he wooed and wed the richest heiress in the world. From then on red half moons became a particularly lucky sign to sailors. But red half moons are rare, so sailors took the making Sun Dried Tomato Butter on sourdough toast because it looks like that phenomenon.

 

– 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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Huckleberry Milkshake

Posted on January 24, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

HUCKLEBERRY MILKSHAKE

INGREDIENTS

3 cups vanilla ice cream
1 cup milk
½ cup huckleberry preserves

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

Serves 4. Takes 5 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to blender. Set blender to milkshake. Blend until you get the consistency of a milkshake.

TIDBITS

1) Fresh huckleberries can be quite hard to find. Really, really hard As hard as finding yak butter? No, you find can buy fresh huckleberries in Wyoming when they’re in season.

2) Honest men, according to Diogenes, the ancient philosopher, are as hard to find as fresh huckleberries.

3) Diogenes, the ancient philosopher, carried a lamp with him as he wandered the days looking for an honest man. He never found a honest soul as most people walked away from him. What a loony, using a lamp when there was a perfectly good Sun in the sky illuminating everything.

4) Travelers also thought Diogenes was a highwayman out to steal their fresh huckleberries. Looking for honest men selling blueberries took up all Diogenes time. He had no time to get a good-paying job. So, he remained poor. Then he made a virtue of poverty. The little faker

5) It’s too bad. The Great Greek was a crackerjack philosopher when he put his mind to it. But he didn’t. Bereft of his calming philosophical guidance, the Greek city states plunged themselves in decades-long war where many died and all huckleberry farms withered away from neglect.

6) Some 100 years later the brainy mathematician, Archimedes, proved the proved the Earth to be round and, for extra credit, calculated its circumference. The Earth was round! Greek sailors could have traveled across the Atlantic Ocean without fear of falling off the edge of the Earth. Then it would have only been a hop, skip, and a jump to Wyoming, land of the huckleberries. But all knowledge of huckleberries had long since disappeared. Huckleberry deficient Greeks got conquered by Rome. All because of events set in motion by the obsessed Diogenes. Bummer.

 

– 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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Bangladeshi Mango Lassi

Posted on January 16, 2022 by pauldelancey

Bangladeshi Dessert

MANGO LASSI

INGREDIENTS

2 cups fresh mango pulp (about 1 mango)
3⅓ cups milk
1 cup yogurt
⅔ cup sugar
½ teaspoon rose water (optional)

Serves 6. Takes 20 minutes plus up to 20 in the refrigerator.

PREPARATION

Put all ingredients in blender. Blend at high or smoothie setting until the mixture becomes as thick as a smoothie. Chill in refrigerator for 20 minutes or right away, if you prefer.

TIDBITS

1) The inside of a mango is orange. However, this drink is pale yellow. What is the scientific explanation for this shift in color?

2) Well, the only way to get to a mango’s innards is to cut it open with a knife.

3) Mangos don’t like that. The whole purpose of a mango’s life, it’s raison d’être if you will, is to produce a seed surrounded by pulp.

4) The new mango seed devours the pulp and arises as a new mango tree like a new phoenix arising from the flames of its mother.

5) When you cut open the mango, when you remove the orange pulp to make a Mango Lassi, the mango thinks you are deliberately disrupting its great circle of life.

6) Now, these thoughts take minutes to form, as the mango’s brain is pitifully small. But it will happen. When it does, the mango pulp will leap at you with the speed that’s frankly, astonishing.

7) Indeed, the mango’s jumps at you so fast that it’s wavelengths appear to shorten, making it appear to be yellow rather than orange. This is known in the scientific community as the Mango Yellow Shift.

8) What to do? What to do if you want to avoid an attack by a Speedy GonzalezTM mango? Simple, drink the mango lassi before it has had time to brood on what’s happened to it. Besides, how can you resist a mango lassi’s soothing flavor? Happy, safe drinking!

 

– 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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Trinidadian Macaroni Pie

Posted on January 13, 2022 by pauldelancey

Trinidadian Entree

MACARONI PIE

INGREDIENTS

1¼ pounds elbow macaroni
½ habanero pepper
1 mild chile pepper*
1 small onion
2 eggs
¾ pound grated cheddar cheese (about 3 cups, ¼ pound more later)
2¼ cups (20 ounces) evaporated milk
2 teaspoons ketchup
¼ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon parsley
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, softened
¼ pound grated cheddar cheese (about ¼ cup)

* = Such as, in ordered of increasing spiciness: Italian sweet pepper, pasilla bajio pepper, cherry pepper, banana pepper, Trinidad perfume pepper, pepperoncini, or cubanelle,

SPECIAL UTENSIL

9″ * 13″ casserole dish

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook elbow macaroni in large pot according to instructions on package. Drain. While macaroni cooks, mince habanero. (Do not touch minced habañero with hands. If you do so, please wash your hands thoroughly right away. ) Mince mild chile pepper and onion. Add eggs to small bowl. Beat eggs with whisk.

Add habanero, mild chile, onion, eggs, ¾ pound cheddar cheese, evaporated milk, ketchup, paprika, parsley, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Stir with fork until well blended. Pour contents of mixing bowl into pot with macaroni. Mix with long spoon until well blended. Grease casserole dish with butter. Ladle contents from mixing bowl into casserole dish. Sprinkle ¼ pound grated cheddar cheese on top. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until cheese turns golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Nothing happened on this day in history. Everybody behaves themselves and stays at home on this date. It’s amazing.

 

– 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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Anafre (Bean and Cheese Dip)

Posted on January 8, 2022 by pauldelancey

Honduran Appetizer

ANAFRE
(Bean and Cheese Dip)

INGREDIENTS

½ red onion
½ teaspoon chicken broth
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup refried beans or red refried beans
½ teaspoon pepper
½ pound quesillo or Oaxacan cheese
3 tablespoons crema Hondureño, crema Mexicana, or sour cream
tortilla chips, unsalted if possible, for dipping

Serves 8. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Dice red onion. Add red onion, chicken broth, and vegetable oil to large pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add refried beans and pepper. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes and until well blended. Stir frequently

Add quesillo and crema Hondureño. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes or until cheese melts completely. Stir occasionally. Serve with tortilla chips.

TIDBITS

1) Ana Fre was a good Swede who spent some time in Honduras. My grandmother’s first name was pronounced somewhere between Ana and Annie. She went with Anna when she moved to America. You’ll notice that her first name has two ns in it, while Ana Fre’s had just one. That’s because my grandma didn’t fear an extra n. Ana Fre did fear an n. So for her, the previous sentence for her became, “Ana fear a n.”

2) Ana fear a n is, of course, an anagram for Anafre. So in a way, the name Anafre, expresses the Honduran people’s love for Ana, who came up with this dish.

3) Ana was not the first nor to fear extra ns. The Romans phrase for “fear a n” or “fear for the letter n” was “timere litteras n.” The great Julius Caesar suffered from this affliction.

4) Dr. Sigmund Freud, the great Viennese pyschoanalyst, referred to this anxiety as Buchstabe n Phobie.

5) So if you fear the letter n, or just an excessive amount of them, fret not, you are not alone. You can even be a fully functioning member of society.

 

– 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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Beef With Chestnuts

Posted on January 5, 2022 by pauldelancey

Croatian Entree

BEEF WITH CHESTNUTS

INGREDIENTS

1 pound chestnuts
6 cups water
1 large onion
1½ pounds sirloin, tenderloin, or rump
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ tablespoon paprika
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut an 1″ wide “x” on both sides of each chestnut. Make the cut deep enough to cut through the shell. (This keeps the chestnut from exploding. This really can happen if you omit this step.) Add chestnuts and 6 cups water to pot. Boil on medium-high heat for 45 minutes or until chestnuts become tender, the chestnut shells start to open and become easy to peel. (This is important. A shell that isn’t easy to peel will take forever.) Remove from heat. Cover with kitchen towel. Let cool for 5 minutes. Peel chestnuts. Discard shells.

While chestnuts cook, dice onion. Cut sirloin into 1″ cubes. Add onion and oil to 2ndt pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add sirloin cubes, paprika, pepper, and salt. Sauté for 5 minutes or until sirloin cubes brown on all sides. Stir frequently. Add 1 cup water. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until sirloin cubes become tender. Use slotted spoon to add chestnuts to pot with sirloin cubes. Add enough water to cover. Simmer at medium heat for 15 minutes or until chestnuts soften. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) Beef and chestnuts can only be placed next to each after both get cooked, because they tend to fight each other when they are alive. This hostility stems from the one and only beef/chestnut drive. It started in 1898 in Bend, Oregon and was to have ended in the port of New Orleans. Beef and chestnuts were ferociously desired by American troops fighting the Spanish in Cuba. But from the start, the beeves taunted the chestnut trees for their extreme slowness. This was harsh as chestnuts trees were the fasted trees around, due to their tiny feet.

2) Anyway, the chestnut trees took offense at this verbal onslaught and proclaimed they’d go no further. To show their resolve, they evolved their feet to become roots. Nowadays, you need to look for chestnuts in the stationary-nut-tree section of your supermarket. Oh, and there are no more chestnut drives. The days of the chestnutboys are long gone except in movies.

 

– 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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Fish Milanesa

Posted on January 1, 2022 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

FISH MILANESA

INGREDIENTS

½ red onion
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
½ teaspoon Mexican oregano or oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
4 cod, flounder, or halibut fillets (About 2 pounds)
⅔ cup bread crumbs
4 cups vegetable oil, more if necessary
1 avocado
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lemon

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince red onion. Dice cilantro. Add oregano, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until well mixed. Whisk eggs in separate bowl. Rub spice mix onto both sides of fillets Pat fish fillets dry with towel. Cut filets in half across their width. Brush whisked eggs onto both sides of fillet halves. Let fillets sit for 5 minutes. Press bread crumbs onto both sides of fillet halves.

Add oil to skillet. (It should be about 1″ deep.) Add as many fillet halves as possible without them touching each other. (You might to cook in batches.) Heat oil at high heat until it bubbles. Lower heat to medium. Sauté fillet halves for 3 minutes on each side, until breading turns golden brown. Add additional olive oil as needed.

Place fillet halves on paper towels to drain oil. Sprinkle with cilantro, red onion, and lemon juice. Seed avocado. Cut avocado and lemon into 4 four slices each. Put a lemon and an avocado slice alongside the fillet halves. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) The full name of the Loch Ness monster is Nesa Mila. The rest of the Mila family lives near Veracruz, Mexico. If you were to dive to a deep cave, and you knew where to find it, you’d see her name, Mila, Nesa, registered in the Births and Deaths Office of the Submaritime Department, So the Scottish people have it wrong. Her first name isn’t Nessie; it’s Nesa.. Also, the Nila family are not monsters, they’re just gigantic cod. How did these cod get so big? Genetics. Wouldn’t fishermen all over the world want to stock their fisheries with gigantic cod rather spend weeks at sea and millions of dollars on ocean-going trawlers. You betcha! This is the real reason people (read fishing companies) have expended so much effort trying to find the Loch Ness monster. In the meantime, Mexican chefs honor Nesa and her family with this entree, Fish Milanesa. 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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