international

Bosna (Austrian Sandwich)

Posted on November 20, 2013 by pauldelancey

Austrian Entree

BOSNA

INGREDIENTSBosna-

12 bratwursts
6 wide rolls
½ yellow onion
1 tablespoon curry
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons ketchup

PREPARATION

Grill bratwursts at low heat for about 5-to-10 minutes or until they start to brown. Turn once. Toast rolls in toaster or panini grill. Slice onion into rings. Place onion rings and sprinkle curry evenly over bottom halves of rolls. Spread mustard and ketchup evenly on top halves of rolls. Assemble roll bottom, 2 bratwursts, and roll top for each sandwich.

TIDBITS

1) For those people who always complain that family vacations are boring, that trips to the Grand Canyon are so old school, may I suggest an exciting tour based on the ingredients of this recipe?

The National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin. Come visit the alluring world of mustard.

For the world’s best Dijon mustard, go to Dijon, France and take in the Amora Mustard Museum.

1st German Bratwurst Museum in Holzhausen, Germany. Bratwursts were first mentioned in 1404 and in 1432 became one of the first foods to be regulated. Save your money and fly there.

Vidalia Onion Museum in Vidalia, Georgia, where you can you learn the story of this illustrious sweet onion. “Please do not pick the onions.”

Currywurst Museum in Berlin, Germany. Germans love their currywurst. Indeed, Germany is a great place to do a food-museum trek.

National Bread Museum in Seia, Portugal, where you not only get to see the wonders of bread history, but you get to eat bread made at the museum’s fine restaurant. The museum even has a room dedicated to entertaining children. Does this mean food fights for the kids? They didn’t say.

See these museums without delay. The Yokohama Curry Museum closed its doors in 2007. Do you want to go through life regretting not seeing The National Mustard Museum or the National Bread Museum? I think not.

– 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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Zapiekanka, Polish Sandwich

Posted on November 17, 2013 by pauldelancey

Polish Entree

ZAPIEKANKA

INGREDIENTSZapiekanka-

1 baguette
1/3 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 pound sliced ham or deli-meat of choice
1 cup grated cheese of choice
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mayonnaise
no-stick spray

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut baguette in half and slice each half open. Cut onion and red bell pepper into thin slices. Add onion, bell pepper, turmeric, pepper, and butter to frying pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion is soft.

Add onion/bell pepper mixture, ham to baguette pieces. Top pieces with grated cheese. Spray baking tray with no-stick spray. Put tray in oven. Bake at 325 degrees for 5 minutes or until bread is crispy and cheese is melted. Remove tray from oven. Squirt, or spread, ketchup and mayonnaise over each piece.

TIDBITS

1) In 1857, native Indian soldiers, sepoys, in the British army believed the new gunpowder cartridges were greased with cow fat and pig fat. This grease insulted the religious beliefs of the Hindu and Muslim soldiers who had to bite the cartridges before using them. This mistake in greasing by the British sparked a major native rebellion.

2) The rebellion resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, embittered the Indians toward the British, and greatly widened the rift between Hindus and Muslims. This gulf persisted resulting in the bloody religious riots of 1947 and three wars between India and Pakistan. Today, these two countries have nuclear weapons pointed at each other.

3) If only Britain had greased its cartridges with olive oil. Today, we also have vegetable oil. A fragile peace prevails over 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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Bruna Boner (Swedish beans)

Posted on November 16, 2013 by pauldelancey

Swedish Entree

BRUNA BÖNER
(Swedish beans)

INGREDIENTSBrunerB-

1 pound bag pink beans
6 cups water
4 teaspoons, or half-stick, butter
8 ounces brown sugar
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons corn starch

PREPARATION

Put beans in large pot. Add enough water to cover beans with a few inches to spare. Let soak overnight or at least 10 hours. The beans will be crunchy if not sufficiently soaked. (You do not want to wake up, twenty years later, in the middle of the night screaming, “Why? Why did I not soak the beans long enough?”)

Drain the water. (This gets rid of any dirt on the beans.) Add 6 cups water. Cook on medium heat for 40 minutes. Stir every few minutes. Add more water if the water no longer covers the beans. Covering the pot with a lid also keeps water from evaporating.

Add butter. Cook on low-to-medium heat for 40 minutes. Stir every few minutes to avoid burning. Add more water if the water no longer covers the beans.

Add sugar. (If the brown sugar comes out of the box as a brick, saw it in half.) Cook on low-to-medium heat for 40 minutes. Stir every few minutes to avoid burning. Add more water if the water no longer covers the beans. (Engrave this advice in your memory.)

Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup vinegar, teaspoon by teaspoon, according to taste. If needed, thicken beans by adding cornstarch.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe comes from my grandmother Anna Erickson who was born in Murrum, Sweden, in 1889. I miss her.

2) Her family came to America through Boston, having heard of the hardships of Ellis Island in New York.

3) She grew up in Shickley, Nebraska. She later went back with my mother to visit. The whole town went to an outdoor movie, but was distracted by a rather lengthy meteor shower.

4) I grew up with this sort of Swedish food. Where the weird, modern Swedish pizzas came from I don’t know. It’s also strange that Bruna Bonër, or Brown Beans, uses pink beans. Wacky Swedes.

– 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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Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Posted on November 14, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Entree

CREAMY GARLIC MASHED POTATOES

INGREDIENTSCreamyMashPot-

1 1/2 pounds new or small potatoes
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

PREPARATION

Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into eight pieces. Put potato pieces into large pot. Add enough water to cover potato bits. Bring water to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Drain potatoes.

While potato is cooking, mince garlic cloves. Put garlic and butter in pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes. Stir frequently.

Add whipping cream, garlic, salt, and pepper to pot with potato pieces. Mash potatoes with potato masher. Use whisk to further blend ingredients together. Serve hot. (But of course, alll chefs are hotties.)

TIDBITS

1) Butter might promote fertility in women.

2) Cholesterol in butterfat helps develop children’s brains and nervous systems.

3) Butter contains arachidonic acid. I have no idea what arachidonic acid is. Clearly, I didn’t eat enough butter when I was a kid. However, I do know a spider is an arachnid.

5) The best, or at least most enjoyable, horror movie about spiders are: Tarantula (1955), Earth Versus the Spider (1958), The Giant Spider Invasion (1975), Kingdom of the Spiders (1978), and Arachnophobia (1990).

6) The best spider-horror movie with a cameo appearance by Clint Eastwood is Tarantula.

7) The most fun spider movie is Charlotte’s Web. It features a talking spider and a talking pig. There is another great movie about a talking pig is Babe. Hollywood thinks pigs are cuter than spiders.

– 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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Dijon Mustard

Posted on November 12, 2013 by pauldelancey

French Appetizer

DIJON MUSTARD

INGREDIENTSDijonMustard-

1/2 medium yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup mustard, dry
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

colander
airtight jar

PREPARATION

Mince the onion and garlic. Put wine, onion, garlic in pot. Cook at high heat until wine boils. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Pour mixture through colander into mixing bowl. Let liquid cool.

Add mustard to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until mixture is smooth. Add wine/garlic/mustard, honey, vegetable, and salt to pot Simmer for about 10 minutes or until liquid thickens. (Don’t look down too long at pot. The vapor will make your eyes sting.) Let cool. Pour into airtight jar. Keep refrigerated. The Dijon mustard will get slightly milder over the next 5 days.

TIDBITS

1) Ancient doctors used mustard to cure toothaches, epilepsy, and PMS, increase blood circulation, clear sinuses, and stimulate appetite. It had indifferent success in curing death as shown by the mustard found in King Tut’s tomb. Listen to the comedian Steve Martin & the Toot Uncommons sing the praises of King Tut.

2) Many cultures scatter mustard seeds around the home to repel evil spirits. Bear traps are a good way to tackle bad spirits taking on animal form. Leaving lutefisk outside your door wards off all spirits ethereal or corporal, including mimes selling aluminum siding door to door.

3) Indeed, people in medieval Paris could buy mustard by the wheelbarrow. This facts suggests lots of door-to-door mimes ran around back then. On the other hand, there is scant evidence of 13th-century Parisian homes, stone, wood, or otherwise, being adorned with aluminum siding.

4) Canada is the largest producer of mustard. There aren’t many evil spirits in Canada. See?

– 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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Korean Hamburger

Posted on November 4, 2013 by pauldelancey

Korean Entree

KOREAN HAMBURGER

INGREDIENTSKoreanBurger-

1/2 yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 pounds ground beef.
2 tablespoons gochuchang (hot Korean paste)
1/2 tablespoons gochucharu (or red pepper flakes)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 large tomato
5 leaves Chinese cabbage or Napa cabbage
5 ounces hot pepper-jack cheese
5 hamburger buns

PREPARATION

Mince yellow onion and garlic. Add onion, garlic, ground beef, gochuchang, gochucharu, and soy sauce to mixing bowl. Combine with hands. (Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after doing this. The spices now on your hands will raise four-alarm fires if they come in contact with your face.) Cut tomato into 5 slices.

Make 5 patties from the meat mixture. Fry patties in pan at medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side or until sides begin to brown or juices from the patties run clear. Add a 1-ounce slice of pepper-jack cheese to each patties are fry for 1 minute more or until cheese starts to melt. Assemble the burgers with: buns, patty, tomato slice, and cabbage leaf.

TIDBITS

1) Kim Jong Un, the current leader of the communist monarchy that is North Korea is said by the country’s media to be “born of heaven.”

2) As proof of his divinity, or at least greatness, the country’s government point to the lair of a North Korean unicorn. Mind you this was not the home of your run-of-the mill unicorn. Oh no, this was the abode of the unicorn ridden by Tongmyong, the mythical founder of Korea. This discovery occurred in December, 2012. This site is the only existing unicorn site. It is feared that all other such sites failed to open when they realized how outclassed they were by North Korea’s.

3) Kim Jong Un’s dad, Kim Jong II, also ruled North Korea. He too was heaven sent. We can believe it as he bowled a perfect 300 in his first game and shot five holes-in-one on his first time golfing. When he died, North Korea’s sacred mountain, Paektu, glowed red, which is way cool.

4) The most popular restaurant in Pyongyang, the country’s capital, is the New Diplo with two reviews on TripAdvisorTM.. Unfortunately, it is only available to diplomats. Career change, 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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Vegetable Mafe From Senegal

Posted on November 2, 2013 by pauldelancey

Senegalese Entree

VEGETABLE MAFE

INGREDIENTSVegetableMafe-

1 small cooking pumpkin (1 cup)
1 medium onion
1 large tomato
1 turnip
2 brown potatoes
2 large carrots
1/4 head cabbage
1 cup fresh spinach
1/4 cup peanut oil
2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter

Makes 9 bowls. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut pumpkin shell into large pieces. Remove seeds and those gooey strings that go along with the seeds. Cut off edible pumpkin part from outer skin. Cut edible part of pumpkin into cubes no bigger than 1/2″. Mince onions. Dice tomatoes, turnips, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and spinach.

Add onion and peanut oil to pot. Sauté onion at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add pumpkin, tomato, turnip, potato, carrot, cabbage, and spinach to pot one at time, sautéing for 1 minute on medium-high heat as each new veggie is added. Stir frequently.

Add tomato sauce, water, black pepper, and cayenne pepper to pot. Simmer on low heat for 1 hour 15 minutes or until veggies are tender. Add peanut butter to pot. Simmer for 10 minutes on warm-to-low heat. Stir occasionally. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) Pumpkins are a fruit. Who knew? They have been grown for 7,000 years. The first were grown in Central America. I grew a pumpkin when I was a kid, way too late to be the first grower.

3) Linus, of the comic strip “Peanuts,” believed in the Great Pumpkin. The Great Pumpkin would arise out of the sincerest pumpkin batch in the land and distribute gifts to all good children. Clink on the following link to hear Linus explain the Great Pumpkin.

4) You can make a lot of other dishes out of pumpkins, such as pie, cupcakes, bread, scones, French toast, ice cream, waffles, soup, curry, cheesecake, pasta sauce, chowder, muffins, cannelloni, stuffed shells, roasted pumpkin seeds, casserole, cookies, and stuffed pasta shells.

– 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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SPAM Bento

Posted on October 18, 2013 by pauldelancey

Hawaiian Entree

SPAM BENTO

INGREDIENTSBentoBox-

2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup dandelion greens
1 Roma tomato
2/3 cup brown sugar
4 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup pineapple juice
4 teaspoons red wine
3 tablespoons cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 12 ounce can SPAM
4 pineapple rings
2 cups plain cooked rice

makes 2 bentos (a Japanese style lunchbox)

PREPARATION

Mince garlic clove. Snip stems off dandelion greens; cut each green leaf into four pieces. Slice tomato into thin slices.

Prepare the marinade. Put garlic, brown sugar, lemon juice, pineapple juice, red wine, soy sauce, water, and cornstarch in large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork until brown sugar dissolves and cornstarch blends in.

Slice SPAM into 4 thin rectangles;. add to marinade and let marinate for 60 minutes.

Place a skillet on medium heat; when hot, add SPAM and pineapple. Fry for 4 minutes on medium heat. Turn over SPAM and pineapple. Fry for another 4 minutes. Add marinade to SPAM and pineapple in skillet. Simmer for 8 minutes on low heat, stirring constantly.

Place half of the dandelion leaves in a small section of the bento. Put tomato in another small section. Place SPAM in one side of the large section and pineapple in the other side.

Serve with plain cooked rice. Wild dandelion leaves may be used in this. Fresh ingredients always taste better. It is not possible to get fresh SPAM.

Just look the recipe photo and wonder why bento boxes haven’t caught on everywhere.

TIDBITS

1) I entered this recipe in the International Bento Contest 2013. I was so proud to have participated.

2)I have tried to show with this bento dish how cooking fosters friendship between countries even when there has been conflict. American soldiers and seamen brought SPAM, canned spiced ham, with them as they fought in the Pacific from 1942 to 1953. Hawaiians and Koreans, in particular, learned to love this food and adopted it into their own cuisine.

3) I created SPAM bento to show how fun and enjoyable dishes can be when created with the humblest ingredients.

4) I presented this meal in honor of Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving Holiday, which was being celebrated at this time. Koreans celebrate by visiting family, paying respects to ancestors, and giving and receiving gift-wrapped cans of SPAM.

– 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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Greek Gyros

Posted on October 9, 2013 by pauldelancey

Greek Entree

GREEK GYROS

 INGREDIENTSGyro-

8 Pita breads or Flat beads
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey meat
1/2 tablespoon Prudhomme Poultry MagicTM spice
lettuce
Greek cucumber sauce or tzatziki sauce from previous chapter

PREPARATION

Mix poultry spice with turkey meat. Cook meat until browned. You may wish to taste at this point. If under spiced, add more. Heat four pita breads in microwave for a minute.

Put meat in pita. Add lettuce. Spoon a liberal–-if that is a dirty word for you, substitute a generous–-amount of cucumber sauce on top. Enjoy.

Dish works well with chicken noodle soup.

Did you have a Mr. Potato Head when you were a kid? Just asking.

TIDBITS

1) The best Greek restaurant during my grad school days at the University of Wisconsin was Zorba the Greek. They had these giant, about four-feet tall columns of lamb-beef cooking all the time. Juice dripped down the sides and they would carve off succulent strips for your gyro. If you have a huge grill like this and can find gigantic columns of Greek meat, go for it!

2) The Greeks decisively defeated the Persian invaders at the battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. This battle saved Western philosophy, sense of the individual, and its nascent democratic ideals. It is comforting to think that this very recipe gave the Greek hoplites the courage to rout forever the Persian spearmen.

3) Ancient Greeks enjoyed food to go.

– 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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Mayonnaise

Posted on October 6, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

MAYONNAISE

INGREDIENTSmayonnaise-

1 medium egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder

SPECIAL ITEM

blender

PREPARATION

Put egg and yolk of another egg in blend. Blend on mix setting for 30 seconds. With the blender still on mix, slowly add vegetable oil. Blend until mixture becomes thick and creamy. Add apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, salt, white pepper, and mustard powder. Blend for 2 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) People have been using vinegar for 10,000 years. One wonders what for? Couldn’t have been for Easter eggs. No Easter back then. No domesticated chickens either. Could prehistoric people have been following herds of wild chickens? Maybe this exciting thought was the inspiration for the wildly popular TV series, Rawhide. “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.”

2) And, of course, there is no archaeological–Woo hoo, spelled it right on the first try–evidence that primitive society produced apple cider vinegar, salt, white pepper, and mustard powder, all necessary for the making of mayonnaise.

3) It is not possible to make a proper Venezuelan hot dog without mayonnaise, which we have seen early hunter/gatherer societies did not have. This absence alone hindered the development on the modern Venezuelan nation state for nearly 10,000 years.

4) Pantyhose lasts longer when rinsed with diluted white vinegar. Did dawn-of-time women use pantyhose? What if they didn’t have vinegar? Visit the International Vinegar Museum in Roslyn, South Dakota and find out.

– 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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