Posts Tagged With: Africa

Corned Beef Cakes

Posted on November 12, 2021 by pauldelancey

Sierra Leonean Entree

CORNED BEEF CAKES

INGREDIENTS

1 pound potatoes or yams
1 teaspoon salt (1 teaspoon more later)
1 small onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon pepper
1 12-ounce can corned beef
1 egg (1 more egg later)
3 tablespoons milk
1½ cups bread crumbs
1 egg
6 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil (2 tablespoons per batch)

Makes 12 cakes. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into 4 pieces. Add potato pieces to large pot. Add 1 teaspoon salt and enough water to cover potato pieces. Bring water to boil using high heat. Boil for 15 minutes or until potato pieces are soft. While potato bits boil, dice onion. Remove pot from heat. Drain water. Mash potatoes with potato masher or fork. Add onion, 1 teaspoon salt, cayenne pepper, parsley, pepper, and corned beef. Mix with whisk until well blended.

Add 1 egg to small bowl. Beat with whisk or fork. Add milk. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add egg/milk mixture and corned beef/mashed potato mixture to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Make 12 patties.

Add bread crumbs to a 3rd bowl. Add 1 egg to a 4th bowl. Beat egg with whisk or fork. Add patty to bowl with egg. Coat both sides of patty with egg. Add egg-coated patty to bowl with bread crumbs. Dredge patty through bread crumbs until patty is completely covered. Repeat for remaining patties.

Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil to pan per batch. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Oil is hot enough when a breadcrumb added to the oil starts to dance. Carefully add 4 bread coated patties to the hot oil. Sauté patties for 1 minute using medium-high heat or until patties start to blacken on the bottom. Carefully flip patties over; they can be crumbly. Sauté for 1 minute more or until the new bottom side of the patties start to blacken. Remove patties from heat. Drain on paper towels. Repeat for remaining batches.

TIDBITS

1) The continents and other bits of land are constantly in motion.

2) Does this mean you’re going to get whiplash just by sitting in a chair watching TV in the den? Or will your television suddenly separate from the rest of the den and rapidly recede into the distance? And what about the giant chasm between you and the TV?

3) What if you are near sighted and suddenly your program “FriendsTM” is on a screen 100 yards away and you need to get your glasses and they are in your bedroom which is on the other side of a 100-yard-wide chasm and although you were a crackerjack long jumper in college and could leap 26 feet, you still know that your longest jump is still 274 feetshort of the width of the chasm and you are so distraught that you’ve just composed your longest run-on sentence ever?

4) What if you’re on the famous pier in Santa Monica and California’s entire coast falls separates from the rest of the continent and plunges into the ocean and you can’t help wondering if you had locked the front door or not?

5) What if you’re driving on a country road and all of a sudden the ground beneath you lurches forward so much so that you exceed the speed limit by 200 mph? A traffic cop pulls you over. You tell the officer, “The movement of the Earth’s crust made me go this fast”. The cop shakes his head. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

6) Well fret not, dear friend, the previous four tidbits are currently quite unlikely. The Earth’s plates currently move at a rate of about ¼” a year.

7) How long would it take for your television to move 100 feet away?

8) 400 years. The sitcom “Friends” would be over by then.

9) Let me further calm you down. Your TV and your chair are almost certainly on the same Earth plate. So now matter where your huge bit of the planet moves, you always be the same distance away from your show. You’ll not need to get your classes. Any 100-foot chasm. will be dozens of miles away.

10) So how do we know all this? How did the study of plate tectonics come about?

11) In 1946, Kadie Mansara of Makeni, Sierra Leone, served this entree, Corned Beef Cakes, for her little boy, Patrick. Now Patrick liked to play with his food. His three corned beef cakes were originally all next to each other. However, the little scamp moved the corned beef all over the plate until they were positioned as shown in the above photograph. Ma Kaide gazed at the new configuration

13) She had an epiphany. Great sections of the Earth must move in the same way. We don’t see the movement, but it happens. Slow continental movement would explain mountains, earthquakes, even why the west coast of Africa looks like the east coast of South America. Mrs. Mansaray would go on to found the prestigious Sierra Leone Plate Tectonics Institute. 40 years later she received a Nobel Prize for her ground-breaking research. Now you know.

 

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

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

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Tarte Flambee

Posted on November 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

French Entree

TARTE FLAMBEE

INGREDIENTS – DOUGH

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2 cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon sugar
½ tablespoon olive oil
½ cup warm water
3 tablespoons flour

INGREDIENTS – TOPPINGS

½ pound bacon
¼ pound Gruyère cheese
1 medium onion
¼ cup crême fraiche
¾ pound fromage blanc or cream cheese
⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

pizza stone or baking sheet
parchment paper
mandoline (optional)
sonic obliterator (Go get one)

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

Add pizza stone to center rack in oven. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Add 2 cups flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add oil and water. Knead by hand until well blended and dough forms.

Dust large flat surface with 3 tablespoons flour. Divide dough in half. Roll out dough half until you get a round pizza crust 10″ across. Put parchment paper on baking sheet. Put pizza crust on parchment paper. Repeat for the 2nd dough half.

PREPARATION – TOPPINGS

Dice bacon. Grate Gruyère cheese. Cut onion into slices ⅛” thick. Add crême fraiche, fromage blanc, nutmeg, pepper, and salt to 2nd mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Spread crême fraiche/fromage blanc mix evenly over pizza crusts. Leave a ½” border around the edges. Sprinkle bacon evenly over cheese mix. Sprinkle onion over bacon and crême fraiche. Sprinkle Gruyère cheese over everything.

Carefully, carefully (use oven mitts) slide pizza crusts and the parchment paper underneath them onto preheated pizza stone or baking sheets. Bake at 500 degrees until puffed, golden brown, and crispy. Serve immediately.

Zap unappreciative guests with sonic obliterator. You don’t need negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe uses a pizza stone.

2) The earliest human, Lucy of Olduvai Gorge, did not have a pizza stone. So, she did not make this recipe. If only she had had even a baking sheet. But she did not. No Tarte Flambee for Lucy.

3) Her friend Charlie Olduvai had a football his mom had made from the pelts of little animals. Lucy always promised to hold the pelt football while he ran up to kick it. But Lucy always pulled the pelt ball away at the last moment and Charlie would fall onto his back.

4) Charlie Olduvai grew tired of his mistreatment. So did his parents who never liked Lucy’s parents anyway. “They’ve ruined football for us until the twentieth century. Bah, the slackers will never make anything out of themselves.”

5) So the disgruntled Olduvais left. Many gorge dwellers followed the well-liked family. These first humans thought they’d only walk for a day or so before settling down beside a new stream near a nice plain filled with lots of juicy animals to eat.

6) Then George Gorge piped up and said he wanted a pizza. Now, the little group did carry all the ingredients for pizza for humanity has always hungered for pizza. So they looked for holes in cliffs that would double as a pizza oven. They found dozens of such ovens.

7) But no pizza stones or baking sheets So they marched on. The little walk turned into months, years, and even millennia. Thus, began humanity’s great migration out of Africa.

8) Then the early humans invented the wheel. Brilliant minds soon–thousands of years–made pizza stones. People could finally make pizza! Eat pizza! Huzzah!

9) The Stone Wheel clans appointed wisdom keepers to tell succeeding generations the way to make pizza stones. So for century upon century peoples could feast on mastodon pizza.

10) Then humans, too hungry for mastodon pizza toppings, killed off all the mastodons No other pizza toppings would do. Pizza fell out of favor. There was no long a need for pizza stones, no need to pass on the knowledge to make them. Humanity’s ascent stagnated for millennia.

11) Don’t let this happen again. Buy a baking sheet! Buy a pizza stone! Do it now!

 

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

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

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Braised Chicken From Ivory Coast

Posted on May 18, 2021 by pauldelancey

Ivorian (Ivory Coast) Entree

 

BRAISED CHICKEN

 

INGREDIENTS

1 bouillon cube, Maggi* vegetable, other vegetable, or chicken
2 teaspoons ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 chile peppers
3 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2¼ pounds boneless chicken breasts or thighs
3 tomatoes
1 medium onion

* = It’s almost impossible to overstate the prevalence of Maggi’s bouillon cubes in Africa.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
outdoor grill

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Crush bouillon cube. Add crushed bouillon cube, ginger, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Mince chile peppers and garlic cloves. Add minced chile pepper and garlic. Mix again with fork until well blended. Add lemon juice and vegetable oil. Mix again with fork until well blended. This is the marinade, Cut chicken into 3″ cubes. Add chicken to marinade. Toss chicken cubes until they are thoroughly coated with marinade. Let marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour. (Keep the marinade.)

While chicken marinates, use mandoline or knife to cut onion and tomatoes into ¼” slices. Cut slices in half. Preheat outdoor grill to 300 degrees. Add chicken cubes to grill. Turn chicken cubes every 3 minutes until no longer pink inside. Add equal amounts of chicken, onion and tomato to each plate. Drizzle with remaining marinade. Top with equal amounts of grilled chicken cubes.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe and many others tell you to cook something until its no longer pink inside. You can do this by cutting off a small bit and looking. Wouldn’t it be nicer to be able to use X-ray vision instead? Unfortunately, none of us possesses x-ray vision. But SupermanTM does. I’d bet Superman would be a great-steak house chef.

 

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

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

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Pudim de Coco (Coconut Pudding)

Posted on April 12, 2021 by pauldelancey

East Timorese

PUDIM DE COCO
(Coconut Pudding)

INGREDIENTS

1¾ cups sugar
5 eggs
2 cups coconut milk
2½ tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons coconut flakes (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

6-to-8 cups baking dish or casserole dish
9″ x 13″ casserole dish* (Must be longer and wider than baking dish)
sonic obliterator

Serves 6. Takes 1 hours 20 minutes plus 6 hours in refrigerator.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add sugar to pan. Melt sugar using low-medium heat until it begin to melt. Stir enough to keep sugar from burning and clumping. Reduce heat to low and continue warming sugar until it melts completely and turns a caramel brown. Stir constantly. Remove immediately from heat. (Don’t let it solidify.) Pour this caramelized sugar right away into baking dish. Smooth it with spatula.

Add eggs to mixing bowl. Blend eggs thoroughly with whisk. Add coconut milk and cornstarch. Mix with whisk until this custard becomes smooth. Ladle mixture over caramelized sugar. Put baking dish into casserole dish. Add hot water until it is 1″ high in the casserole dish. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of pudding comes out clean.

Loosen pudding by sliding spatula around the edges and, as far as possible, the bottom. Put plate on top of casserole dish. Carefully turn casserole dish and plate upside down. Tap casserole dish with knife. Say a brief prayer. Lift casserole dish. Pudding should come out cleanly onto plate. Spoon liquid caramel on plate onto the caramel already on top of pudding.

Let sit in refrigerator for 6 hours or overnight. If desired, garnish with coconut flakes. Serve to adoring guests. Use sonic obliterator on any guest who gives you guff in any way. You cannot afford to let any threat or insult to your authority as chef go unchallenged.

TIDBITS

1) Many of you would look at the picture for this recipe and declare, “Why someone has hungry. That person was too tempted by the dessert to wait for the chef to take a photo for the cookbook.” And you would be right.

2) Many others. gazing at the photo would say, “Why it looks like a tiny square was taken from a larger square. If only high school geometry had been as tasty.” And you too would be right.

3) But these reasons are not the reason this picture touches your soul so deeply, why it speaks so strongly to your innermost self, why you feel the spirits of generations after generations of primitive ancestors dating back to Olduvai George whispering in your inner ear.

4) Go back into the distant mists of time when Lucy of Olduvai Gorge, your great, great, great, great, . . ., really, really great grandmother saw dust sweeping down, down the gorge to her.

5) Then Lucy heard thundering getting ever closer.

6) She, of course, saw the dust before she heard the accompanying thunder. For light travels at 3 * 10^8 meters per second and sound at 3 * 10^3 meters per second.

7) It is doubtful that Lucy fully grasped the concept of relative velocities. Culinary scientists even discount the notion that Lucy even knew about scientific notion. It is certain, though, that either she never developed the Theory of Relativity or if she had, that she never published it.

8) Oh my gosh, while I speculated about Lucy’s scientific achievements, the dust-shrouded herd got really close. Run, Lucy, run!

9) But the soul of a lion beat in Lucy’s heart. She picked up a stone and hurled it at middle of the dusty cloud. (This is, by the way, the real genesis of the sport of baseball. Now you know.)

10) A creature in the herd shrieked in pain. The thundering stopped. The dust settled. Thousands upon thousands of panting coconut puddings became gradually clearer. “What are they?” wondered Lucy. She gazed at the dead coconut pudding. “Is it edible? I hope so. I’m ever so hungry. And all I ever get to eat are thistlewort berries. I shall eat this meat.”

12) She tore a remarkably square section out of the dead, square coco pudding and ate. She looked at what remained. The photo for this recipe bears an uncanny resemblance to what Lucy saw those millions of years ago.

13) “It tastes great,” shouted Lucy. Her tribe raced toward her. “Eat these squares, eat them. They’re ever so yummy.” And they did. They felt full for the first time ever. Even though they couldn’t articulate the concept, they just knew they had ingested sufficient caloric intake to leave the gorge, leave Africa, and spread humanity all over the Earth. It was the dawning of the Age of Humanity.

14) Unfortunately, the first humans fed themselves almost completely on herds of coco puddings, so much so that coco puddings became extinct. But the hankering for coco pudding never went away. It just went dormant for eons until the Age of Discovery started in the fourteenth century. Fueled by the need for a vegetarian version of coco pudding, European monarchs starting with Henry the Navigator dispatched fleet after fleet in search of sugar, coconut milk, and coconut flakes. They’d eventually find these ingredients. Humanity would once again live in a culinary golden age.

15) Oh, and in doing, we’d chart the entire world. And we owe it all to brave Little Lucy.

– 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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Zanzibar Pizza

Posted on July 2, 2019 by pauldelancey

Tanzanian Appetizer

ZANZIBAR PIZZA

INGREDIENTS – DOUGH

3 cups flour (2 tablespoons more later)
½ teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)
1 cup water
⅔ cup vegetable oil (2½ tablespoons more later)

INGREDIENTS – FILLING & ASSEMBLY

2 green or red chiles
2 garlic cloves
1 red onion
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil (1 tablespoon more later)
¾ pound ground beef
½ teaspoon curry powder
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
¾ cup shredded cabbage
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
chutney or tomato sauce as desired

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker (optional)
no-stick pan

Serves 8. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

If USING BREAD MAKER, add 3 cups flour, water, and ½ teaspoon salt to bread maker. Set bread maker to “dough” setting for 10 minutes. (IF KNEADING BY HAND, add 3 cups flour and ½ teaspoon salt to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Add water and knead by hand for 10 minutes or until dough is smooth.) Divide dough into 6 balls. Add dough balls to shallow bowl. Drizzle ⅔ cup oil over dough balls. Turn dough balls until they are thoroughly coated with oil. Cover and let sit for 1½ hours.

PREPARATION – FILLING AND ASSEMBLY.

While dough sits, mince chiles, garlic cloves, and red onion. Add chile, garlic, red onion, and 1½ tablespoons vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until red onion softens. Stir frequently. Add beef, curry powder, pepper, and salt. Fry at medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until beef browns. Remove from heat.

Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Flatten dough ball until you have 8 8″-dough circles. Push in edges of dough circles to make a wall high enough to prevent egg from running out. Add beef mixture equally to center of dough circles. Top beef mixtures equally with shredded cabbage. Add raw eggs equally over shredded cabbage.

Fold top and bottom of dough circles to the center. Then fold left and right sides to the center. These are the pizzas. Pinch sides as necessary to keep egg from seeping out. Add 1 tablespoon oil to large no-stick pan. Add as many pizzas as possible without having them touch each other. Cook on medium for 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Flip once. You might need to cook in batches. (Cooking times tend to go down with successive batches.)

Serve with chutney or tomato sauce.

TIDBITS

1) IEC, Intertemporal Enforcement Commission, is powerful. Frighteningly so. Consider the following salutary tale.

2) Around 260 AD, a Roman expeditionary discovered the island of Flutoj off the east coast of Africa. The merchants in the force waxed rapturously–I spelled it correctly on the first try; beams with pride–over the abundance of spices found on the island. Why not conquer it for Rome? It’ll be easy they said. And it was. Centurion Pomodoro won the island in a game of rock, paper, scissors.

3) The Romans named it Zanzibar after their Emperor Zanzi who loved to frequent wine bars. Within two days of the renaming of the island to Zanzibar, the British company, MarsTM, filed a trademark infringement complaint with the Intertemporal Enforcement Commission. Mars–the candy maker, not the Roman god–claimed Zanzibar was a rip off of Mars BarTM. Mars asseted that the Romans, renowned engineers, had clearly used a time machine, visited a twentieth-century candy store, saw Mars Bars on sale, made minimal changes to the name when coming up with Zanzibar.

4) How did the news of the renaming of the island to Zanzibar get back to Rome so quickly at a time of communication was limited to the speed of horses and oar-driven ships? Time machines, as well know the Intertemporal Enforcement Commission has time machines.

5) IEC ruled against Emperor Zanzibar and held a contest, So You Want to Be an Emperor? General Courgette did well on this and won the right to overthow the Emperor. And indeed, the plucky Courgette prevailed after a brief civil war marked with great slaughter.

6) This civil war proved so popular with the Roman armies that these conflicts became a weekly event. Courgette’s reign, in fact, was so brief that only culinary historians remember hir.

7)Anyway, these wars so depopulated the Roman Empire that it so fell to barbarian armies. The Dark Ages descended on Europe. People became so poor that they would have no money to spend on candy bars. People wouldn’t buy candy bars until 1932 when the Mars company made it. IEC realized it’s overreach and disbanded in 1998. We’ve fought no wars over candy ever since. Yay.

– 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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Gambian Domoda (Peanut Stew)

Posted on July 26, 2018 by pauldelancey

Gambian Entree

DOMODA
(Peanut Stew)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
1½ pounds chicken breasts or beef
2 green chiles
1 large onion
¾ pound pumpkin, sweet potato, or butternut squash
3 Roma tomatoes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cups vegetable stock*
1¼ cups smooth peanut butter
3 tablespoons tomato paste
¼ teaspoon pepper

* = To be authentic, try to use MaggiTM bouillon cubes. Maggi is ubiquitous in Africa.

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Seed chiles. (Or leave them in if you wish a spicier stew.) Dice chiles, onion, pumpkin, and tomatoes.

Add chile, onion, and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken cubes. Cook at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Stir frequently. Add diced tomato and vegetable stock. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add peanut butter, pumpkin, tomato paste and pepper. Stir occasionally. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 40 minutes or until pumpkin is tender. Stir just enough to prevent burning. Serve over rice.

TIDBITS

1) Baby cows say, “moo.” They also have dads. So, you might imagine that little cows would also say, “Moo, Dad.” And you would be right.

2) But only for the cows being raised in Roswell, New Mexico. These are super-intelligent, alien cows. Their spaceship crashed there in 1947. As the US military always takes a keen interest in brilliant bovines, a deal was soon made. In return for regular milking–Cows cannot milk themselves no matter how intelligent they might be–the alien cows showed us how to completely and forever thwart nuclear attack. Something to be grateful for when you pour milk on your morning cereal.

Chef Paul

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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Beninese Peanut Sauce

Posted on December 12, 2016 by pauldelancey

Beninese Appetizer

PEANUT SAUCE

INGREDIENTSpeanutsauce

1 small tomato
1 small onion
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1½ tablespoons chili powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cube MaggiTM beef bouillon*
1 cup water
10 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

* = While other boullion cubes work fine, Maggi’s are incredibly popular in Africa.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

Makes 1½ cups. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Puree tomato in blender. Mince onion. Add onion and peanut oil to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add tomato puree, chili powder, and salt. Reduce heat to low and sauté for 3 minutes. Stir frequently.

Crush boullion cube. (This makes it dissolve quicker.) Add bouillon and water. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Add peanut butter. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 15 minutes or until sauces thickens to your liking. Stir frequently. This is served in Benin with boiled yam. It also goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) Peanut Sauce is, of course, an anagram for Tuna Ape Cues. Queen Mary I hated the theater, thinking it immoral. She tried fervently to ban it altogether, but succeeded only in driving theater going underground. People attended ribald plays in people’s attics where such animalistic passions such as hand holding and improv comedy took place. Mary I could not abide this licentiousness, so she imposed hateful regulations, such as having all roles played by gorillas holding tuna.

2) It’s important to realize that Joe Ape’s vocabulary was, and still is, quite limited, making line memorization challenging. And as with humans, line retention goes down while holding tuna. So, stage hands constantly cued the tuna holding apes. Hence, “Tuna Ape Cues.” The next queen, Elizabeth permitted human actors. To honor his new patron, Shakespeare, playwright, chef, and anagrammatist, turned Tuna Apes Cues into Peanut Sauce. His peanut sauce was tasty. What luck!

 

– 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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Qurotob (Bread salad from Tajikistan)

Posted on October 30, 2016 by pauldelancey

Tajik Entree

QUROTOB
(Bread Salad)

INGREDIENTS – SALADquorotub

2 pita loaves
1½ tablespoons olive oil (1½ more tablespoons later)
1 onion
2 green onions
1½ tablespoons olive oil
2 cups Greek yogurt
½ cup hot water
1 teaspoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
½ cucumber
4 tomatoes
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
8 non breads (See above recipe) or other flatbreads such as fatir or pita

SPECIAL UTENSILS

cookie sheet
large serving plate

Serves 8. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, Brush pita loaves with 1½ tablespoons olive oil. Break loaves into small bits. Place pita bits on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-to-20 minutes or until pita bits turn golden brown.

While pita bits bake, dice onion and green onions. Add 1½ tablespoons olive oil, onion, and green onion to pan. Sauté at medium high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and green onion soften. Add Greek yogurt, hot water, lemon juice, coriander, dill, salt, and sugar to large mixing bowl. Whisk until well blended. Seed cucumber. Dice cucumber, tomatoes, cilantro, and parsley.

Add toasted pita bits to large serving plate. Pour yogurt mixture over pita bits. Top with sautéd onion and green onion, cucumber, and tomato. Garnish with cilantro and parsley. Guests use their non bread to scoop up the yogurty, veggie, bread salad from the communal serving plate.

TIDBITS

1) How did this wonderful entree come about? Here is the time line.

2) 4,500 million years ago (mya): First single-celled organisms come into existence. So does the first spam e-mail involving Nigerian dictators and their money.

3) 4,000 mya: A woman named Sally shows up at the DMV without an appointment.

4) 3,500 mya: Earliest oxygen molecule. It’s name was Bob. There were no last names that long ago.

5) 2,500 mya: Oxygen crisis. Oxygen has mid-life jitters.

6) 1,200 mya: Earliest sexual reproduction. Single-cell dating sites occur. First pickup lines invented.

7) 800 mya: Multi-cellular organisms hit the world scene. Sally’s still in line.

8) 440 mya: 86% of all species are exterminated. First known appearance of DaleksTM.

9) 350 mya: Sharks with rows of nasty, pointy teeth show up. Dun-dun, dun-dun.

10) 275 mya: Theraspid synaspids branch off from pelycosaur synapsids; no idea what this means.

11) 225 mya: The world’s first dinosaurs come from out of nowhere. They aren’t met with thunderous applause;. no life forms have hands.

12) 220 mya: Gymosperm forests dominate land life. This is not as dirty as it sounds.

13) 219 mya: It takes life 1 millions years to spot the first typo. The correct spelling is gymnosperm.

14) 160 mya: Mammals show up. Life is great until …

15) 155 mya: Mosquitoes do also.

16) 65 mya: Dinosaurs get wiped out by gigantic meteor. Mammals begin their ascent to global supremacy. Did mammals engineer this event? Who knows? They leave no written record.

17) 63 mya: Creodonts, not to be confused with orthodontists, spontaneously appear.

18) 52 mya: First bats show up.

19) 51 mya: First balls appear.

20) 50 mya: Baseball becomes popular when organisms finally agree on rules.

21) 250 thousand years ago: Humans pop up in Eastern Africa.

22) 300 years ago. Human chefs create qurotob, bread salad. Sally gets her license. Life is good.

– 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, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Gabonese Fried Bananas

Posted on May 2, 2015 by pauldelancey

Gabonese Dessert

FRIED BANANAS

INGREDIENTSFriedBananas-

8 ripe bananas
1 egg
2 tablespoons orange juice
¾ cup bread crumbs
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup sour cream

SPECIAL UTENSIL

cookie sheet
no-stick spray

Makes 8 plates. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel bananas and cut them in half along their length. Add egg and orange to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk. Coat banana halves in egg/orange juice mix. Roll coated banana halves in bread crumbs until they are completely covered.

Add vegetable oil and crumb-covered 5 or 6 banana halves to pan. Sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Turn twice to ensure even browning. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Place sautéed banana halves on cookie sheet. Repeat for two more batches. Bake banana halves at 350 degrees for 5 minutes.

Put 2 baked banana halves on each plate. Top each banana half with 1 tablespoon sour cream and ½ tablespoon brown sugar.

TIDBITS

1) According to essentials facts about Gabon, the lowest points in the country are zero meters above sea level. Many people call these low points, beaches.

2) Eighty percent of all gorillas in Africa reside in Gabon, which is an anagram for No Bag,

3) Most caves in Gabon are unexplored, quite possibly because angry gorillas might be hiding in them. Why are the beasts so angry? Because, again according to essential Gabonese facts, the country is always hot and humid.

5) Heat suffering gorillas should take up zero-altitude surfing. Where would an 800-pound gorilla surf? Anywhere it wants. But then we could explore more caves. So, it’s all good.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fish with Peppers and Coconut Milk

Posted on July 15, 2013 by pauldelancey

Brazilian Entree

FISH WITH PEPPERS AND COCONUT MILK

INGREDIENTSCoconut_Milk-

1 red chile
1 red bell pepper
1 garlic clove
2 Roma tomatoes
1/2 onion (1/2 more later)
2 cod fillets (about 12 ounces total, or halibut or haddock)
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon cilantro
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons palm oil or vegetable oil (1 tablespoon more later)

1/2 tablespoon palm oil or vegetable oil
1/2 onion
1 cup cassava flour or all-purpose flour or toasted bread crumbs.

The camera was in Chicago when I made this dish so I couldn’t take a picture of it. Please enjoy the above picture.

PREPARATION

Seed and dice red chile and red bell pepper. Mince garlic clove. Dice tomatoes and 1/2 onion. Put cod in large mixing bowl. Pour enough water in bowl to cover cod. Add lime juice. Let sit for 30 minutes. Remove cod fillets. Pat them dry with towel. Put cod in skillet. Add red bell pepper, garlic, tomato, chili powder, cilantro, sea salt, and coconut milk. Let sit for 15 minutes.

Cook fish/spice/coconut mix on high heat until it begins to boil. Simmer at low heat with lid on for 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons palm oil. Simmer with lid on for 10 additional minutes.

While fish/spice/coconut mix simmers, thinly slice 1/2 onion. Sauté sliced onion second skillet with 1 tablespoon palm oil on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion is soft. Add cassava flour and cook on medium-high heat for 2 minutes or until flour is lightly toasted.

Serve fish/spice/coconut mix on top of sliced onions and toasted cassava flour.

TIDBITS

1) Over half of the world’s cassava production occurs in Africa.

2) Where does the other 40 percent plus come from?

3) I think we can rule out Antarctica as a major source of cassava.

4) Unless, of course, the scientists in Antarctica, have vast hydroponic farms devoted to growing cassava.

5) Wouldn’t it be neat if there were a movie called Hydroponic Cassava Farming in Antarctica. I’d see it. After all, I saw Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

6) Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was One World, One Movie’s choice for it’s 2013 movie. People all over the world watched this movie on the same day to promote world peace and have fun. Please feel free to visit the event site at: https://www.facebook.com/events/384691621637151/.

7) If he were still alive John Cassavetes would have been a natural for Hydroponic Cassava Farming in Antarctica. The accomplished actor starred in The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary’s Baby.

8) Rosemary is an herb with many beneficial properties. However, some types of cassava possess cyanide compounds. These varieties must be cooked thoroughly to avoid lethal cyanide poisoning which is generally considered ban especially by law enforcement.

9) But this would make for a really cool murder mystery. After all, who wouldn’t go see the movie, The Hydroponic Cassava Murders?

– 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, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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