Posts Tagged With: chiles

Olé Baked Potatoes

Posted on March 3, 2023 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

OLÉ BAKED POTATOES

INGREDIENTS

6 medium brown potatoes
14 ounces diced green chiles
2 medium white onions
3 cups grated Four Mexican cheeses
3 tablespoons butter

PREPARATION – POTATOES

Gently scrub the potatoes to remove dirt. Cut out the potatoes’ eyes. This is not an act of barbarity. The eyes are those little rooty things that grow out of the potato when you leave them in the potato bin for too long.

You might want to stab each potato a few times. (Okay, let out your aggression here.) This prevents steam from building up to the point your potato explodes. Boom!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the potatoes in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes. (You do need to plan ahead. Watch two episodes of Man Versus Food while waiting.) Jab a fork into the taters. The fork should slide in easily. This step is essential. Baking with multiple potatoes or multiples of any food can increase the baking time. Also the sizes of the potatoes vary with each baking. And who knows if the temperature of the dial on your oven is accurate? My experience is that most real oven temperatures are less than what the oven’s gauges would have you believe.

Oh, don’t forget to remove those potatoes when done.

PREPARATION -SAUCE

While the potatoes bake, melt the butter. Mince onions in your food processor. Mince onions by hand and you’ll cry. Pour the minced onion and the diced green chiles into the butter. Cook on medium high, stirring constantly. Periodically taste, it’s your kitchen, and stop when you’re satisfied or as soon as the onion changes color. Add in the grated cheese and stir until it melts.

Cut the potatoes open and cover both sides with the sauce. Note, both this sauce and baked potatoes taste much better hot than cold.

Although time consuming, this dish is easy to make and tastes great. When serving this dish to guests, stress the time this dish took and omit the ease of making it.

TIDBITS

1) People from Wisconsin are often called “cheeseheads.”

2) There are about 2,000 varieties of cheese. Cheese will grow moldy. Clean your refrigerator periodically. Cheese can be made from camel’s milk. Never tried it.

 

– 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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Carl La Fong’s Cooking Mishap #1, Quesadilla

Posted on February 26, 2023 by pauldelancey

The sticker says, “Two tortillas.”

I like to cook. So does my friend, Carl La Fong*. Although a really good cook, Carl occasionally makes mistakes. Sometimes they’re doozies. In the spirit of helping fledgling chefs, he’s agreed to share his mistakes.

Carl started off well. He sprayed the top and bottom of the quesadilla maker**. He put a flour tortilla on the bottom of the grill. He topped the tortilla with avocado salsa, diced chiles, and a generous amount of grated Mexican cheeses. He closed the lid. The quesadilla maker started cooking.

“You know,” Carl said, “in retrospect, I should have placed a second flour tortilla on top of the fixings. The modern mind cannot comprehend the mess made by leaving that ingredient out. Fortunately, I worked quickly and cleaned the quesadilla maker is just a scant hour. In my defense, I was pondering the clauses in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. It can happen to anyone.”

Carl says, “Hi” and invites you to share your friends’ cooking mishaps. He als

* =No, Carl La Fong is not my alter ego. Why do you ask?
** = Doesn’t the quesadilla maker look like a space alien?

 

– 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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Chakalaka

Posted on July 29, 2021 by pauldelancey

Lesotho* Entree

CHAKALAKA

INGREDIENTS

1 red or green bell pepper
2 red chiles
2 carrots
1 red onion
1 yellow onion
2 tomatoes
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ teaspoon curry powder (optional)
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

Serves 4. Takes 30 minutes.

* = Technically, the adjective for Lesotho is Basotho. Would you have guessed that a Basotho entree was from Lesotho? I wouldn’t have.

PREPARATION

Seed and dice bell pepper and red chiles., Dice carrots, red onion, yellow onion, and tomatoes. Add carrot, red onion, yellow onion, and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or yellow onion softens. Stir frequently. Add bell pepper, chile, tomato, curry powder, pepper, and salt. Sauté at medium heat for 10 minutes or until tomato bits lose their shape and become a stew. Stir occasionally. Goes well with corn meal cooked in water.

TIDBITS

1) As far as I can tell, there exist 23 songs containing the word chakalaka. Most of them do a variant on “chakalaka boom boom.” Culinary musicians, however, believe there are 33 varieties. 27 of them are excellent or at least passably good. The other six not so much. 33 recipes for chakalaka can be found. 27 are tasty. Six are meh. 27 amendments to the United States Constitution passed and became law. Six other amendments did not.

3) Clearly every time a chalaka recipe get written so does a chakalaka song.

4) Although it is not well known, American politicians like to write chakalaka songs and to prepare scrumptious new chalaka dishes. Everytime enough politicians get to write and cook chakalaka, they feel so happy and full of good will that they write an amendment to make life better for all Americans. In 1781, so many American lawmakers made enough such quality songs and meals that they up and wrote ten amendments, which would be become known as the Bill of Rights.

5) Sad to say, the ten recipes and songs that accompanied the first ten amendments have been lost to history. We shall have to console ourselves with the freedoms enshrined by the Bill of Rights.

 

– 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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Tacos Al Pastor

Posted on July 1, 2021 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

TACOS AL PASTOR

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

1 ancho chile
4 guajillo chiles
4 garlic cloves
3 cloves
1 small onion (1 more onion later)
1 large tomato
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon Mexican oregano or oregano
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon pepper
½ cup orange juice
⅔ cup pineapple juice*
2¼ pounds pork loin

INGREDIENTS – REST

1 can diced pineapple (*You can use the pineapple juice from the can)
1 cup fresh cilantro
1 small onion
5 limes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (½ teaspoon at a time)
12 -to-24 corn tortillas*
1 cup pico de gallo
1 cup guacamole

* = If you like to put a lot of food in your tacos or if your tortillas are a bit on the crumbly side, then use 2 tortillas for each taco.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor
6 metal skewers
drip pan

Serves 6. Takes 5 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – MARINADE

Add ancho chile and guajillo chiles to pot. Cover with water. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to medium. Boil for 10 minutes or until chiles soften. Seed chiles. Add chiles and remaining marinade ingredients save pork loin to food processor. Blend until you get a smooth marinade. Add marinade and pork loin to large bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

PREPARATION – REST

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut pork loin into ½” thick slices. Cut slices into 1″ squares. Alternate threading pork squares and pineapple pieces onto skewers. Place on oven rack. Place oven pan underneath to collect drippings. Cook for 12 minutes or until pork is no longer pink inside. Turn every 4 minutes.

Dice cilantro and 1 small onion. Cut limes into 4 wedges each. Add 1 tortilla and ½ teaspoon oil to pan. Sauté at medium heat just long enough to warm tortilla. Flip tortilla once. Repeat for remaining tortillas.

Make tacos by filling tortillas with pork squares and pineapple pieces. Garnish tacos with cilantro, diced onion, and lime wedges. Serve tacos immediately alongside bowls of pico de gallo and guacamole.

TIDBITS

1) Pastor Alfonso Hernandez was a itinerant preacher who wandered the Pacific Coast from Seattle to Acapulco. He preached the word of God to whomever would listen. Sometimes he enthralled large crowds. Other times just one person would hear him out. His sermons brought peace beyond understanding to all his listeners.

2) Random acts of kindness would brake out after he left. These people felt grateful for the love he showed them. “Please take some money, your words moved me,” they’d say. He’d always reply, “I can take no money for those aren’t my words. I only borrow them.”

3) The good people would then say, “But you look hungry. Have some food.” The good man accepted their offerings, for he was indeed hungry. Sometimes his listeners gave him ancho chiles. Sometimes he received guajillos chiles. He even accepted garlic cloves. After preaching to an assembly of eight, they might even offer him onion, tomatoes, and cumin.

4) An even larger gathering might present him with Mexican oregano, paprika, pepper, and pepper to spice up his tomatoes. After getting all these spices, the holy man was especially grateful for orange juice to drink. The good people of Ensenada gave him pineapple juice and pork butt. Sometimes, the religious throngs gave him too much to consume at any one time. Whenever this occurred, he’d put the surplus in his coat of many pockets.

5) After ministering to the faithful at Acapulco, the many wealthy Catholics showered him with: diced pineapple, fresh cilantro, small onions, limes, vegetable oil (½ teaspoon at a time), corn tortillas, pico de gallo, and guacamole. This was, too much for any one man to eat. So he shared all the bounty he’d received that day. He then brought forth from all his pockets all the food and spices he’d been accumulating on his travels. “Why,” Pastor Al said, we have enough for a feast of tacos.”

6) “Gracias,” shouted the happy people, “for the tacos from Pastor Al’s coat!” Since the inhabitants of Acapulco were incurable anagramists, this wonderful culinary creation would soon be known forever as Tacos al Pastor.

7) Olé.

 

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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Frito Pie In a Bag

Posted on May 25, 2021 by pauldelancey

American Entree

FRITO PIE IN A BAG

INGREDIENTS

2 green onions
1 pound ground beef
1 30-ounce can chili beans (no meat)
1 10-ounce can diced tomatoes and green chiles
6 1-ounce bags Fritos(tm)
6 tablespoons sour cream
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Serves 6. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Dice green onions. Add ground beef to pan. Fry at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until browned. Stir enough to ensure even browning. Add chili beans and diced tomatoes and green chiles. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes or until thoroughly warmed. Stir enough to blend and keep from burning.

Cut out most of one side of each bag or simply open the bag at the top. Top the Fritos in each bag evenly with pan contents, followed by sour cream, and then cheddar cheese. Garnish with green onions.

TIDBITS

1) Frito Pie In a Bag is also known as a “walking tacos” in America’s Midwest.

2) Tacos, of course, cannot walk. Cannot. This means that at one time tacos could walk.

3) Indeed, for according to culinary archeologists, the huge hard-shell* taco grazed the Indianapolis Gorge in 3,199,978 B.C,. They proved this by unearthing the bones of a young woman, Mabel, who held a fossilized four-legged Taco.

* = Proof that tacos are meant to be crunchy.

4) Unfortunately, this discovery never became common knowledge, because the Leakys had already discovered the bones of Lucy. Lucy’s remains are 3,200,000 years old. Just 22 years older than Mabel’s, but enough to get all the glory. Now no one remembers reading about Mabel and her taco.

5) But we do recall Mabel’s taco in a way, For Mabel’s DNA got passed down from Midwestern homonids to Neanderthals to Cro Magnons, and finally to Modern Humans. Inheriting Mabel’s genes, naturally means current Midwesterners love Walking Tacos. Now you know.

 

Paul De Lancey, concerned citizen and 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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Posole Rojo

Posted on March 12, 2021 by pauldelancey

Mexican Soup

POSOLE ROJO

INGREDIENTS – PORK

3 pounds pork shoulder or leg
60 ounces canned-garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas)
2 bay leaves
7 garlic cloves (4 more later)
3 quarts water

INGREDIENTS – RED SAUCE

6 guajillo chiles or ancho chiles
3 ancho chiles or guajillo chiles
3 cups water
½ small onion (½ more later)
4 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano or marjoram or oregano
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – FINAL

2 avocados
¼ head cabbage
4 red radishes
½ small onion
1 cup tortilla chips

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric blender

Serves 16. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – PORK/GARBANZO BEANS

Cut pork into 1″ cubes. Drain garbanzo beans. Cut 7 garlic cloves in half. Add pork, garbanzo beans, bay leaves, 7 garlic cloves, and 3 quarts water to 1st, large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1 hour or until pork cubes can be pulled apart easily with a fork. Skim off foam with spoon. Stir enough to prevent burning. Remove and discard bay leaves. Remove pork and garlic. Keep water in pot. Shred pork completely using 2 forks. Smash garlic bits with fork. Return pork and garlic to pot.

PREPARATION – RED SAUCE

While pork simmers, add 3 cups water to 2nd pot. Bring to boil. Seed guajillo and ancho chiles to pan. Roast at medium heat for 8 minutes until they start to soften. Stir occasionally . Add chiles to 2nd pot. Cover and remove from heat. Let chiles sit in water for 15 minutes or until they have completely softened. Cut ½ small onion into 4 pieces. Add guajillo chiles, ancho chiles, 4 garlic cloves, 4 onion pieces, and water from 2nd pot to blender. Set blender to puree and blend until pureed. This is the red sauce. Add red sauce, Mexican oregano, pepper, and salt to the pot containing pork and garbanzo beans. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Add red sauce/pork/garbanzo beans to bowls. Cut avocados into 16 pieces each. Shred cabbage. Mince ½ small onion. Slice radishes as thinly as possible. Spread avocado, cabbage, onion, radish, and tortilla chips evenly over bowls of red sauce/pork/garbanzo beans.

TIDBITS

1) The Italian peninsula in 1848. Peasants rioted against the nobles. The nobles suppressed the peasant uprising. Italians took up arms against their foreign masters. The foreign masters fought back. Bullets were positively whizzing everywhere.

2) Then the Second War for Italian Independence began in 1859. Armies marched all over the place. Bullets and cannonballs streaked against the sky. It was all too much for the simple chef, Fabio Marinara who determined to leave for America. His customers pleaded for him to stay. “No,” said Fabio at length.

3) So, the plucky Italian sold all his possessions and bought a ticket to New York on the SS Seaweed.

4) But he boarded instead the SS Flan to Veracruz, Mexico. But that was okay, for Mexican food was love at first sight for Fabio. “Tacos, where have you been all my life?” thought Chef Mariana.

5) Well, across the Atlantic Ocean. But anyway, Chef Fabio opened up a restaurant on the Gulf of Mexico. Within weeks, he perfected this soup, the posole rojo.

6) People loved his soup. They’d burst out singing, “Posole Rojo” everytime this food of the gods went by their tables.

7) A Italian lyricist, Giovanni Capurro heard these outbursts of ecstasy. He thought they were referring to Veracruz’s magnificent red sunsets. He interpreted them to say, “O sole rojo” or “O my red sun.”

8) But Capurro found that the song burgeoning within his heart flowed much easier when he tweaked the words to “O solo mio” or “O my sun.”

9) He took his song back to Naples. Capurro’s song has been an enduring global hit ever since. “O Sole Mio” has even been sung twice on Sesame Street. Now you know.

– 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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Chilaquiles

Posted on April 17, 2020 by pauldelancey

Mexican Breakfast

CHILAQUILES

INGREDIENTS

3 serrano chiles
2 tomatoes
1 green bell pepper
1 small onion
18 corn tortillas
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 cup shredded Oaxaca or Monterrey Jack cheese
¼ cup sour cream

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor
8″ casserole

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Seed chiles. (Or leave seeds in for a spicier entree. Add chiles and tomatoes to food processor. Blend until tomatoes are pureed. Dice bell pepper. Mince onion. Cut each tortillas into 8 pieces.

Add oil to pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat until a little piece of tortilla in the oil starts to dance. Add tortilla pieces. Sauté for 12 minutes or until tortilla become crispy, but not burnt. Stir frequently. Remove tortillas pieces and place them on plates covered with paper towels. Add bell pepper and onion to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Remove bell pepper/onion mix. Add eggs to pan. Reduce heat to medium and scramble eggs until they are done to your liking.

Add ⅓ of tortilla to casserole dish, then ⅓ bell pepper/onion, followed by ⅓ egg to casserole. Smooth after each layer. Repeat 2 more times. Pour serrano chile/tomato puree over everything. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from over and spoon sour cream evenly over everything.

TIDBITS

1) “Chilaquiles” is an anagram of “Ah, ice quills.” Unlike their American cousins, Greenlandic porcupines have quills made from ice. These northern critters are also stupendously tasty. This is why Eskimo porcupine-hunters exclaim, “Ah ice quills,” whenever they come across ice quill remnants. And of course, it was but a matter of time before vibrant Greenlandic/Mexican chef community transformed porcupine stew into chilaquiles. Ah ice quills, indeed.

– 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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Piri Piri Chicken

Posted on May 18, 2017 by pauldelancey

Mozambican Entree

PIRI PIRI CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

6 garlic cloves
6 piri piri chiles (or Thai chiles)
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons lemon juice
7 tablespoons olive oil
3½ pounds boneless chicken parts, skin on

SPECIAL UTENSILS

blender
outdoor grill
meat thermometer (You really do need this. There is a huge range of times needed to grill the chicken depending on your grill and the size of the chicken breasts.

Serves 6. Takes 15 minutes preparations 12 hours marinating, and another 30 at the grill.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves and chiles. Add all ingredients except chicken to large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork until well blended. Add chicken parts. Mix with fork until chicken is well coated. Cover and let marinate in fridge for 12 hours or overnight. Keep marinade.

Place chicken on grill skin side up. Grill chicken on outdoor grill for 15 minutes using low-medium heat. Flip chicken parts over and grill for another 10 minutes. Baste every 10 minutes with reserved. Check heat with meat thermometer after 20 minutes of grilling. Chicken breasts should have an internal temperature of 165-to-170 degrees.)

TIDBITS

1) “Sugar, Sugar” was big hit song for the Archies in 1969. The song “Piri Piri” was not a hit song for the Chickens in 1976. The Chickens had the great bad luck to form in the start of a nasty civil war Fellow Mozabicans simply didn’t have the money to buy records. And all the radio stations were monopolized to provide propaganda for the warring sides.

2) Piri Piri reunited in 2012. They played minor gigs in Mozambique, when by sheer good luck they landed a concert date in Wrigley Field, Chicago for November 3, 2016. Unfortunately, everyone was watching the Cubs win their first World Series in 108 and so, no one showed. I’m happy to report though, that the group has landed a permanent engagement at the South Pole’s research station where the saying “Party all night” really means something.

– 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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Malaysian Curry Noodles

Posted on July 9, 2014 by pauldelancey

Malaysian Soup

CURRY NOODLES

(laska)

INGREDIENTS – PASTECurrryNoodles-

1 large shrimp (1 pound more later in SOUP)
5 garlic cloves
4 macadamian nuts
6 fresh red chiles (remove seeds to make less spicy)
5 shallots
2 teaspoons coriander
½ teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 lemongrass stalks
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar

INGREDIENTS – SOUP

1 pound shrimp
6 ounces boneless chicken
8 ounces hard tofu
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (¼ cup more later)
¼ cup vegetable oil
6 ounces yellow egg noodles
8 ounces rice sticks or vermicelli
4 cups chicken stock
1 15 ounce can coconut milk
1 tablespoon lime juice

INGREDIENTS – TOPPINGS

3 ounces bean sprouts
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 lime

SPECIAL UTENSILS

1 pan
3 pots

makes 6 bowls

PREPARATION – PASTE

Peel and devein1 large shrimp. Let dry. Add 1 large shrimp, garlic cloves, macadamian nuts, red chiles, shallots, coriander, cumin, curry powder, lemongrass, salt, and sugar to food processor. Grind ingredients until paste is smooth.

PREPARATION – SOUP

Peel and devein 1 pound shrimp. Cut chicken and tofu into ½” cubes. Put tofu and 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in pan. Sauté tofu at medium-high heat until tofu turns golden brown.

Add ¼ cup vegetable oil to pot. Warm oil using medium heat. Add paste. Cook for 3 minutes or until paste darkens and become fragrant. Add chicken stock, coconut milk, and lime juice to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add chicken, shrimp and tofu cubes. Continue simmering on low heat for another 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

While chicken stock/coconut milk mix simmers, cook egg noodles and rice stick according to instructions on packages. (Will you need extra pots? Will you be cleaning pots after this meal? Yes, you will!) Drain noodles after they are done.

Place an equal amount of noodles into serving bowls. Add an equal amount of chicken stock/coconut oil/shrimp/tofu mix into bowls. Peel hard-boiled eggs and cut them into halves. Cut lime into 6 slices. Top bowls with hard-boiled egg halves, lime slices, and bean sprouts.

TIDBITS

1) Curry noodles is an anagram for cloudy snorer, uncool dryers, and nosy cod ruler.

2) Dryers are uncool because they steal our socks.

3) Dryers are actually alive. They are all aliens from the planet Rohoho.

4) Rohohans love socks, any planet’s socks.

5) But they love socks from Earth most of all.

6) That’s why the Rohohans come in the middle of the night, zap your clothes dryer into another dimension, and take its place. So, that clothes dryer in your home is actually an alien.

8) But it’s no big deal. Rohohans really don’t mind drying your clothes. In fact, they are rather good at it. They just eat one of your socks occasionally.

9) Why do they eat only one sock from a pair? No one knows for sure. The best guess is that they crave variety, just like we hate to eat 1,722 hot dogs in a row.

10) If you fill your socks with lutefisk, the Rohohans won’t touch them.

11) Of course, you won’t want to touch any of your lutefisk-scented clothes either. Life is hard.

– 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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