Yummy Brand knows we like broth and have oodles of uses for it.
Yummy Brand knows we love tacos.
Yummy Brand asks why not have both?
Thank you, Yummy Brand!
– 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.
Angolan Entree
CHICKEN STEW
(muamba de galinha)
INGREDIENTS
3 pounds boneless chicken (Probably separate parts. If you can find a farm that raises organic boneless chickens, go for it.)
1 Scotch bonnet, habañero, or red chili pepper
3 garlic cloves
3 onions
3 tomatoes
1 pound pumpkin or butternut squash
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup red palm oil or olive oil
½ pound okra (See note below for substitutes)
1 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons cornstarch (only if you don’t use okra)
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Dutch oven
sonic obliterator
OKRAPHOBIA
A lot of people just can’t stand okra or will only eat fresh food, but can only find okra in cans. What to do? Relax, have an ice-cold root beer. Now that you’re refreshed, consider substitutes for okra. The top contenders are: asparagus, eggplant, green beans, and spinach. These don’t taste quite the same as okra. This might be a plus for you. However, if you want the okra taste, try adding a tablespoon of gumbo file (Oh gosh, gumbo file is another one of those hard herb/spice mixes that are just plain hard to find in supermarkets. In this case, bluff your guests. How many will know if you don’t have gumbo file in your chicken muamba? However, if they do know and they complain loudly, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of stress in your life.)
Anyway, okra thickens stews. So if you don’t use okra, you should add cornstarch as a thickening agent. However, cornstarch alters the taste somewhat from the authentic Angolan chicken muamba. (See above paragraph for resolving this problem.)
PREPARATION
Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Seed and mince chili pepper. Mince garlic cloves. Dice onions. Cut each tomato into eight pieces. Seed and peel pumpkin. Cut pumpkin into 1/2″ cubes.
Add chicken, lemon juice, chili pepper, garlic, pepper, salt to large mixing bowl. Mix by hand until chicken cubes are well coated. Marinate for 1 hour.
Add coated chicken, onion, and red palm oil to Dutch oven. Sauté using medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken cubes are browned on all sides and onion softens. Stir frequently. Add pumpkin, tomatoes, okra (or its substitute and cornstarch), and chicken broth. Bring stew to boil. Cover Dutch oven, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 25 minutes or until chicken and pumpkin are tender. Stir occasionally.
Goes well with rice or cassava. Whew.
TIDBITS
1) Do not worry about your fresh-okra finding problems as life is about to get a whole lot better as you can see in the following tidbits.
2) In 2023, Amos Keeto, will invent the Sonic Obliterator. This invention will be a godsend to be who hate being disturbed by door-to-door salesmen. People who hate plowing their way through the crowds surrounding the free-sample stations at CostcoTM or are too shy to ask people to move will also appreciate this device.
3) I mean can’t you see the shopper’s face as she pushes her cart through a suddenly vacant path on her way to pick up a large package of ribs for her family. Her family loves ribs and isn’t making families happy what’s it all about?
4) In 2019, Sarah Bellum, will invent the time machine. This will be invaluable for people with overdue library books and for those who can never file their taxes on time. Be sure to buy one, well, whenever.
5) In 2021, Barry Sax will invent the Orphan Socks Reuniter. No longer will your dryer be able to present you with orphan socks. The Reuniter will find the missing sock whether it will be sticking to the top of the dryer, vacationing in Poway, California, rafting down the Amazon River, performing against its will in a shocking sock-puppet show, or simply transported to a parallel universe. Barry Sax will win a Nobel Prize in 2023 for his service to humanity.
6) In 2017, just around the corner, Hal E. Kahn, will invent the organic TwizzlerTM by being the first to successfully graft the tasty snack onto strawberry plants.
7) In 2031, Ms. Terri Good, will markedly improve mornings for all people for all time by inventing the Coffee Humidifier. The CF, as it will soon be called, will emit coffee molecules all through the night. You will be inhaling 100% pure arabica bean while you sleep. You will not wake up tired and wanting to kill the first person who talks to you. No! You will be so awake, so full of energy that you will paint the house and make school lunches for your kids for the entire year.
8) In 2019, Mel Ifluous will invent UTeleport. This nifty invention will be able to teleport any item of any size over any distance. The Uteleport will be a life saver to all those still half-asleep souls who pour a bowl of cereal in the morning only to find they are out of milk. Life will be 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.
American Breakfast
CORNED BEEF HASH
INGREDIENTS
3 medium brown potatoes
1 pound corned beef
1 onion
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup beef broth or broth from cooking corned beef
PREPARATION
Bake potatoes, keep skins on, at 400 degrees for 40 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Remove potatoes. While potatoes cool, dice corned beef and mince onion. Put onion and butter in large skillet. Sauté onion at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until it softens. Stir frequently.
Cut potatoes into 1/2″ cubes. Add potato, corned beef, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and broth to skillet. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes or until potato turns golden brown. Stir occasionally. Add broth and cook for another 3 minutes. Stir occasionally.
TIDBITS
1) Reporters once ridiculed Vice President Dan Quayle for misspelling potato. Thank goodness for him he didn’t need to write the word “heteroskedasticity.” Indeed how many reporters can spell that word? Can you spell “heteroskedasticity?” Okay, without looking at this tidbit? Of course, if you weren’t looking at this, you wouldn’t be challenged to spell “hetero…” Oh never mind.
2) Potatoes are used to make French fries at baseball games. However, corned beef hash is not served at any baseball stadium, not even at the single A level. Caviar-and-filet mignon hash might be served at ball parks located in the ritziest of neighborhoods, but I’ve never heard of it.
3) By the way, the word “hornswoggle,” meaning to “bamboozle,” comes from baseball as this excerpt from the novel The Fur West states,
“I loved baseball, too. Timmy played it and so did many of my other friends, Jeb, Bobby, Pete, and Josh, although I didn’t cotton to a sneaky Irish kid named Sean Hornswoggle. The redhead would hit the ball and run directly to second base if he thought he could get away with it. We soon took to calling any cheating “hornswoggling.”
– 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.
Guatemalan Entree
CHICKEN PULIQUE
INGREDIENTS
3 chicken breasts
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 brown potatoes
4 fresh tomatillos
2 dried guajillo peppers
1 medium onion
4 Roma tomatoes
2 cups chicken broth
2 cloves
3 peppercorns
2 teaspoons annatto seed
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
3 tablespoons epazote
SPECIAL UTENSIL
spice grinder
Dutch oven
PREPARATION
Cut chicken into 1/2″ cubes. Coat chicken with olive oil. Add to Dutch oven and sauté on medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Stir. occasionally.
While chicken sautés, cut potatoes into 1/2″ cubes. Add chicken stock and potato to soup pot. Cook on medium heat for 20 minutes or until potato is tender.
While chicken bakes and potato cooks, remove husks from tomatillos, and seed guajillo peppers. Mince tomatillo, garlic, guajillo peppers, onion, and tomatoes. Grind cloves and peppercorns. (Whew, work fast! Have a Roy Rogers drink to give you the necessary caffeine. ☺)
Pour potato/chicken broth over chicken cubes in Dutch oven. Add tomatillo, garlic, guajillo peppers, onion, tomatoes, cloves, peppercorn, annatto, cinnamon, cumin, and epazote to Dutch oven. Cook at medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
TIDBITS
1) Oh crudness, my internet connection is out. I can’t look up fun facts about pulique. I’m jump starting my brain. Okay, here goes.
2) Pulique is quite popular in Guatemala.
3) It is not as popular where there is zero gravity such as the International Space Station.
4) Cooking involves much mincing of garlic. On Earth, garlic mincing means little garlic bits scatter millimeters into the air and fall all over the cutting board.
5) Only in zero gravity, those garlic bits keep rising in the air and fly all over the place until they hit the ceiling and the walls where they bounce and bounce up and down the corridors.
6) If the chef on the Space Station is mincing up a heap of garlic, pretty soon a cloud of garlic bits fills every corridor, floating and bouncing away for a long time.
7) Everything on the station soon reeks of garlic, even the billion-dollar experiments.
8) On the other hand, vampires hate garlic. The Space Station would be guaranteed to be vampire free.
9) Even if the vampires somehow built a rocket to propel them into outer space..
10) And as of going to press, vampires have shown no such technological skill.
11) Nor do they enough money to pursue such a monumental undertaking.
12) Nor do vampires have any real access to the global capital market.
13) Bankers everywhere no longer loan to vampires. Not for any project.
14) These financiers once lent to vampires, but the loans came back to bite them in the ass.
– 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.
Jamaican Entree
INGREDIENTS
2 chicken breasts
1 medium potato
1 red bell pepper
3 garlic cloves
2 stalks green onion
1 large onion
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 tablespoons Jamaican curry powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
PREPARATION
Cut chicken and potato into 1/2″ cubes. Removes seeds from red bell pepper. Mince bell pepper, garlic, green onion, and onion. Add vegetable oil, bell pepper, garlic, green onion, and onion to frying pan. Sauté at medium-high heat or until onions are tender.
Add chicken cubes, potato cubes, broth, celery seed, curry powder, pepper, thyme, and turmeric. Cook with lid off on low-medium heat for about 20 minutes or until potato bits are tender. Stir occasionally. Serve to your new best friends.
TIDBITS
1) Curry, while a tasty spice blend, is not a particularly fun spice despite what the “Fun Facts About Curry” would have you believe.
2) Tim Curry, however, is much more interesting. He starred in the cult classic movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He auditioned for the role by singing, “Tutti Frutti.” He had a dog named Frank.
3) One of the biggest movie flops of all times was the movie Ishtar. Ishtar is an anagram for “Hi, rats.”
4) “O,” “A,” and “I” are the shortest palindromes in the English language.
5) “ ” is the shortest palindrome spoken by 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.
German Soup
KARTOFFEL SUPPE
(Potato Soup)
INGREDIENTS
1/2 pound bacon
4 potatoes
1 carrot
2 stalks celery
2 stalks leek
1 onion
2 tablespoons butter
6 cups beef broth
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cream
1/4 teaspoon marjoram
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon parsley
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
PREPARATION
Slice bacon strips into 1/2″ squares. Chop potatoes into 1/2″ cubes. Dice carrot, celery, leek, and onion. Add butter, bacon, carrot, celery, leek, and onion to soup pot. Sauté on medium-high for 5 minutes or until onion is soft. Stir frequently.
Add potato cubes, broth, flour, salt, cream, marjoram, nutmeg, parsley, and pepper. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes on low heat or until potato cubes are tender. Stir occasionally.
Become a culinary hero to your hungry hordes by serving this tasty dish. And for those who want bacon with everything, this soup has it. Yay!
TIDBITS
1) This tidbit is not getting done. I made chocolate-covered cake and the hungry hordes are eating it up as I type.
2) If I were to open a dessert shop, I would call it Dessert Storm.
3) The name would be especially apt if I ever forgot to put the lid on the blender.
4) It’s amazing the number of burglars around the world who have fallen asleep inside burgled homes after eating chocolate cake found in the refrigerator.
5) To my knowledge, no house burglar has ever fallen asleep after eating potato soup.
6) Chocolate cake, used by the best home-protection services everywhere.
– 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.
This is my 300th blog! Thank you for reading.
Bolivian Entree
SOPA DE MANI
(Peanut and Potato Soup)
INGREDIENTS 
2 chicken breasts
4 cloves garlic
1 large onion
1 cup raw, unsalted peanuts
1 cup water
3 Yukon gold potatoes (to be chopped into pieces)
1 Yukon gold potato (to be cut into strips)
2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil (1/4 cup more later)
6 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon cilantro
1 teaspoon parsley
SPECIAL APPLIANCE
blender
PREPARATION
Cut chicken breasts into 1/2″ cubes. Mince garlic and onions. Put peanuts and water into blender. Use chop setting until you get a smooth white liquid or paste. Peel potatoes. Cut 3 potatoes into 1/2″ slices. Cut each slice into 2 or 3 pieces. Cut 1 potato into 1/4″ by 1/4″ inch strips.
Put oil, garlic, and onion in frying pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onions soften or start to turn golden brown. Stir frequently. Transfer sautéed garlic and onion to soup pot.
Add chicken cubes, peanut paste, potato pieces (not the potato strips), chicken broth, cumin, oregano, pepper, and salt to soup pot. Simmer on low heat for about 40 minutes or until potato pieces are soft. Stir occasionally. (It is also a good idea to stir occasionally when watching tv or you may be thrown out with that old sofa you’re sitting on.)
While soup is cooking, add 1/4 cup vegetable oil and strips from one potato to frying pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until potato strips turn golden brown. Stir frequently enough to keep strips or fries from burning. (Note, hot oil splatters. Tip the frying pan away from you or hold a lid between you and the frying pan when stirring the fries.)
Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish equal bowl with an equal amount of cilantro, parsley, and fried potato strips .If desired, add as much LLAJUA, (spicy sauce) to each bowl.
TIDBITS
1) Bolivians love potatoes.
2) They did not love McDonald’s enough. McDonald’s left Bolivia on December 1, 2001 after seven years of trying. Bolivians simply preferred their own style of cooking or were too poor to eat out .
3) Iceland does not have McDonald’s either. It costs too much to get potatoes from Germany.
4) Many of the poor countries between the Mediterranean Sea and South Africa are without McDonald’s. The same holds true for ex-Soviet republic in Central Asia.sauté
5) American forces fought in the Vietnam War in: Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. These countries do not have McDonald’s.
6) North Korea and Iran have nuclear-weapons programs. They are unfriendly to us and have no McDonald’s.
7) Indeed, most countries do not have McDonald’s restaurants in them are poor, have fought America, or have become hostile nuclear powers.
8) Think about that when you’re tempted to pass by an empty McDonald’s in some foreign land.
– 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.
Algerian Soup
SHORBA BAIDA
(Chicken Soup)
INGREDIENTS
2 chicken breasts
1 medium onion
2 inch cinnamon stick
2 large tomatoes
10 ounce can chick peas
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon basmati rice
1 tablespoon barley
2 large tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon coriander
1/2 tablespoon parsley flakes
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
SPECIAL UTENSIL
spice grinder
Dutch oven
PREPARATION
Cut chicken breasts into 1/2″ cubes. Mince the onion. Grind the cinnamon stick until you get powder. Dice the tomatoes. Drain the chick peas.
Use medium-high heat to sauté the chicken, onion, and cinnamon with olive oil in Dutch oven. Cook for 5-to-10 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently.
Add chick peas, chicken broth, lemon juice, rice, barley, tomatoes, chili powder, parsley, pepper, sat, and tumeric. Cover the Dutch oven and simmer on warm heat for about 1 hour or until rice and barley are soft.
This is great. People love it. Eat your share while you can.
TIDBITS
1) This heavenly soup is the reason the French conquered Algeria in 1830.
2) This heavenly soup is the reason Algeria threw out France in 1962. The Algerians didn’t want to share.
3) Did the Algerians get any culinary benefits from 132 years of Gallic occupation?
4) I hope so. A Vietnamese man once said the only benefit his countrymen derived from French colonial rule was the baguette.
5) Vietnamese culinary artists combined the baguettes with their way of preparing meat to produce the tasty and world-famous banh mi sandwiches.
6) America fought in Vietnam for the banh mi sandwiches. And so it goes.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Hungarian Entree
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 pounds pork tenderloin
3 red potatoes
1 1/2 medium onions
1 garlic clove
2 medium carrots
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cups pork or beef broth
1/2 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon flour
1/3 cup sour cream
SPECIALTY UTENSIL
Dutch oven
PREPARATION
Cut pork into 1″ cubes. Dice potatoes. Mince onion and garlic. Dice carrots. Put vegetable oil in Dutch oven. Add onion and garlic. Sauté onions and garlic at medium-high heat for about5 minutes or until onions are soft. Stir frequently. Add pork cubes. Sauté for about 20 minutes on medium heat or until pork cubes start to brown. Stir frequently.
Add potato, carrot, broth, paprika, parsley, pepper, salt, and thyme. Cook on low heat with lid on for about 2 1/2 hours or until pork and potato are tender.
Remove from heat. Add flour and sour cream. Stir and serve to lucky guests or family.
TIDBITS
1) I went to Hungary in 1972 with my parents and brother.
2) As was expected, Hungarian goulash was everywhere. I was in heaven.
3) The Soviet Army was there as well. That was not so heavenly. Indeed, there were signs on roads telling us not to take photos of there army bases.
4) Foreigners were not allowed to take Hungarian money, the forint, out of the country. So my family like many others bought a lot of Hungarian chocolate before we left.
5) The Soviet Army left a few decades later. Because of my visit? Who can say.
6) But the Hungarian love for goulash remains strong as ever. Life goes on. Rainbows continue to dot the Hungarian landscape.
– 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.
Cuban Entree
INGREDIENTS
4 garlic cloves
1/3 medium onion
1 cup cooked rice
2 cups water
1/2 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground turkey
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 7 ounce can diced green chiles
1/4 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons tomato sauce
2 tablespoons oregano
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 green bell peppers (3 total green peppers, 2 here and 1 below)
2 yellow bell pepper
2 red bell pepper (3 total green peppers, 1 here and 2 above)
1 green bell pepper
GUEST APPLIANCE APPEARANCES
microwave
microwavable dishes
sonic obliterator
PREPARATION
Mince onion and garlic cloves. Cook rice according to instructions on package.
Combine garlic, onion, cooked rice, beef, turkey, and oil in frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat until beef is no longer pink. Stir occasionally. Add in diced tomatoes, green chiles, chicken broth, tomato sauce, oregano, salt, coriander, and pepper. Bring to boil while stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low and cook uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Meanwhile back at chopping board, cut the tops off 2 green peppers, 2 yellow bell peppers, and 2 red bell peppers. Scoop out seeds and white soft part of peppers. (Get rid of these seeds and all with your sonic obliterator.) Put as many bell-pepper halves in a microwave-safe baking dish. (You might need more than one such dish.) Add water to baking dish until water is level with tops of bell peppers. Fill the insides of the bell-pepper halves with water as well. Microwave for about 8 minutes or until bell-peppers are crisp-tender.
Remove peppers from baking dish and drain the water from them. Put equal amounts of meat mixture into and on top of each pepper half.
If desired, chop remaining green bell pepper into small strips for garnishing the filled bell peppers.
TIDBITS
1) Christopher Columbus brought cattle with him on his epic voyage of discovery in 1492. Cuba probably had cattle by 1493.
2) However, Hernando Cortez was the first to bring cattle to North America in 1519.
3) So, Cuba had a twenty-six year head start over North America in the race to develop the first hamburger.
4) The hamburger patty was developed in the German town of Hamburg in the early 1800s. The culinary world was indeed standing on a mountain gazing into the promised land of the hamburger.
5) German immigrants brought the hamburger patty to America. American can-do spirit applied itself and the first complete was first served at Delmonico’s in New York in 1826 or 1834 or perhaps even 1871 in San Francisco, depending on which historical research you trust. Culinary greatness had been achieved.
6) Oh sure, America has done bad things as well. Slavery, fill-in-the bubble tests, and long lines at the DMV come to mind.
7) Cuba has had its problems as well with slavery and dictatorship and although it didn’t discover the hamburger it can hold its culinary head high with its Cuban sandwich and this recipe’s dish, the Cuban stuffed peppers.
– 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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