international

Borhani, Bangladeshi Spicy Yogurt Drink

Posted on October 29, 2014 by pauldelancey

Bangladeshi Appetizer

BORHANI
(spicy yogurt drink)

INGREDIENTSBorhani-

½ teaspoon coriander seeds
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon brown mustard seeds or regular mustard seeds
2 green chiles.
4 tablespoons fresh mint leaves
½ teaspoon black salt or rock salt or coarse salt
1 teaspoon coarse or regular salt
3½ cups plain yogurt
1¼ cups water

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

PREPARATION

Add coriander seeds, cumin seeds, and mustard seeds to pan. Cook using medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until seeds start popping. Grind popped seeds in spice grinder. Seed and mince green chiles. Mince mint leaves. Mix green chile and mint together with finger to form a paste. (Be sure to wash hands afterwards. Finger can stand handling chiles. The other parts of yourself cannot. They will burn.)

Add ground seeds, chile/mint paste, black salt, coarse salt, yogurt, and water to blender. Puree until smooth. Put borhani, yogurt drink, in refrigerator until it is cold. Note this drink is definitely an acquired taste.

TIDBITS

1) Borhani is an anagram for Ho Brain.

2) Ho Brain was a punk-rock band from Seattle. On April 17, 1984, they performed their smash hit single, “Culture War.” Although this song was written to be scathing, if unintelligible, satire of America’s cultural imperialism, their frenzied audience took it to mean that the government was tampering with the city’s yogurt supply.

3) The Seattle Yogurt Riots of 1984 lasted for four days during which thousands were arrested and newspaper headlines everywhere ended in exclamation points. The riots petered out as the rowdies gradually realized they never really ever ate plain yogurt. Ho Brain went on to do a world tour of Washington and Oregon before getting lost in an infinite berry patch. And so it goes.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

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

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Carrot Cake

Posted on October 23, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

CARROT CAKE

INGREDIENTS – MAINCarrotCake-

4 eggs
1⅓ cups sugar
⅔ cup light brown sugar
3 cups shredded carrots
1 cup vegetable oil
¼ teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups cake flour or flour
½ tablespoon baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans or combination
no-stick spray

INGREDIENTS – ICING

6 tablespoons butter (softened)
1 pound confectionery sugar
8 ounces cream cheese (softened)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric mixer
9″ x 13″ casserole dish
3 mixing bowls (Or are you an outstanding chef like my Grandma Anna wished us all to be and clean bowls and utensils as you cook?)
sonic obliterator

PREPARATION – MAIN

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add eggs to first large mixing bowl. Beat eggs with electric mixer until frothy. (The eggs, not you.) Gradually add sugar and light brown sugar. Blend using electric mixer set on whip until well blended. Add carrots, vegetable oil, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Blend with mixer set on whip until well blended.

Add flour and baking soda to second large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Add flour/baking soda from second mixing bowl to first mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer set on cake until blended. Add nuts and stir with spoon.

Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Pour eggs/sugar/spice/baking soda mixture into casserole dish. Smooth with spatula. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-to-45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Let cool on wire rack for 1 hour.

(Okay, little secret here. You can cool the cake down considerably faster by putting the casserole dish in cold water in the sink. Be sure the water is only halfway to the top of the casserole dish. If your casserole dish is too big for the sink, simply put it in the bathtub. Again, let the water go no higher than halfway up the side of the casserole dish. If someone happens to see your cake cooling in the bathtub and makes a snarky comment, zap him with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that negativity in your life.)

PREPARATION – ICING

While cake bakes, add butter, confectionery sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla extract to third mixing bowl (Note: this cookbook always employs the Oxford when providing a list of ingredients. Long live the Oxford comma! Vexation to its enemies!) Ahem, beat ingredients using electric beater set on cream until ingredients become a fluffy icing.

TIDBITS

1) The famous French Painter, Paul Cézanne believed, “A single carrot newly observed will cause a revolution.”

2) Eleven years after Cézanne died, the Russian Revolution began. People in the streets of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, had been starving. They couldn’t afford the price of a loaf of bread.

4) Desperate to maintain order, the czar and his ministers bought up food from all over the world. They purchased cabbages from Germany, eggs from Sweden, and carrots from the gardens of Cezanne’s children. The authorities even bought beans, cotija cheese, and tortillas from Mexico. Surely, the rioters would be placated by burritos. I mean, who doesn’t like a burrito?

5) Unfortunately, as in the case of many governmental programs, well intentioned though they might be, something went wrong. The newly formed Russian Ministry of Burrito Assembly put a raw carrot in every burrito.

6) The Russian rabble rebel not appreciate the taste of the raw carrot, bean, and cheese burrito. They did not like its texture either. They did not like it in the city square. They did not like in their hair. They did not like it in the air. They did not like it anywhere.

7) So the Russians did not eat these burritos. And they grew hungrier and hungrier.

8) Then an artist named Ivan Popoff came across one of the burritos lying–Oh gosh, I hope I conjugated this evil verb correctly–split open on the street. Something about the burrito’s carrot struck him. “Oh ho,” he said, “I am observing this carrot in an entirely new way.” Lenin, a passerby, heard this and immediately started the Russian Revolution.

9) Millions died during the Russian Revolution and the ensuing decades.

10) We should all pay more attention to French post-impressionist painters.

– 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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Filipino Pancit

Posted on October 19, 2014 by pauldelancey

Filipino Entree

PANCIT

INGREDIENTSPancit-

1 pound chicken breast
4 garlic cloves
⅓ cup soy sauce
10 ounces rice noodles
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ head cabbage
8 ounces de-veined shrimp
¼ teaspoon pepper
3 lemons

Takes a bit more than an hour
Makes 9 bowls

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Mince garlic cloves. Add chicken, half of the minced garlic, and soy sauce to mixing bowl. Coat chicken cubes with garlic and soy sauce. Let chicken marinate for 1 hour.

While chicken marinates, add rice noodles to large mixing bowl. Cover noodles with warm water. Let sit for 30 minutes. Drain completely.

While chicken marinates and rice noodles sit in warm water, shred cabbage. Add oil and second half of the minced garlic to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken cubes and its marinade to pan. Sauté for another 5 minutes or until chicken starts to brown. Stir frequently.

Add cabbage, shrimp, and pepper to pan. Cook for 5 minutes on medium heat or until cabbage becomes tender and shrimp turns orange and is no longer translucent. Add rice noodles to pot. Cook on medium for 3 minutes or until noodles are warm. Stir occasionally. Serve in bowls. Cut each lemon into 6 slices. Garnish each bowl of pancit with 2 lemon slices.

TIDBITS

1) Filipino doctor Aguilar discovered the antibiotic “erythromycin.”

2) Whatever that is.

3) A Filipino scientist invented the flourescent lamp. Well maybe, lots of people helped it along.

4) Why is spell check claiming I misspelled “flourescent?” Okay, the dictionary says it’s “fluorescent.” In Chef Versus Spell Checker, Spell Checker wins. Bummer.

– 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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Bad Artist #9, The Scream

Posted on October 18, 2014 by pauldelancey

BadArtist9

Fortunately, Mr. Munch, love the name, deposits his paychecks directly to the car dealership.

And now a haiku for car repair bills.

 

#$%@@! $%#&*

%^(*{!@ !@#%*+ ++|!

!@#@@##

 

– Paul the Bad Artist

 

– 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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I Invite Syria’s Assad Over For Dinner and Root Beers

Posted on October 17, 2014 by pauldelancey

RootBe1-

Bashar al-Assad, president and dictator of Syria is getting way too cranky and needs to step down. And if the only thing that’s making him cling so tenaciously to power is the lack of a good retirement dinner, I, the Powegian Chef, am hereby offering it to him at my humble home.

So, Bashar, do you like Greek cuisine? I have fresh grape leaves growing in my front yard. Or would you prefer a fine Cuban sandwich? I’ll leave the menu to you. Just let me know.

We could watch reruns of Gunsmoke after dinner. We have a fold-out sofa bed if you’d care to stay the night. For the first ten minutes of the next day we could visit the cultural sites of Poway, twenty if we’re lucky enough to see street repair.

My wife could expertly cut your hair. Just a trim, of course, your hair always looks great. And just how do you find time to go to barbers when you’re always so busy killing off your people? Some of those victims surely must be barbers and that means it’s even tougher to get that haircut-to-kill for look . Yep, it can’t be easy being a maniacal dictator. But I’m being uncharitable. We all have our faults. Me, I’m constantly losing my car keys.

But I digress. We were talking about dinner. Frankly, a person as odious as yourself deserves to be fed lutefisk. But in the spirit of live and let live, I’ll serve you any other meal you’d might want. We’ll even have ice cold root beers. If that doesn’t make you warm and fuzzy enough to call off your civil war, I don’t know what will. C’mon over Bashar!

– Paul De Lancey, concerned world citizen

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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Filipino Chicken Adobo

Posted on October 16, 2014 by pauldelancey

Filipino Entree

CHICKEN ADOBO

INGREDIENTSChickenAdobo-

6 garlic cloves
2 pounds chicken breasts
6 tablespoons soy sauce
3 bay leaves
½ cup vinegar
1¾ cups water
½ tablespoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL – OPTIONAL

herb infuser (quite similar to tea infuser)

PREPARATION

Mince garlic. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add garlic, chicken, and soy sauce to mixing bowl. Turn chicken cubes until well coated with garlic and soy sauce. Marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours.

Add chicken cubes and its marinade and the rest of the ingredients to pot. (If you have an herb infuser, put peppercorns in it. Attach peppercorn laden herb infuser to pot.) Bring to boil using medium heat.  Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until sauce thickens to desired consistency.

TIDBITS

1) There are 11 million Filipinos living outside the Philippines. These expatriates missed it when the Philippines hosted the world’s largest, mass public breast-feeding event in. Filipinos are still buzzing about that. That’s why they text more than all Americans and Europeans combined.

2) Life is not all breast feeding in the Philippines. The island nation has a dark side. It invented karaoke.

3) Interrogators from at least one nation have played the Barney the Dinosaur theme song to break the resistance of captured soldiers. However, no country has subjected its prisoners to Barney the Dinosaur karoake. There is only so much you can make good people to do, even in war.

5) Indeed, famished and weary travelers the world over are always admonished to leave their guns in their cars when entering establishments advertising themselves as “karaoke bars and grills.”

6) The yo-yo was invented in the Philippines as a weapon. As of the upcoming July, yo-yos will be banned in all karaoke bars.

– 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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Sococho (Panamanian Soup)

Posted on October 11, 2014 by pauldelancey

Panamanian Soup

SOCOCHO

INGREDIENTSSococho-

4 garlic cloves
1 large onion
2 tomatoes
2 pounds yucca or cassava root
1½ pounds potatoes
2 pounds boneless chicken parts
2 teaspoons olive oil (additional ½ tablespoon later)
1 tablespoon cilantro
½ teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
4 cups chicken stock

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Dutch oven
rocker knife or knife with thick blade

Serves 8 bowls and can take up to 2 hours to prepare depending on the battle between you and the yucca root goes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves. Dice onion and tomatoes. Peel yucca and cut it into ½” cubes. (Cutting yucca root is much easier with rocker knife or thick-bladed knife.) Chop potatoes into ½” cubes. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add 2 teaspoons olive oil, cilantro, oregano, salt, and chicken to mixing bowl. Thoroughly coat chicken with herb/salt/olive oil mix. Let marinate for 20 minutes.

While chicken marinates, add ½ tablespoon olive, garlic, and onion to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add chicken and its herb/salt/olive oil marinade to large soup pot. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Stir occasionally. (How about “Pink Chicken” as a name for avant garde band?)

Add chicken stock to soup pot. Keep heat on medium. Add potato and yucca to pot, cover, and cook for 45-to-60 minutes or until potato and yucca are tender. Add tomatoes and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) Van Halen has a song called, “Panama.” A lot of people thought the words were actually “Padded bra.”

2) Either version makes as much sense in the song.

3) I keep hearing Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders singing, “I’m gonna make you, make you malteds.” I like the idea of a famous singer making me a malted. I do prefer them over milkshakes.

4) Does anyone else hear “Do the hustle” as “Tuna hustle?” How does a tuna hustle?”

5) And of course, Creedence Clearwater Revival tell us, “There’s a bathroom on the right.” That’s nice to know.

6) Okay, okay, tidbits 1) to 5) are a prime example of what happens what I look up fun facts for a country and find nothing exciting except . . .

7) In Panama, the sun rises in the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic.

8) This is because time runs backward in Panama

9) In Panama, the people use American dollars for transaction involving paper currency, but their own home-grown coins, the Balboas for vending machines and buses.

10) Panama’s coins are named after Rocky Balboa the hero of all those Rocky boxing movies.

11) How is it possible that the Balboa coins came before the Rocky movies but are named after the series’ main character? Time runs backward in Panama. Remember tidbit 8)?

12) People in Panama win all the American lotteries, since they know all the winning numbers.

13) But they lose the big jackpots when they exchange all that loot when they buy their lottery tickets. Does this frustrate the Panamanians?

14) Yes it does.

15) Invariably the American lotteries are then won by Americans or by citizens of other nations where time moves forward.

16) Augh! I’ve lost my train of thought.

17) Whew, I’ve got it back. Time gets a bit dicey when passing from a country where time moves forward to Panama where it regresses. Often people crossing the Costa Rica/Panamanian border find themselves in a sort of stasis field where time doesn’t move at all.

18) Which is a boon for parents of surly teenagers. If you have the cash, simply deposit your young know-it-all, whatever, in anyone of the stasis fields dotting the border there and leave him there.

19) Don’t forget to take your child home when he’s old enough to leave home for good.

20) You get up to eight years of clean bedrooms and the teenagers won’t get embarrassed by your ignorance. It’s a win-win situation.

– 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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Bad Artist #7, Salvador Dali and Comcast

Posted on October 10, 2014 by pauldelancey

BadArtist7

Modern Art Haiku

I don’t understand you
And you do not understand me
Let’s have a root beer.

– Paul the Bad Artist

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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Costa Rican Pork Casado

Posted on October 7, 2014 by pauldelancey

Costa Rican Entree

PORK CASADO

INGREDIENTSCasado-

8 tablespoons orange juice
4 tablespoons orange zest
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin

¼ head cabbage
1 small carrot
1 small tomato
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup basmati or white rice
1 onion (1 additional onion later)
2 red bell peppers
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (5 additional tablespoons later)

2 plantains
5 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion
4 pork loins

1 15-ounce can black beans

PREPARATION MARINADE

Coat pork loins throughly in orange juice, orange zest, garlic salt, chili powder, and cumin.. Let marinate for 30 minutes. Keep marinade.

PREPARATION – SALAD

Shred cabbage. Dice carrot and tomato. Add cabbage, carrot, tomato, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with fork.

PREPARATION – RICE

Add rice to pot. Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, mince 1 onion and red bell peppers. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Keep rice and onion/bell pepper mix warm.

PREPARATION – PLANTAINS

Peel plantains. Slice plantains in half lengthwise. Add 5 tablespoons vegetable oil and plantain to pan. Sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until plantains become tender and turn golden brown. Drain and keep warm.

PREPARATION – PORK

Cut onion into four slices. Grill onion and pork loins on barbecue grill at high or 450 degrees. Grill onions for 10 minutes or until they start to char. Turn them over once. Grill pork for 20 minutes or until it is cooked through (white inside) or starts to brown. Turn over every 5 minutes. Brush with marinade each time.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Put beans in pot. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until sauce begins to bubble. Add pork to plate with grilled onion slice on top. Add rice to side and top with onion/red pepper mix. Add 2 plantains to the side. (Lots of sides, aren’t there?) Add cabbage to a remaining spot on plate and top with carrot and tomato.

(snarky comment. ☜ Weeks later: I was interrupted by a melee in the house, plate tectonics, or something, so I typed “snarky comment” as a place filler. Clearly, I had hoped to come back in a jiffy with a brilliant thought intact. However, my brilliance was as fleeting as the perfect ripeness of an avocado. So let this be a cautionary tale to everyone; write down your thoughts if you suspect a bout of plate tectonics coming on.)

Enjoy!

TIDBITS

1) This recipe is made with orange zest. As far as I know there are no movies titles with the word zest in them.

3) But there is a classic movie called “Lust for Life” starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn. It’s about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

4) Van Gogh was an artist. So am I. I had a vase displayed in the Gemente Museum in the The Hague, Netherlands.

5) I am much more into cooking now. The upcoming movie about my life is likely to be called, “Lust for Zest.”

6) Any dish I create gets eaten.

7) You are not allowed to eat paintings in art museums, particularly so at the Louvre in Paris.

8) Not even if you bring the correct spices and wine. However, you can eat popcorn at the movies. As of press time, however, few movie theaters serve gourmet dinners and fine wine. It’s a hard world out there.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

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

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Wiener Schnitzel

Posted on October 1, 2014 by pauldelancey

Austrian Entree

WIENER SCHNITZEL

INGREDIENTSWienerSchnitzel-

4 6-ounce veal cutlets
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1¾ cups flour
12 ounces lard or butter
1⅓ cups breadcrumbs
1 lemon

SPECIAL UTENSIL

kitchen mallet
3 mixing bowls

PREPARATION

Chill veal cutlets in ice water. This keeps the cutlets’ juice inside when immersed in the hot lard. Use kitchen mallet to pound veal cutlets until they are ¼” thick. Put cutlets, pepper, and salt on platel. Turn veal in bowl until well coated with pepper and salt. Add eggs to first mixing bowl. Beat eggs with whisk. Add flour to second mixing bowl. Add breadcrumbs to third mixing bowl.

Dip veal cutlet into bowl with flour. Coat cutlet with flour. Dip cutlet in bowl with eggs. Coat cutlet with eggs. Dip cutlet in bowl with breadcrumbs. Dredge cutlet through bowl of bread crumbs. Repeat for each veal cutlet.

Add ¼th of the lard, 3 ounces, at a time to pan. Melt lard using medium heat. Add coated veal cutlet, Wiener schniztel, to pan. Sauté each side using medium heat for 2-to-4 minutes or until golden brown. Remove schnitzel to plate. Gently press both sides of schnitzel with paper towel. Repeat for each coated veal cutlet. Cut lemon into 4 slices. Top each schnitzel with lemon slice.

TIDBITS

1) Belgium produces more types of bricks than any other nation. Austria doesn’t make nearly as many bricks. This might be because a legendary Austrian bricklayer murdered his seven wives.

2) The Weiner schnitzel is not a brick, it is a tasty entree and by Austrian law, Weiner schnitzels must be made with veal (Notice the neat segue?)

3) In 1987, Austria, in an attempt to catch Belgium, established the National Brick Variety Research Center. It has not done well;, attracting Austria’s best minds away from culinary enforcement has been difficult.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

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

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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