Posts Tagged With: appetizer

Shrimp Tempura

Posted on August 27, 2016 by pauldelancey

Japanese Appetizer

SHRIMP TEMPURA

INGREDIENTSShrimpTempura-

2½ cups vegetable oil (or enough to cover shrimp)
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
1 cup ice-cold water
1 pound shrimp, 21-30 count, peeled, deveined, with tails left on*

* = Don’t worry if you removed the tails. This dish will taste as good. You’ll need forks; it will be hot.

SPECIAL UTENSILS                                                                         Oops, I removed the tails. I was distracted

deep fryer or electric skillet                                                                        by earthquakes and T-Rexes.
Bushnell 303 Hand Held Time MachineTM.

Serves 6. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add oil to deep fryer. (Make sure there is enough to cover shrimp.) Preheat oil to 375 degrees. While oil heats, add flour, baking powder, cornstarch, and salt to large mixing bowl. Beat egg yolk in small bowl with whisk. Add beaten egg yolk and ice-cold water to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until combined mixture turns to batter and is still slightly lumpy. Dredge shrimp though batter until completely coated. Don’t batter shrimp tails.

Add shrimp to deep fryer. Don’t let the shrimp touch each other. Fry shrimp at 375 degrees for 1½-to-2 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Repeat for successive batches.

TIDBITS

1) So many recipes tell you to preheat. What if you don’t have time to preheat? What if your sweetie is coming over? What if you see monstrous, rolling earthquakes just outside your window and you had wanted to make something special for him on his birthday, probably the last one by the looks of it? Simply use your Bushnell 303 Hand Held Time MachineTM to travel back in time and preheat your oven. How far back? As far as the Cretaceous Period if you like**.

2) ** = Be sure to look out for carnivorous dinosaurs. Also, hold onto your oven when you time travel. Otherwise, it won’t go with you and you’ll will have risked by eaten by a T-Rex for nothing. And then, won’t you feel foolish? Oh, and your electric bill will be high.

– 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 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Fried Green Tomatoes

Posted on August 21, 2016 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
With Dipping Sauce

INGREDIENTS – DIPPING SAUCEFriedGreenTomatoesCornmeal-

2 stalks green onions
⅔ cup Dijon mustard
½ cup mayonnaise
⅓ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon white pepper

INGREDIENTS – TOMATOES

4 large or 2 pounds green tomatoes*
½ tablespoon salt (1 teaspoon more later)
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
¾ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
up to 2 cups vegetable oil

* = WARNING. This really is a lot of work if you’re using many tiny green tomatoes. If it takes more than 8 green tomatoes to make 2 pounds, consider cutting the amount of ingredients in half. Certainly, you’ll only get to eat only 1 pound of tomatoes this way, while people living in the land of big tomatoes get 2 pounds. However, you won’t be muttering to yourself and looking in the garage for an axe. Alternatively, move to the land of the big tomatoes. Oh, and leave your axe behind.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric skillet
3 mixing bowls

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes depending on the size of the tomatoes. Bigger tomatoes take less time. They really do.

PREPARATION – DIPPING SAUCE

Mince green onions. Add dipping sauce ingredients to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Cover and chill until tomatoes are deep fried.

PREPARATION – TOMATOES

Cut tomatoes into ¼” slices. Pat tomato slices dry with paper towel. Put slices on wire racks over plates. Sprinkle slices evenly with ½ tablespoon salt. Let sit for 30 minutes to draw out water.

While tomato slices sit, add cornmeal, flour, pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt to large, second mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Divide this cornmeal/flour mixture onto 3 plates. (This will keep the cornmeal/from clumping up from the moisture of buttermilk laden tomato slice.) Add buttermilk to third mixing bowl. Dip tomatoes slices in buttermilk. Dredge buttermilk-covered slices one at time through cornmeal/flour mixture until they are well coated.

Set skillet to 375 degrees. Add enough oil to coat tomato slices to skillet. Oil will be hot enough when a tiny bit of flour added to skillet will dance in the oil. Add as many tomato slices as possible to skillet without them touching each other. Fry 3 minutes on each side or until they turn golden brown. (Cooking time tends to go down a little with each successive batch.) Additional batches might be necessary. Drain on paper towels. Serve with dipping sauce.

TIDBITS

1) Tomatoes can be cut with a regular knife. But not with any uniformity. Sure, you’ll get the occasional .25″ thick slice, but more often than not you’ll get slices with widths of .28″ or even .35″. However if your neighbors know that your make half-inch wide slices, you will be shunned.

2) In cases like these, it’s best to bolt all the doors and pull down all the shades until you have gotten rid of your deformed tomato slabs. Thieves know that houses with drawn shades and bolted doors mean that desperate knife-wielding, tomato-disposing folks are at a home and leave them at home. So when you leave the homestead, bolt your doors and draw their shades. Thieves won’t know if you’ve stepped out or are destroying culinary crimes. They won’t take the chance.

3) So don’t slice tomatoes with a knife. Then with what? A mandoline. This kitchen device makes uniform tomato slices. Now you can raise your shades and go out into your anal retentive, tomato-loving neighborhood. Be accepted, even.

4) How did the mandoline get started? Renaissance mandolin players loved sliced tomatoes. But the knives way back were even less precise than the ones we use today. Thick-tomato-slice shame ran rampant. Frustrated mandoliners took to smashing their tomatoes with their mandolins. This is how pasta sauce got invented. This is how spaghetti with marinara sauce came about. This is how Italy became the culinary capital in the world.

5) Folk music became popular in America during the 19th century. Folk guitarists took over the role of pasta-sauce makers. However, wooden acoustic guitars were amazing fragile. Just a few tomato smashings would break them. So, the pasta-sauce industry invented the sturdy electric guitar. Those things could smash tomatoes forever.

6) In 1968, a word-changing event occurred. The band Iron Butterfly released the song “In a Gadda Da Vida.” It was great. It was immensely popular. Rock bands started earning big bucks playing music of all things.

7) Rich electric guitarists gave up making pasta sauce. Italian restaurants all over the world were in danger on closing. But they didn’t, Mandy Linne, lead singer for Beefsteak had a drug-induced vision. “Why not insert a blade into a fixed surface, couple that with an adjustable upper surface, slide the tomato along the adjustable surface until it meets the blade resulting in uniform slices?” Mandy L. passed out. Her idea did not. We are living in a golden age of uniformly sliced tomatoes.

– 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 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Shrimp Ceviche

Posted on August 4, 2016 by pauldelancey

Ecuadorian Appetizer

SHRIMP CEVICHE

INGREDIENTSCeviche-

8 limes or ¼ cup fresh lime juice
3 oranges or 1 cup fresh orange juice
1 large red onion
3 tomatoes
2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ cup fresh cilantro
⅓ cup ketchup
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Squeeze limes and oranges to get juices. Cut red onion into long, thin strips. Dice cilantro and tomato. Add enough water to cover shrimp to pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add shrimp to pot. Boil until shrimp turns slightly pink, about 2-to-3 minutes. Do not overcook, letting it turn completely red, as it will make the shrimp mushy. Remove shrimp with slotted spoon and let cool. Add lime juice, orange juice, red onion, cilantro, tomato, ketchup, pepper, salt, and vegetable oil to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add shrimp once it has cooled. Mix with hands until shrimp is well coated. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

TIDBITS

1) Shrimp ceviche is reddish-pink and tasty. Many Vikings had reddish hair and loved good tasting food. However, Vikings ate oatmeal all the time, bowl after bowl. This drove the Norsemen crazy. They started cheating at checkers and saying, “Sez you” to everyone they met.

3) The Viking women took to cooking lutefisk. the foulest smelling, most evil dish ever rather than cook another yet bowl of oatmeal. Some wives had even thrown themselves into fjords instead of doing that. Fortunately, lutefisk’s horrible smell drove the menfolk to raid foreign lands for tasty food and even gold, sometimes. The women stayed at home and played Runeble, basically ScrabbleTM with runes, and ordered Chinese takeaway.

4) In 1284, Bjorni Thorvald, discovered Ecuador, while looking for a Pokemon GoTM character. This news electrified all Scandinavia. Whole clans of blood-thirsty Vikings moved to Ecuador. This is why there are so many blue-eyed redheads there.

5) Thus, the Viking raids stopped. Relieved Europeans came out of hiding to build the Renaissance.

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

Simple Jordanian Hummus

Posted on May 6, 2016 by pauldelancey

Jordanian Appetizer

SIMPLE HUMMUS

INGREDIENTSHummus-

2 cans chick peas (keep liquid)
2 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
¾ cup tahini
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

Makes 5 cups. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to blender. Blend on medium setting until smooth. If your hummus is watery, add tahini. If it is too thick, add water and olive oil. This is a forgiving recipe. You can add more of each ingredient until the hummus is the way you like it. Hummus goes well with pita bread.

TIDBITS

1) It’s more authentic to smash up the chick peas with a mortar and pestle. If guests complain about you using a blender, point to the title of this dish, “Simple Hummus.” Suppose your guests also say, “You shouldn’t use canned chick peas. You need to boil dried chick peas.” Warn them. Right away. “I am the cook. You are in my kitchen.” This proclamation invokes culinary law which is superior to civil law. (See Courgette v Rhode Island.) This decision empowers you to mete out any punishment necessary to restore order in all rooms in the house dealing with food.)

2) Your death defying quests might continue with, “Why didn’t you make your own tahini?” You know have three choices.

3) One. Back down. Please don’t this. The prestige of the entire culinary community world will suffer irreparable damage. Customers will charge into a restaurant’s kitchen armed with the steak knives found on their table every time their rib eyes aren’t done to their liking.

4) Two. Force them out of your house with an electric cattle prod. This is a safe, respectable, middle-ground response.

5) Three. Zap the clods into oblivion with your sonic obliterator, an essential item in any serious kitchen. A strong response to be sure, but these unruly guests will never again bother any chef. 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.

 

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spanakopita

Posted on April 18, 2016 by pauldelancey

Greek Appetizer

SPANAKOPITA

INGREDIENTSSpanakopita-

8 green onions
2 medium brown onions
2 pounds fresh spinach
½ cup butter (½ cup more later)
½ cup olive oil
3 eggs
1 pound feta cheese
2½ tablespoons dill
¼ teaspoon salt
2½ tablespoons lemon juice
½ cup butter
1 pound phyllo pastry sheets

SPECIAL UTENSILS

9″ x 12″ casserole dish (You’ll need to trim the phyllo sheets if they’re larger than the casserole dish.)
sonic obliterator.

Makes 24 triangular spanakopitas. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dice green onions and brown onions. Remove stems from spinach. Add ½ cup butter, olive oil, green onions, and brown onions to pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes or until onions soften. Stir occasionally. Add spinach. Sauté at medium heat for 10 minutes or until spinach is completely soft and liquid is nearly gone. Stir frequently. Remove from heat and let cool

While spinach mixture cools, add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat eggs until well blended. Add eggs, feta cheese, dill, salt, and lemon juice. Whisk thoroughly. Add sautéed spinach to bowl. Blend thoroughly with fork. Add ½ cup butter to small pot. Melt butter using low-medium heat. Stir frequently. Remove from heat.

Carefully lay out a phyllo sheet in casserole dish . Gently brush melted butter onto phyllo sheet. Repeat until half of the phyllo sheets are in the casserole dish. Gently spread spinach mixture onto top phyllo sheet. Carefully–yes carefully and gently are definitely les mots juste for this dish–lay on phyllo sheet onto spinach mixture. Gently brush phyllo with butter. Place another phyllo sheet in the casserole dish. Gently brush sheet with butter. Repeat until all the phyllo sheets are gone.

Bake at 350 for 30-to-40 minutes or until top layer of casserole is golden brown. Cut casserole into 12 3″-wide squares. Cut each square along a diagonal to make two triangles. Serve to appreciative, remaining guests.

TIDBITS

1) It takes a lot of care to make spanakopita. Those phyllo sheets can tear apart faster than a politician’s campaign promises. Or you rip the sheets while brushing them with melted butter. You’re already fit to explode faster than a land mine. Then some oaf makes a comment like, “I don’t like these thingies. They taste too spinachy.” What is the proper response for the gauchery?

2) Eliminate the miscreant. You don’t need that negativity.

3) But how?

4) My favorite weapon of choice is the sonic obliterator. The serious home chef simply cannot afford to be without this implement. Not only does it dispatch crabby diners to the nether world, but as the name suggests, it obliterates all evidence of the evil eater. Law enforcement rarely pursues murder charges when it cannot find the body.

5) Sadly, most supermarkets and department stores do not carry sonic obliterators. You have to buy them on-line. The best sale prices tend to occur on Black Friday, the week before Christmas, and just before Valentine’s Day.

6) Culinary statisticians have also found a high correlation between forgotten birthdays and anniversaries; so remember your sweatheart’s important days.

7) May I suggest a personalized plate? If your loved’s birthday is June 12 and you got married on November 19 get a license plate with, “J12N19″ on it.

8) You could also tattoo the same sequence of letters and numbers on your forearm. However, you really should make sure your wedding is rock solid. Because your next sweatheart will surely want you to remove the old flame’s important days from your arm. This is painful, more painful than the original tattoo. Then you’ll need to re-ink your skin with your new boo’s dates. Which is painful.

9) Heavens to Betsy, if your subsequent relationships goes south and your find a third, fourth, or fifth love, you will be in a world of constant pain. Loves hurts, but tattoo removals hurt even more. Monogamy does have its advantages.

10) Don’t write sweatheart in a love note.. The correct spelling is sweetheart. Calling your soul mates “sweatheart” might get in trouble, especially if they are stay-at-home chefs and possess a sonic obliterator. Having multiple soul mates can also get you zapped into nothingness.

11) As you can see, life is fraught with perils. You might get obliterated for dissing someone’s spanakopitas You could get annihilated for misspelling a term of endearment. This is why it is so important to follow proper etiquette. This is why your grammar-school teachers drilled your constantly in correct spelling.

12) Be kind. Be careful. Stay alive.

– 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

Mozzarella En Carrozza

Posted on November 29, 2015 by pauldelancey

Italian Appetizer

MOZZARELLA EN CARROZZA

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE*MozzellaEnCarrozza-

½ cup butter
3 anchovy fillets or ½ tablespoon anchovy paste or .3 ounces nori (seaweed)
2 tablespoons drained capers
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons parsley

* = Use marinara sauce instead, if you find both anchovies and seaweed to be icky.

INGREDIENTS – SANDWICH

12 slices ¼”-thick white Italian bread
1 pound mozzarella cheese
1 cup flour
½ cup milk
¾ cup fine bread crumbs
6 tablespoons olive oil
4 eggs

SPECIAL UTENSIL

parchment paper

Makes 12 little sandwiches. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

Add butter to small pot. Melt butter using medium heat. Do not let it bubble. Stir frequently. Add anchovies, capers, lemon juice, and parsley. Stir until well blended. Turn off heat and cover.

PREPARATION – SANDWICH

Trim edges off bread slices so that you 5″ squares. Cut mozzarella into 6 equally thick slices. Slices should be square with 3″ edges. Put mozzarella squares on half of the bread squares. Put remaining bread slices on top of mozzarella squares.

Add flour to mixing bowl. Thoroughly coat sandwiches with flour. Add bread crumbs to plate. Add milk to a bowl. Briefly dip both sides of sandwich in milk. Seal cheese in sandwich by pressing the bread edges together. Dredge sandwich through bread crumbs until well coated. Place sandwiches on parchment-lined plate. (This prevents sandwich from sticking to plate.) Repeat for the remaining 5 sandwiches. Chill sandwiches in refrigerator for 40 minutes.

Beat eggs in mixing bowl until well blended. Briefly dip sandwiches into blended eggs. Add oil to frying pan. Heat oil at medium heat until it sizzles when a few bread crumbs are put in it. Put as many sandwiches as will fit in the frying pan. Sauté sandwiches at medium heat for 2-to-3 minutes on each side or until coated bread turns golden brown. (Sauté times tend to shorter a bit for each successive batch of sandwiches.) Repeat until all sandwiches are sautéeed. Drain sandwiches on paper towels. Cut sandwiches in two along the diagonal. Why the diagonal? I don’t know.

Serve immediately with sauce on the side.

TIDBITS

1) Pythagoras, the ancient Greek chef, loved to make grilled cheese sandwiches.

2) As who does not?

3) But Pythagoras made really, really good grilled cheeses. Philosophers from all over the Hellenic world flocked to his restaurant, Το Ψητό Τυρί.

4) The philosophic debates were of the highest order. Concepts such as: democracy, equal rights, rule of law, and cheese making got bandied about. Indeed, these debates made Greece the envy of the ancient Mediterranean world.

5) So much so that in the 2nd century B.C. Rome subjugated Greece for its grilled cheese sandwiches and democratic principles. For a long time, culinary historians remained divided on this conquests. Some held subjugating a people for democratic principles is an oxymoron like customer service or a working printers. Others averred that conquest is always a good thing as it facilitates the movement of great appetizers, entrees, and desserts to the conquering nation. As we all know, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 settled this debate forever.

5) In 1776, America’s founding fathers emulated the Greek philosophers when they framed The Declaration of Independence and baked the first apple pie.

6) In 1812, Zorba of Piraeus found a clay tablet will plowing his field. The tablet showed how to prove the Pythagorean Theorem, i.e., α^2 + β^2 = γ^2.

7) This theorem revolutionized the world by making more students more students hate mathematics than ever before.

8) In 1820, the Turkish Sultan Abim Bam Bu decreed that Pythagorean theorem would henceforth be written using the Arabic alphabet.

9) Instructing Greek students in Arabic and Turkish had been tolerated. So had the Pythagorean theorem. But teaching the young ones the Pythagorean theorem in Arabic pushed the Greek parents over the edge and in 1821 the Greek populace revolted against their Turkish overlords.

10) The Greeks finally gained their independence in 1833, permitting the free travel of Greek chefs all over the world. We live in a golden age.

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

Peanut Butter

Posted on July 20, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

PEANUT BUTTER

INGREDIENTSPeanutButter-

4 cups roasted peanuts (1 cup then 3 cups)*
2 tablespoons peanut oil (½ tablespoon at a time)
½ tablespoon honey
¾ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon sugar

* = 4 cups peanuts weigh about 1 pound. Purchase peanuts with the skins still on for added flavor and fiber. Buy skinned peanuts if you prefer a smoother peanut butter. And, oh gosh, buy shelled roasted peanuts. It takes forever to shell enough peanuts to make this recipe; just as long as a lecture in theoretical economics lasts..

SPECIAL UTENSILS

blender
mason jar

Makes 1½ cups. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add 1 cup peanuts in blender. Blend on lowest for about a minute or until the peanut bits are the size you desire. (People’s preference for the chunkiness of their peanut butter and the power of their blender vary considerably, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on the blending.) Remove and set aside.

Add remaining 3 cups peanuts, ½ tablespoon oil, and honey to blender. Set blender to lowest setting that works. (A weak blender will just make plaintive whirring noises and do nothing if it’s on too low a setting. Gradually decrease the speed of the blender to low as it becomes more and more to blend. (I think I can. I think I can. ) Blend on low setting until mixture becomes quite smooth. (The oil should be coming out of the peanuts.) If mixture is too dry to spread, add another ½ tablespoon oil and puree again. Repeat as needed with oil until mixture is easy to spread. Add salt and sugar. Fold in salt and sugar with wooden spoon.

Store in refrigerator. It should be good for 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on the seal of the jar used for storage. I prefer mason jars. Oil might rise to the top over time. Simply mix the oil back into the peanut butter with a wooden spoon.

TIDBITS

1) Each American eats seven pounds of peanut butter a year. It’s a federal law dating back to the drafting of the Constitution. Georgia simply would not sign the great document unless its mighty peanut industry was protected. After much negotiation, the states agreed on seven pounds per person per annum. Georgia signed and America had a basis for strong government

2) Some people spread out their required peanut-butter consumption evenly over the entire year. This comes out to .3068 ounces per day. To achieve such precision, people need sophisticated scales. This need explains why American kitchen scales are the envy of the world. Indeed, NASA uses these scales in its space programs.

3) Other people eat all their peanut butter in one day. Pause and reflect.

4) Americans could fill the Grand Canyon with all the peanut butter that eat in one year. This actually happened on April 1, 2000. It was a glorious occasion with millions of loaves of bread being flown and trucked in. Thousands and thousands of trucks that normally hauled crude oil were converted to dispense grape and strawberry jelly. And the toasters! Oh, they were everywhere. People said nice things to each other except, of course, for those with peanut butter stuck to the roof of their mouths.

5) Unfortunately, this happening could not become an annual event. Many tourists, especially those from countries with low peanut-butter consumption, insisted of seeing the Grand Canyon in its peanut-butter free glory.

6) We also cannot forget the frenzied riot that took place between the smooth-peanut-butter fanatics and the chunky-peanut-fanatics. Culinary historians still shake their heads when they contemplate how close America came to civil war. It certainly affected the presidential election.

7) Speaking of presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter grew peanuts. Mr. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Two peanuts growers, one Independence writer. We can conclude from this that every other peanut grower in America would write a Declaration of Independence.

8) Or can we conclude this? Thomas Jefferson declared independence from Great Britain. Jimmy Carter couldn’t do the same; we had already severed connections from the mother country.

9) So, who could have Mr. Carter declared independence from?

10) From America. Jimmy Carter could have penned a declaration of independence for Georgia from the United States. He didn’t, of course, but it was a near run thing.

11) In 1980, American lawmakers mindful of the horrifying carnage of the War Between the States in 1861-1865, passed a law requiring all peanut farmers to sign an annual pledge not to make their state secede from the Union.

12) Or at least to grow onions as well. No onion farmer has ever written anything advocating independence. Onion farmers are a rather down to earth sort of folks. Thank goodness.

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

Curtido (pickled coleslaw) from El Salvador

Posted on July 1, 2015 by pauldelancey

El Salvadoran Appetizer

CURTIDO
(pickled coleslaw)

INGREDIENTSCortido-

½ head cabbage
1 carrot
2 scallions or small onion
½ cup water
¾ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ tablespoon Mexican oregano or oregano
½ cup white vinegar or apple cider vinegar

Makes 8 servings. Takes 3 hours including sitting and chilling.. A few hours of sitting and chilling is good for the chef as well.

PREPARATION

Shred cabbage. Grate carrot. Mince scallions. Add cabbage and carrot to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Boil water. Pour boiling water over cabbage and carrot. Let sit for 5 minutes. Drain. Add red pepper flakes, Mexican oregano, and white vinegar to bowl. Let sit for at least 2 hours. Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Goes well with many El Salvadorean dishes including Pupusas.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe only uses a half-head of cabbage. This leaves another half. What can you make with cabbage?

2) Coleslaw and corned beef and cabbage, of course.

3) Suppose, however, your significant other hates cabbage and only ate it this time for this dish to show eternal devotion. However, if his/her–I have to do this his/her because I don’t know the sex of your sweetheart, but you’ll be able to tell just by looking–eyes turn bright red and his/her neck rotates three times at the thought of eating cabbage again, here are some suggestions:

3A) Take up the art of cabbage origami. Unfortunately, cabbage origami is a dying art since cabbage is much less flexible than paper. So, books on cabbage origami are quite hard to find.

3B) Wear a couple layers of cabbage leaves on your head whenever people come to your door to sell you something. One glance at your leafy hat and they’ll be gone lickety split.

3C) Use the cabbage layers as FrisbeesTM. It’s fun for the whole family. Then when the cabbage wilts, use it in your garden as a mulch. Can you do that with a regular Frisbee? I don’t think so.

– 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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Vidalia Onion Rings

Posted on May 22, 2015 by pauldelancey

American appetizer

VIDALIA ONION RINGS

INGREDIENTSVidaliaOnionRings-

3 medium Vidalia onions or other onions
1¼ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup beer (8 ounces left in that bottle for drinking, eh?)
½ cup milk
3 cups peanut oil

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric skillet

Makes 40 onion rings. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Peel onions. Slice onions into rings ⅓” thick. Punch out onion rings from slices. Add flour, baking powder, and salt to first mixing bowl.. Mix with whisk until well blended. Separate egg yolk from egg white. Add egg yolk, beer, and milk to second mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add egg yolk/beer/milk mixture to bowl with flour mixture. Blend with whisk until smooth. Add egg white to third mixing bowl. Whip with whisk until peaks form. Fold egg white into bowl with flour/beer/milk mixture. Mix with whisk until well blended.

Add enough peanut oil to completely cover onion rings. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Dip onion rings into batter. Turn onion rings until they are completely covered in batter. Make enough battered rings to cover skillet. Sauté at 375 degrees until onion rings turn golden brown, about 4 minutes on each side. Place paper towel on plate. Place onion rings on towel. Put towel on top on onion rings. Gently push down on towel to remove oil.

TIDBITS

1) Onion-festival groupies will want to know that the Vidalia Onion Festival is held in late April in Vidalia, Georgia and features: onion tasting, cooking demos, concerts, chef competitions, and an onion run. Onions are historically rather sedentary, so this last event is only for the patient.

2) Walla Walla, Washington’s onion festival is held during the first week in June. Go there and watch an onion grow. Again, this is an activity only for the persevering and independently wealthy.. They also have onion bowling. If your onion gives you a 7-10 split, why just eat it. Woot!

3) Go to Weslaco, Texas in late March for its onion festival. It’s the only one with dancing horses.

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

Aioli Sauce

Posted on April 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

French Appetizer

AIOLI SAUCE

INGREDIENTSAioliSauce-

4 garlic cloves
4 egg yolks (possibly 1 more)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon white pepper
1 cup extra virgin olive oil (1 additional cup later)
2½ teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon warm water (possibly ½ teaspoon more later)
1 cup extra virgin olive oil

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mortar and pestle or garlic press

Makes 2 cups. Takes 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Peel garlic cloves. Crush garlic cloves with mortar and pestle or garlic press. Add egg yolks, crushed garlic, salt, and pepper to mixing bowl. Blend gently with whisk. Slowly add in 1 cup olive oil, whisking gently, but constantly. There should only be a thin drizzle of olive oil going into the mixing bowl. This process should take minutes. If you hurry the olive oil, you’ll just end up with a liquidy something. Then you’ll wander aimlessly in the nearby woods shouting, “Why? Why?” over and over again.

Add lemon juice and warm water, whisking constantly. Slowly add in remaining 1 cup olive oil, whisking gently and constantly until the oil gets absorbed and mixture is slightly thinner than mayonnaise. If aioli sauce curdles or separates, add 1 egg yolk and ½ tablespoon warm water into second mixing bowl. Beat with whisk. Gradually add curdled or separated sauce to beaten egg in second bowl. Mix gently with whisk. This sauce goes well with chicken proscuitto sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, raw vegetables, and fish.

TIDBITS

1) The Beatles were Britain’s greatest rock-and-roll band. They came to America in 1964 to star on The Ed Sullivan Show. But The Cinq Escargots, France’s greatest rock-and-roll band, had been Mr. Sullivan’s first choice. And why not? These jaunty musicians had electrified Gallic crowds with Je Voudrais un Oeuf and had made all the mademoiselles swoon with the ballad, Farine du Blé.

2) The Cinq Escargots didn’t trust American cooking. They brought their own snails. The snails got loose and stampeded the crowd. The show got cancelled. The Beatles replaced them and became famous. The disgraced Cinq Escargots flew back to France and became mimes.

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

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