international

Cuban Moros y Cristianos

Posted on April 16, 2016 by pauldelancey

Cuban Entree

MOROS Y CRISTIANOS
(beans and rice)

INGREDIENTSMorosYchristianos-

12 ounces dry black beans
2½ cups long white rice
5 cups chicken stock
1 green bell pepper
3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
2½ tablespoons olive oil
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
1½ tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste

SPECIAL ITEM

Dutch oven

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 2½ hours.

PREPARATION

Add beans to pot. Add enough water to cover beans with 1″ of water. Bring to boil using high heat. Let boil for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove, cover, and let stand for 1 hour. Drain and rinse beans. Again add water until beans are covered by 1″ of water. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour or until beans are tender. Drain.

While beans simmer, add rice and chicken stock to pot or rice cooker. Cook rice according to instructions on package.

While beans still soak and rice cooks, seed bell pepper. Dice bell pepper, garlic cloves, and onion. Add bell pepper, garlic, onion, and olive oil to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add black beans from pot, bay leaf, cumin, oregano, pepper, salt, vinegar, and tomato paste. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add rice with chicken stock to Dutch oven. Stir and serve with sofrito.

TIDBITS

1) The Declaration of Independence of 1776 voiced America’s most cherished ideals in such a forceful and plain manner as to compel the assent of the world’s powers to America’s right to nationhood.

2) It was also a practical document listing all the things King George III of Britain did to annoy, vex, and hamper the commerce of The Thirteen Colonies.

3) One action that stands in my mind is how George and his ministers hampered the New England fishing fleets. The seamen clamored for the removal of these restrictions. It didn’t happen.

4) It became clearer and clearer that the only way for the fishermen to get a sympathetic National Fisheries Department was to create a new nation.

5) In 1773, the British sent regiment after regiment of infantry to Boston to suppress Boston’s surly and increasingly unruly fishermen. The redcoats stormed one bay-side warehouse after another carrying off cannon, muskets, and weapon-grade fish hooks. Surely, Boston was ripe for revolution.

6) But nothing happened. Boston baked beans had made the culinary scene. All the inns and taverns from New Hampshire to New Jersey served this new entree. It was so good. It is still so good. Diners became contented, contented enough to put revolutions and reality shows on hold.

7) In 1775, however, King George and his council made a truly egregious blunder. They omitted all types of carrots from the list of foodstuffs that could be grown in the colonies. From that moment on, carrots could only be imported from England on English ships.

8) These “carroty omissions,” an anagram for “Moros y Cristianos,” devastated the carrot farmers of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia. Passions ran high. Royal carrot enforcers were hung in effigy; their homes stormed and ransacked.

9) New England’s merchant fleet stayed in port. With no carrots to ship from the south to ship to carrot-starved Boston, there was no reason for them to venture out. Unemployment soared in all Thirteen Colonies.

10) Unemployed people tend to do two things, congregate at skateboard parks and foment revolution against the mother country. There were no skateboard parks in 1775. Revolution loomed.

11) On February 7, 1775, Samuel Magpie got up before the Pennsylvanian legislature to thunder, “Give me carrot cake or I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue.” Only a few people noticed. However, Patrick Henry was one of them.

12) Patrick Henry was an omnivore, a person or animal eating both fish and carrots. He knew the spark needed to inflame people’s hearts needed to be broader.

13) So on March 23, 1775 he addressed the Virginia Convention, “Give me liberty of give me death.” This was sheer brilliance. He had stood up for the rights of farmers to grow carrots and fishers to fish, while simultaneously creating a metaphor for ending political oppression. The fired-up conventioneers voted for a national convention. The Declaration of Independence would be signed a scant year later. Seven years more, America would become a new nation.

14) The great world powers took this lesson to heart.. Ever since then, no nation has dared to enact anti-carrot legislation. Carrot salad, 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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Shua Yang Jou – Mongolian Hot Pot

Posted on April 11, 2016 by pauldelancey

Mongolian Soup

SHUA YANG JOU
Mongolian hot pot

INGREDIENTSShuaYangJu-

5 ounces cellophane noodles or bean threads
1″ ginger root
3 green onions
1 onion
¼ cup parsley, fresh
1 pound bok choy or Chinese cabbage
10 cups lamb or beef stock
24 ounces freshly-made dough or 8 sesame rolls
3 pounds deli-sliced lamb (thin as you can get it)
1 cup spinach
2½ tablespoons rice wine
2½ tablespoons sesame oil
⅓ cup soy sauce
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1½ tablespoons red bean curd or fermented bean curd*
* = or plain bean curd or tofu, not authentic but gosh, the fermented stuff can be hard to find.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

chopsticks (for dipping and cooking the lamb in the hot pot)
something that acts as a hot pot, a pot with a fire under it, that goes in the middle of the table Slotted spoons or strainers (for dipping and retrieving the veggies in the hot pot)
sonic obliterator to use on anyone who says, “I want a big Big MacTM,” after all this preparation.
spice grinder.
wire rack, if you are using sesame rolls

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes if you use sesame rolls, 2 hours 30 minutes if you make your own dough. This is designed to a leisurely dinner and can take up to two hours, unless of course, you have teenage boys.

PREPARATION

Soak noodles in hot water for 30 minutes. While noodles soak, peel ginger root and grind into powder. Dice green onions, onion, and parsley. Separate bok choy into separate leaves into 2″ squares. Leave spinach leaves as is.

Add lamb stock to large, regular pot. Bring to boil using high heat. While lamb stock comes to boil, tear freshly-made dough into 8 pieces and shape them into balls. Add dough balls to pot. Remove dough balls when they puff up into absorbent dumplings. (If you are using sesame rolls, place rolls on wire rack. Place wire rack on pot. Remove steamed rolls when they soften.) Add stock to hot pot. Set level of heat so that the stock is kept comfortably hot.

Place sliced lamb in large serving bowl. Put ginger, green onion, onion, parsley, bok choy, and spinach in second serving bowl and mix together with fork. Add rice wine, sesame oil, soy sauce, cayenne pepper, and fermented bead curd to second mixing bowl and whisk together. Add noodles to third serving bowl. Place a dumpling on a small plate for each guest.

Guests should pick up slices of lamb, veggies, and bean curd with chopsticks and dip food the bowl with the wine/oil/sauce. They then put these items in the part of the hot pot nearest to themselves until the meat and veggies are done to desired levels. Add extra wine/sesame oil/soy sauce mix and their dumpling to individual bowls as desired.

After the lamb, veggies, and dumplings are eaten, the hot lamb stock, enhanced with the flavor of the dipped lamb, veggies, and dipping sauce, is ladled into the individual bowls. This meal is really a two-course feast in disguise.

TIDBITS

1) As correctly noted above, fermented bean curd, or red bean curd can be powerful hard to find. It was especially hard to find in the fragmented Mongolia of 1205. Without fermented bean curd, a tribal leader could not offer his guests shua yang jou. No Mongolia hot pot, no guests. No guests, no tribesmen willing to support you as chief. No support, you get deposed. A deposed chief dies.

2) So finding fermented bean curd (FBC) became of paramount importance. Drought struck Mongolia in the summer of 1205. The bean plant crop failed on a cataclysmic scale. Whatever bean plants survived could not be put in water to ferment. No fermented beans, no FBC.

3) It’s worth noting that fermented plants stink. They increase in stinkiness with each successive day. The yurts, tent homes of the Mongols, could really reek if the dwellers were soaking a lot of beans.

4) Fermenting bean stench was a just as much a turnoff to lovemaking then as it is now. This is why the Mongol population had always been low compared to its neighbors. But with the disappearance of the bean crop in 1205, fermented in the tents stopped. Love making soared. Babies popped out like tennis balls from an automatic serving machine. The Mongols needed more land for their burgeoning families. The tribal chiefs had scant supplies of FBC necessary to make shua yang jou. The loyalty of their tribesmen began melting away.

5) Tribal chief after tribal chief launched devastating raids in neighboring tribal lands, carrying off whatever FBC they could find. Thousands died, banquets went unplanned. It was horrible.

6) Along came Genghis Khan. “Whoa dudes,” he said in fluent Mongolian as he was a Mongol, “there is some gnarly badness going on.” Yes, he was a surfer at heart. “China has lots of FBC. Iran has lots of FBC. Why kill ourselves for it, when we can totally kill them.” He pointed his finger to the south. “Are you with me?” The Mongols roared their approval. He was their one leader.

7) And so the Mongols, conquered, killed, and enslaved entire towns, cities, and regions which is admittedly bad. However, their conquests paved the way for the vibrant Asia-to-Europe spice trade. So some good came out of all this.

– 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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Moravian Christmas Cookies

Posted on March 31, 2016 by pauldelancey

Czech Dessert

MORAVIAN CHRISTMAS COOKIES

INGREDIENTSMoravianCookies-

1 teaspoon baking soda
1½ tablespoons warm water
1 cup brown sugar
1¼ cups molasses
½ cup shortening or lard
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon nutmeg

2 tablespoons flour
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

cookie cutter
4 or so cookie sheets (You might have to bake in batches.)

Makes 36 cookies. Takes 2 hours 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add baking soda and warm water to pot. Stir with fork until baking soda dissolves. Add brown sugar, molasses, and shortening. Cook at low-medium heat until all is melted. Stir frequently. Remove from heat..

Add baking soda/brown sugar/molasses mixture to large mixing bowl. Add 1 cup of flour. Knead by hand. Repeat until all 4 cups of flour have been added. Add cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger, mace, and nutmeg. Knead once until dough is stiff and smooth. Cover and place in cool spot for 1½ hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use up to 2 tablespoons flour to dust flat surface. Roll dough out until it is ⅛” thick. Cut dough with cookie cutter or with knife. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 5-to-10 minutes or until cookies harden around the edges or a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) Molasses flows slowly. Hence the saying, “As slow as molasses.”

2) Slowness is relative of course. Plate tectonics, the shifting of the Earth’s plates, is even slower than molasses. Much slower. Yet no one ever says, “As slow as plate tectonics.”

3) Even so, plate tectonics is much faster than the lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

4) This title usually gets shortened to DMV. The department even has a long name.

5) Many people assume that the glacial pace at the DMV is a result of ever increasing swarms of people wanting to get driving permits, driver’s licenses, and to change their names.

6) Name changing arises when recently married women take their husband’s last name.

7) People who have committed murders often change their last name to avoid detection by the police.

8) Black widows, women who marry men and murder them shortly afterward for their money, are especially avid name changers.

9) Law enforcement knows this. Which is why the DMV includes in the section under name changes the following question, “Do you marry and murder for money?”

10) This tactic worked for a while. Then would be money murderers realized they could avoid detection by simply answering, “No.”

11) So these black widows and other killers compound their crime of murder with the one of lying.

12) Soon they feel nothing about jaywalking or looking up the answers at the back of a book of crossword puzzles.

13) The downward moral spiral continues. Pretty soon the tortured soul looks at the hamburger on his plate, his second one when another guest hasn’t even had her first. He wonders how such an off-the-cuff action as murder could have such an impact on his life.

14) This is a critical moment in the murderer’s life. Confess, oh my goodness, confess. Confess and break the downward ethical spiral. Confess that you took that second hamburger. Offer it back to that hamburgerless sweetheart looking down at her empty plate.

15) Your act of self abnegation will bring a smile to her face. The fact of getting of a yummy burger will swamp her body with joy-filling endorphins. She’ll regard you as a knight in shining armor.

16) Soon the two of you will be chatting up a storm and before you know it, you are engaged to be married.

17) Now is the time when you must hold firm. Do not kill her for her money. This is your soul mate. Murder someone else. Do the murder with you new spouse. The couple that slays together, stays together.

– 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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Estonian Pannkoogid (pancake)

Posted on March 20, 2016 by pauldelancey

Estonian Breakfast

PANNKOOGID
(pancake)

INGREDIENTSPannkoogid-

1 cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2½ tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1½ cups milk
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter
lingonberries or blueberries for topping

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric beater
x-ray vision (optional)
sonic obliterator

Makes 6 pancakes. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Separate eggs. Whisk together flour, salt, and sugar in large mixing bowl. Separate eggs. Add egg yolks, milk, and vanilla extract. Mix batter with fork. Let sit in a cool place for 2 hours. Watch two-hour movie. Come back. Add egg whites to mixing bowl. Beat with electric beater set to whip until soft peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter.

Add ½ tablespoon butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Ladle in ½ cup batter. Tilt pan to spread batter over pan. Cook for 2 minutes or until sides of pancakes start to curl up and the bottom starts to brown. (Checking for browning with x-ray vision. Should your store not stock x-ray vision, lift a side of the pancake and look.) Turn pancake over and cook for another 2 minutes or the bottom side starts to brown. Repeat until all batter is used. Top with lingonberries.

TIDBITS

1) It’s amazing how many cookbooks make no reference to superpowers. If you can develop them, by all means do so. We’ve seen many times how x-ray vision helps in frying. The ability to fly is also important, especially when you need only one ingredient.. Going by car is a pain. Jerky drivers cut you off, tailgate, and zip ahead of you to get that last parking space at the supermarket.

2) So you honk your horn at the oaf who took your spot. The oaf takes offense and stomps towards you. He weighs 300 pounds and has arms of steel. You, however, foolishly worked on getting buns of steel, nice for attracting potential dates, but useless in a life-and-death parking-lot fight. May I suggest dispatching the clod with your sonic obliterator? Eliminate his car as well. You do need that parking spot, don’t you?

– 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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Omelette Curry

Posted on March 14, 2016 by pauldelancey

Sri Lankan Breakfast

OMELETTE CURRY

INGREDIENTS – OMELETTECurryOmelette-

3 green chiles
1 large onion (1 medium onion later)
3 fresh curry leaves or 3 teaspoons dried leaf fragments or 3 teaspoons dried basil (10 leaves more later)
1½ tablespoons sesame oil (1 tablespoon more later)
6 eggs
1 tomato
½ teaspoon pepper 1/8 teaspoon more later)
1 teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)

INGREDIENTS – CURRY

½” cinnamon stick
¾ teaspoon grated ginger (½” whole ginger)
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 garlic clove
1 medium onion
10 fresh curry leaves or 10 teaspoons dried leaf fragments or 10 teaspoons dried basil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons curry powder (not the same thing as curry leaves)
2 teaspoons chili powder
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ cup water
1 cup coconut milk

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION – OMELETTE

Mince green chiles and onions. Add green chile, onion, 3 curry leaves, and sesame oil to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Remove green chile, onion, and curry leaves from heat. Add eggs to large mixing bowl. Whisk eggs. Dice tomato. Add green chile, onion, tomato, pepper, and salt. Mix with whisk until well blended.

Reduce heat to low. Add all ingredients in mixing bowl to pan. Fry on low heat for 10-to-15 minutes or until omelette is cooked to your desired level of doneness. Remove omelette. Cut omelette into squares. You get quite a bit of latitude in the size of your squares. 1″ perhaps?

(However, there is unanimity on the geometric shape. It has to be a square. What would happen if you cut the omelette into triangles? Would the Omelette Police come after you? Would the Earth’s surface convulse in earthquakes? I don’t know. Play it safe, make squares.)

PREPARATION – CURRY

While omelette cooks, grind cinnamon and ginger. Grind fenugreek seeds just long enough to crack them. Dice garlic clove and onion. Add cinnamon, ginger, onion, 10 curry leaves, curry powder, fenugreek seeds, and sesame oil. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add chili powder, ⅛ teaspoon pepper, ¼ teaspoon salt, turmeric, and water. Stir with spoon until well blended. Simmer on low heat for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add coconut milk. Simmer for 5 minutes or until curry starts to thicken. Stir occasionally.

Add omelette squares back into curry. Simmer on low heat for 2 minutes. Stir occasionally. Goes well with naan bread or rice.

TIDBITS

1) Omelette Curry is an an anagram for the illustrious Portguese navigator and explorer, Telemeo T. Crucy. Senhor Crucy rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1486 and discovered the Indian Ocean by way of the Atlantic. Bartolomeo Diaz did the same in 1488. Telemeo also discovered India via this sea route in 1487. Vasco de Gama duplicated this feat twelve years later.

2) But Crucy the Explorer–the inspiration for Dora the ExplorerTM by the way–got no credit at all, no monuments, no cities, no holidays, not even candy bars named after him. What the heck? Why?

3) Because he was the first one to bring the spicy curry leaves back to Portugal. Of course, the King of Portugal, whose name is lost to us as I am typing in WordPerfect and I’d have to get out of WordPerfect and into my internet browser, by which time I would have lost my train of thought here and degenerated into writing long, rambling sentences.

4) It was João II. The king’s name was João II! I looked it up. Who knew?

5) Anyway, Big Joe, as the king was often by his adoring subjects, was the first to be served the curry leaves. Portuguese monarchs, by established right, got to taste every new spice first.

6) Which was a mistake in this case. No chef in the king’s kitchen knew how much curry to put in the king’s chicken noodle soup. So they guessed.

7) One cup was a bad guess. Big Joe fled the banquet hall. He wasn’t seen for days. But his moans were heard all over the castle. They still can. Even his ghost has yet to get over this tummy ache.

8) Things deteriorated rapidly. Big Joe started hating the world. He tripled taxes on the peasantry. The despising people called him João the Moaner. The Moaner stripped Telemeo of his titles and erased all vestiges of his name. Proper spicing is a must. May this cookbook help.

– 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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Bun Cha

Posted on March 12, 2016 by pauldelancey

Vietnamese Entree

BUN CHA

INGREDIENTSBunCha-

2 shallots
5 tablespoons fish sauce or oyster sauce or soy sauce (3 more tablespoons later)
¾ teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons sugar (2 more tablespoons later)
1 pound thinly sliced pork belly or bacon (See note *)
1 pound ground pork

¼ cup cilantro (All the greens in this section must be fresh)
5 green onions
¼ cup lettuce
¼ cup perilla or lemon thyme or mint
¼ cup Thai basil or basil
¼ cup Vietnamese mint or mint
¼ cup kohlrabi or green papaya

3 garlic cloves
1 Thai chile or cayenne chile or serrano chile
3 tablespoons fish sauce or oyster sauce or soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1⅔ cups water
½ tablespoon lime juice

12 ounces dried vermicelli noodles
no-stick spray

I gave a lot of substitutes for this recipe as some of the ingredients are hard to find outside of an Asian grocery.

* = DO NOT get SALTED pork belly. It will make everything taste way too salty. Also, the pork belly should be sliced as thinly as bacon. If you cannot obtain thinly sliced, unsalted pork belly, you are better off using sliced bacon.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

grill, outdoor is preferable
grilling basket

Serves 6 people. Takes 1 hours 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince shallots. Add shallot, pepper, fish sauce, and sugar to first large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until well blended. Pour half of this marinade into a second large mixing bowl. Put pork belly in first bowl. Thoroughly coat the pork-belly slices with this marinade. Add the ground pork into the second bowl. Use hands to thoroughly knead the marinade into the ground pork. Put mixing bowls in refrigerator for 1 hour.

While pork marinates, dice cilantro, green onions, lettuce, perilla, Thai basil, and Vietnamese mint. Cut the bulb of the kohlrabi into ¼” slices. Put herbs in a large bowl. Mix with fork until well blended.

Form marinated ground pork into patties 2″ across and ½” thick. Spray grilling basket with no-stick spray. Put patties in grilling basket and grill for 4 minutes on each side or until both sides become golden brown. Remove grilled patties. Spray grilling basket again. Put pork-belly strips in grilling basket and grill for 2 minutes on each side until strips turn golden brown.

Mince garlic cloves and Thai chile. Add fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, and water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Pour this dipping sauce into serving bowl. Add garlic, Thai chile, and lime juice. Stir until well blended.

Cook vermicelli noodles as instructed on package.

Place pork-belly strips, pork patties, greens, and noodles onto 4 communal serving bowls. Divide dipping sauce equally into a dipping bowl for each guest. Guests add as desired from the communal bowls.

TIDBITS

1) Bun Cha is short for Man Bun Cha Cha Cha, a Cuban dance from the 1950s. It’s associated with the island’s music scene and freedom of expression. Okay, there has been precious little freedom of expression in Cuba since Fidel Castro and his band of fitfully merry communists took over in 1959.

2) There was a reason for Castro’s oppression. The previous government under the dictator Bautista was decadent beyond belief. Government official thought nothing of double dipping tortillas chips into the communal sofrito bowl. Leaders and army officers grew their hair long, tied it up in man buns, and danced the Man Bun Cha Cha Cha. It was a parlous time.

3) Castro and his merry outcasts tried to humiliate Bautista’s regime by defeating its officials in Cha Cha contests. They didn’t. They couldn’t dance worth a lick. That is why they were outcasts. Frustrated, Fido–no it’s Fidel, Fido’s a dog’s name–turned to the United States for support. America ignored him; the White Sox were about to be in the World Series for the first time since. 1919.

4) So, Fidel seized power with support from the Soviet Union and outlawed the man bun. In return, the Soviets got permission to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy objected. We almost had a nuclear war, always a bad thing. So, the man bun is outlawed the world over and the dance is now known only as the Cha Cha. Call it the Man Bun Cha Cha Cha and you’ll get arrested. Wear a man bun as well and you’ll disappear. For good. And don’t name your dog, Fidel.

– 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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Steak au Poivre Vert

Posted on January 26, 2016 by pauldelancey

French Entree

STEAK AU POIVRE VERT

INGREDIENTSSteakAuPoivre-

¾ cup whipping cream
¼ cup green peppercorns
2 shallots
1½ pounds tender boneless beef steaks cut 1″ thick
1½ tablespoons butter
1½ tablespoons olive oil
7 tablespoons cognac or brandy
½ cup beef broth
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons tarragon

SPECIAL UTENSIL

x-ray vision (helpful, but not required)
Sonic obliterator

Makes 4 steaks. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add whipping cream to pot. Cook using medium heat for 12 minutes or until cream thickens and is reduced by half. Stir frequently. Place cream in bowl and let sit in refrigerator.

Crack peppercorns by crushing them against a cutting board with a kitchen mallet or the side of a heavy knife Mince shallots. Add steaks, butter, and olive oil to large skillet. Sauté using medium heat for about 6 minutes on each side for medium rare or until steaks reach desired doneness.

Desired doneness is quite personal and just as open to heated debate just like politics. How do you decide it’s done? Well, x-ray vision is helpful. So is practice. Or you can just cut off a tiny piece and look. You are the master of your domain.

Okay. Add cognac to skillet. Sauté each side at medium-high heat for 1 minute. Place meat on serving plate. Cover with foil. Leave drippings in skillet.

Add shallot to skillet. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until shallot softens. Add cracked peppercorns, chilled whipping cream, beef broth, salt, and tarragon. Bring to boil using high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium for 5 minutes or until sauce is reduced by half. Place steaks on plates. Ladle sauce equally over steaks. Serve hot to adoring guests. Use sonic obliterator on guests who don’t appreciate the cost and the effort. You don’t need that kind of negativity.

TIDBITS

1) Ruva Boldin, 1897 – 1962, was a famous doughnut maker in the Soviet Union. In fact, she made the best doughnut anywhere in the world. It was impossible for any world leader to stay mad at Russia when they bit into one of Ruva’s creations.

2) Stalin, the USSR’s dictator, knew this. This

3) And then what? I started to write tidbit 2) a few days ago. What interrupted me?

4) I’d like to think it was a comet. That would be a good excuse for not working, don’t you think?

5) Me: Sorry boss, I can’t go to work today, there’s a comet passing by my garage door.

Boss: Like I haven’t heard that one before.

6) Yep, it’s better to have believable excuses when calling in sick such as:

Me: Sorry boss, I can’t make it to work today. I know we have a critical meeting with our most important client, but all I have are orphaned socks. I know that their CEO is extremely fashion conscious and if I showed up with mismatched socks, we’d lose that account forever. Can we reschedule the meeting for tomorrow? I need today to buy more socks.

Boss: I know! Just yesterday. I lost half the socks I put in the dryer. I suspect the dryer is merely a portal into a sock-hungry parallel universe. Of course, we’ll reschedule. I need to buy socks myself, but was too embarrassed to say so. I would have shown up with different socks at the meeting, lost the account, and bankrupted the company. Your courage in speaking up has saved the day. I’m giving you a promotion and a raise.

7) Maybe the aliens who ride comets have tractor beams that pull in our socks. With each successive pass by the Earth, they take more and more of our socks.

8) Why do the comet-riding aliens only take one sock from each pair? Because they’re juvenile delinquents, going on a joy ride.

9) But there is a serious consequence to their behavior. As these comets take on more and more socks, the mass of the comet grows and grows. The comet’s gravitational field becomes ever stronger, strong enough to change the orbits of neighboring celestial bodies.

10) Just recently, someone predicted the discovery of huge new planet in our Solar System, because of orbit irregularities in our outer planets. However, it seems more likely that the huge gravitational pull on these planets is coming from the sock-laden Halley’s Comet. This comet is so heavy with socks that when it passes by the Earth in 2062, it’s immense gravitational field will pick us up and hurl us into the Sun.

11) Clearly, this would be bad. Get to your dryer as soon as the buzzer let’s you know the loads is dry. Space aliens will only beam up socks when they’re nice and toasty warm. But move fast, because the aliens are speedy. Save your socks. Save 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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Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Posted on January 7, 2016 by pauldelancey

New Zealander Dessert

HOKEY POKEY ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS – HOKEY POKEYHokeyPokey-

2 tablespoons golden syrup
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda

INGREDIENTS – ICE CREAM

1½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
4 egg yolks

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Waxed parchment paper or cookie sheet
No-stick spray
electric beater
1 gallon plastic container with tight lid

Makes 3 quarts. Takes 45 minutes plus about 6 hours in freezer.

PREPARATION – HOKEY POKEY

Put waxed parchment paper on cookie sheet. Spray waxed parchment paper with no-stick spray. Add golden syrup and sugar to pan. Cook at low-medium heat until mixture melts and then boils. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes. Stir constantly to avoid burning the sugar. Remove from heat. Add baking soda. Stir with fork until mixture becomes pale and frothy. Pour mixture onto waxed parchment paper. Let sit for 30 minutes or until mixture solidifies into hokey pokey. Break hokey pokey with hands, bash with kitchen mallet, or cut with kitchen scissors until you have chunks no longer than ½” long.

PREPARATION – ICE CREAM

While hokey pokey sets, add cream to large mixing bowl. Whip with electric beater set on cream, or high, until cream becomes thickens and soft peaks form. Add vanilla extract, confectioner’s sugar, and egg yolks to second mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on cream, or high, until creamy. Fold confectioner’s sugar/egg mixture from second mixing bowl into first mixing bowl with cream.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Add hokey pokey chunks and ice cream to plastic container. Stir gently with spoon until hokey pokey is evenly distributed. Cover and put in refrigerator for 6 hours or ice cream is firm.

TIDBITS

1) The hokey pokey is a dance where a leader names a part of the body. The participants then put that part in, take part out, put that part in, shake it all about, turn themselves around. That’s what it’s all about.

2) The hokey pokey was used to devastating effect by English forces in the battle of Waterloo in 1815. In a desperate gamble, the French Emperor Napoleon hurled his vaunted Old Guard at the center of the English infantry line. Onward, ever onward they marched, their jaws clenched tightly together by glue-like oatmeal. The English line buckled. One more push and the French would triumph. Napoleon would remain emperor. He would continue to march his armies all over Europe. Europe would continue to be drenched in blood as Napoleon engaged in ceaseless conquest and pursuit of La Gloire.

3) Private Henry Tavert of the English tenor-infantry brigade began to shake in terror. His sergeant growled. “Pull yourself together, man.”

4) “I can’t.” said Henry. “You must,” said the sergeant. “For God, king, and country.”

5) “I still can’t.” The sergeant rolled his eyes. “All right then, do it for your mum.”

6) Henry managed a weak smile. “I can do that. Me mum used to sing the hokey pokey to me whenever I got afraid. It gave me courage, it did.”

7) “Then private, sing the hokey pokey.”

8) And so Henry did, weakly at first, but with increasing conviction and volume with each successive word. The rest of the tenor brigade joined in. When they all got to the part about turning “yourself about,” the song could be heard by the bilingual sergeants of France’s Old Guard.

9) These bilingual sergeants upon hearing the words “turn yourself about,” turned themselves about. The privates taking their cue from their sergeants turned themselves about as well.

10) “D___ me,” shouted the sergeant, “The Frenchies are fleeing. Fix bayonets!” He pointed to the retreating French. “England, put your whole selves out.”

11) The tenor brigade charged. Brigades to their left and right advanced as well. Pretty soon, the entire English army rushed the French. The French retreat became a rout. Napoleon’s once mighty Grande Armée disintegrated never to reform. Europe was finally at peace.

12) Europe stayed at peace for another 99 years. Whenever a country poured it armies across its neighbor’s borders, the defenders would sing the hokey pokey and make the attackers turn themselves about. War became pointless and boring.

13) Until 1913, when countries issued ear plugs to their armies. Soldiers couldn’t hear the hokey pokey and so would no longer turn themselves about. World War I, a horrific bloodbath, commenced only one year later. We need to come up with a countermeasure to ear plugs.

– 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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Swedish Saffransbröd

Posted on December 23, 2015 by pauldelancey

Swedish Dessert

SAFFRANSBRÖD

INGREDIENTSSaffranBrod-

2¼ teaspoons yeast
⅓ cup warm water
1 cup milk
½ cup butter
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar (½ cup more later)
½ teaspoon (1 gram) saffron threads
⅓ cup raisins
½ cup sugar
2 eggs (1 more egg later)
4 cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

tin foil
cookie sheet

Makes 4 6″ buns. Takes 2 hours 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Add yeast and water to large mixing bowl. While yeast dissolves, add milk to small pot. Heat milk at high heat until scalding hot (almost boiling). Stir constantly. Reduce heat to medium. Add butter, salt, and 1 teaspoon sugar to pot. Stir constantly until butter melts. Remove from heat.

Add saffron to tin foil. Bake at 250 for 5 minutes or until saffron is toasted. Add toasted saffron to cup. Crush saffron with fingers. Add 1 teaspoon sugar to cup. Mix with fork. Add crushed saffron/sugar to mixing bowl with dissolved yeast. Add 2 eggs, raisins, ½ cup sugar, and buttery milk to mixing bowl. Stir in 4 cups flour, one cup a time. Mix with whisk or fork.

Dust cutting board with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough to cutting board. Let dough stand for 10 minutes. Knead with hands until dough stiffens. Add oil and dough to large bowl. Turn dough until it is coated with oil. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Divide dough into 12 pieces. Use hands to turn each piece into a 12″ rope. Put 3 ropes side by side. Braid the 3 ropes together by crossing the left rope and then the right rope over the center rope until there is one long braid. Join ends of long braid to make a circle or crown. Repeat to make three more crowns. Beat one egg. Brush egg over crowns.
Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Place crowns on parchment-covered cookie sheet. Let crowns rise for 15 minutes or until they puff up into a bun. Bake for 15-to-25 minutes or until golden brown and when a toothpick inserted into buns comes out clean. Let cool on rack.

TIDBITS

1) Böard is Swedish for surfboard. Yes, surfboards were invented by the Swedish baker, Franf. For in 1618, Franf found a large tree trunk washed up on shore. The tree was of a sort unknown to Europe. Franf reasoned it must have come from a large continent to the west.

2) He announced his discovery to the Swedish court and asked royal packing for a proposed voyage of discovery. The Swedish king said Franf was an idiot, noting Christopher Columbus had discovered the New World in 1492, in addition to Basque fishermen, Viking explorers, the third-grade class of Stockholm’s very own Lutefisk academy, Chinese traders, and the people of the great migration across the land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

3) Franf wondered why entire tribes would assemble in frozen Siberia and then trek eastward into howling blizzards to an unknown land. Perhaps they really had a hankering for a White CastleTM burger. Those tiny delights with their minced onions are really tasty. Perhaps the ancient trekkers honestly thought there be a White Castle in the new land, just like the Spanish conquistadors and their Seven Cities of Gold. We’ll never know. Researchers are still waiting for the Cliff NotesTM to come out.

4) Franf waited patiently for the above long tidbit to end, before he could go home.

5) He moped for countless seconds–there were no stopwatches in 1618–before rebounding with the boundless optimism of all Post-Renaissance Swedish bakers.

6) Fraf went to a dock, sat down, pulled out his pipe, lit a match, and commenced to day dreaming. His long reddish beard burst into a fireball of flame; not applying the burning match to the pipe was a mistake. Howling with pain, Franf dove into the bay to put out the fire.

7) Flame extinguished, Franf immediately inventoried certain gaps in his education and there were many. However, the one that consistently came to the forefront was not learning to swim. Thank goodness, the tree trunk from the first tidbit, by now worn down to a thin board, was right next to him. (Notice the neat foreshadowing?)

8) Franf climbed onto the board and sat down to think. Here he was sitting in Sweden, the top of world, when suddenly, in geological terms, he caught a wave. “Häftig,” he shouted, “this is totally awesome!” People gathered on the shore as Franf rode one rörformig wave after another. They joined in. Surfing totally rocked Sweden. It was totally tubular, man.

11) Then the Thirty Years war broke out. Thousands and thousands of surfing Swedes lost their lives in the battlefields of Germany, never again to catch that perfect Baltic Sea wave. Surfing died out in that no longer care free Nordic land.

12) But Franf is still remembered in the vibrant culinary, surfing world. This recipe is called Saffransbröd, in anagrammic remembrance, of Franf’s böard.

– 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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Chicken Banh Mi

Posted on December 7, 2015 by pauldelancey

Vietnamese Entree

CHICKEN BANH MI

INGREDIENTSChickenBanhMi-

4 8″ baguettes (not overly cripsy)
3 medium carrots
¼ pound daikon
3 tablespoons sugar
½ cup rice vinegar
2 Thai red chiles or jalapeños
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon garlic salt
⅛ teaspoon pepper
4 chicken breasts
1 tablespoon vegetable oil                                                                           Not a Van Gogh painting
½ cup aioli sauce (see recipe) or mayonnaise
1 teaspoon sriracha
¼ cup fresh cilantro
 1 cucumber
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSIL

cookie sheet

Makes 4 banh mi sandwiches. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Split baguettes in half along their lengths. Grate, or julienne, carrots and daikon. Add sugar and rice vinegar to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir constantly until sugar dissolves. Remove and let cool. Add carrot and daikon to pot. Marinate in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

While carrots and daikon marinate, preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mince Thai red chiles. Cut chicken breasts into 1″-wide strips. Add Thai red chiles, lime juice, garlic salt, pepper, and chicken to large mixing bowl. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes. While chicken marinates, add aioli sauce and sriracha to small mixing bowl. Blend together with whisk. Dice cilantro. Slice cucumber into thin circles.

Coat chicken breasts with vegetable oil. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Add baguette halves to oven. Turn chicken over. Bake chicken and baguettes for 10 minutes or chicken is no longer pink inside and baguettes are lightly toasted.

Spread aioli/sriracha sauce on baguette half. Add an equal layer of cucumber circles to each baguette. Add an equal of chicken strips to each baguette, followed by a layer of mixed carrot and daikon. Sprinkle each baguette with diced cilantro.

TIDBITS

1) Bright, vibrant colors emanate from chicken banh mi. See above photo.

2) The artist Van Gogh (1856-1893) is famous for his bright, vibrant paintings such as Sunflower and starry night. His character is depicted in the well-loved Doctor Who episode, “Vincent and the Doctor,” where he saves the universe. Well done, Vincent.

3) Food always inspired Vincent. His first famous painting is “The Potato Eaters” (1885), known by everyone who has known of it. It was typical of an artistic style called brown gravy, where the only colors on a painter’s palette were: beige, light brown, ecru (remember that for crossword puzzles), brown, dark brown, and chocolate brown.

4) However, Vincent’s magnificent obsession with food developed earlier, certainly after birth and before death.

5) He wrote, during this period of life, wrote many letters to his brother. Food provided the dominant, recurring theme of these epistles.

6) In his letter of September 17, 1875, Vincent worries his brother, Theo, isn’t eating properly. He admonishes his brother to eat lots of bread. Just twelve day later, Vincent tells Theo to eat more bread. On August 18, 1877, the great artist tells his sibling to eat bread as it deters people from suicide. He cites Dickens as his source for this bit of knowledge.

7) Clearly, Vincent did not belong to the gluten-free school of painting.

8) Vincent did take a brief walk on the wild side, when he favored oatmeal over bread. (See his letters of November 9 and November 15, 1875.) Culinary-art historians still debate the reason for this. The dominant view seems to be that his illnesses had been flaring up more than usual. Others maintain that Vincent had simply gone off feed.

9) Then? I don’t know. I cleverly managed to print out only the first nine of Vincent’s twenty-five food-and-drink letters to his brother.

10) Then my friggin’ printer jammed. By the time the cussing had stopped and the printer actually was willing to work again, the mood for research had passed. Hey, don’t judge me.

11) One of Van Gogh’s few non-vegetarian paintings is “Prawns and Mussels” (1886). Everybody loves shrimp and Vincent was no exception. His one true love, however, was potatoes as his many spud painting testify. He did have brief flings with: citrus, cabbage-red and green, onions, grapes, apples, and even quinces!! His one true love, however, was potatoes as his many spud paintings testify.

12) In 2010, the Doctor and Amy Pond visit Vincent with their TARDIS. The Doctor tells Vincent that he shall become the greatest painter of all time. Vincent abandons his bread mania and paints many famous non-culinary paintings. Vincent dies within a year.

13) The great artist would probably have lived long if he had only stayed with still lifes of potatoes. Something to think about for aspiring artists.

– 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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