Posts Tagged With: Chinese

Tofu Rice

Posted on May 19, 2023 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

TOFU RICE

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
6 hard-boiled eggs
3 garlic cloves
3 stalks green onion
1½ pound package extra-firm tofu
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
⅓ cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

SPECIALTY UTENSIL

Wok (If you have one.)

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. Boil 6 eggs. Mince the garlic cloves. Mince green onion. Cut tofu into strips ½ inch wide. Cut these strips into ½-inch squares. Mix in bowl, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sugar with whisk.

While rice and eggs cook, heat olive oil in wok or saucepan, preferably non-stick, medium-high heat. Sauté garlic and green onion. Add tofu, salt, and pepper. Cook until tofu is golden brown on both sides. (Pay attention or your tofu can dry out faster than your printer jams paper.)

Add sauce from bowl. Cook for a few minutes or until tofu absorbs the sauce. Serve with rice. Peel eggs and crumble. Cover plate with rice. Top rice with egg. Add tofu squares.

TIDBITS

1) I don’t how many times I accidentally typed “bowel” instead of “bowl.” Don’t worry; I corrected the two or three mistakes. Yes, those typos would change the recipes considerably.

2) China has over a billion people and is growing by millions each year despite having an official policy of one child per family. It sounds as if some couples are cheating. In feudal Japan, tax collectors took rice as payment. All sorts of meat substitutes are made with tofu. One of the best known is TofurkeyTM. This springs up in health-food stores around Thanksgiving and is surprisingly tasty and expensive.

3) Would there have ever been the first Thanksgiving if the Pilgrims and the Native Americans had to eat TofurkeyTM?

 

– 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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Southwest Potato Skins

Posted on May 13, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

SOUTHWEST POTATO SKINS

INGREDIENTS

6 baking potatoes, not the itsy bitsy kind
1 green chile
4 garlic cloves
6 stalks green onion
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon dill weed
½ cup diced tomatoes
2½ cups shredded Four Mexican cheeses
¾ cup sour cream
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 12-ounce package bacon

4 tablespoons shredded Four Mexican cheeses

PREPARATION

Rinse potatoes. Bake potatoes according to instruction on bag; often about 50 to 60 minutes in oven preheated to 425 degrees. While the potatoes are baking, remove seeds from green chile. Cut chile lengthwise into 8 equal pieces. Mince garlic and green onion.

Combine garlic, green onion, Parmesan cheese, salt, paprika, dill weed, diced tomatoes, Mexican cheese, and sour cream in mixing bowl.

Slice all strips of bacon lengthwise into 8 equally long pieces. Separate small pieces of bacon in a no-stick frying pan. Cook at medium-high heat until all pieces turn crispy and turn golden. Stir frequently. Tilt the pan away from you so you don’t get splattered by grease. Be sure to monitor the bacon constantly. Bacon goes from a golden crispiness to charred ash faster than a politician forgets campaign promises.

Take bacon out and put on plate covered with a paper towel. Put a paper towel on top on the bacon pieces. Press down. This should remove much of the grease.

Remove potatoes from oven. Close oven door to save its heat for later. Cut baked potatoes in half lengthwise. Remove the inside white part until only ¼-inch remains all around the skin.

(For Pete’s sake, when your sweetheart asks you what plans you have for the white stuff, look him or her firmly in the eye for about five seconds and say with a strong voice, “I will make mashed potatoes with them. The mashed potatoes will be magnificent. Angels in Heaven will sing their praises. This speech works.

Do not! Do not say, “I don’t know. The recipe didn’t say.” Your significant other will not believe you. Harsh words will ensue. Your beautiful relationship will dissolve and all you will have left are these wonderful potato skins; which might or might not be sufficient compensation for the loss of your sweetheart.

Oh, and if after the spat, you write an apology do not start with, “Dear Sweatheart.”)

Meanwhile, back at the kitchen. Brush vegetable oil all over the insides and outsides of the potatoes. Spoon garlic/green onion/cheese/sour cream mixture into the hollowed out potato halves. Use no-stick spray on a baking sheet. Put filled potatoes on the baking sheet. Place sheets in oven. Cook at 450 degrees for 8 minutes.

Remove filled potatoes from baking sheet. Place green-chile strip, its inside part face up on filled potato. Place bacon bits on top of that. Sprinkle lightly with remaining cheese.

Have an ice-cold root beer and serve potato skins to adoring guests. (Assuming you didn’t alienate them to the point of leaving over what to do with the scooped out potato pulp.)

TIDBITS

1) A survey by Maple Leaf FoodsTM found that 43% of people would rather have bacon than sex.

2) Why not have both? Instead of lighting up a cigarette afterwards, try frying up a pound of bacon.

3) I suspect far less than 43% would prefer raw bacon to raw sex.

4) The Chinese have been salting pork since 1,500 B.C., and look how many Chinese there are.

5) People from India don’t eat any bacon or any pork and yet there are over a billion of them.

6) Still, Chinese outnumber Indians by about 300 million. So if you want a hot and heavy night, treat your sweetheart to a bacon dinner.

7) Oh, chocolates, flowers, and champagne don’t hurt your chances either.

 

– 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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Orange Chicken

Posted on March 6, 2023 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

ORANGE CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

RICE BED

1½ cups rice
3 cups water (1½ cups more later in SAUCE)
1 green pepper

MARINADE

2 ½ tablespoons rice vinegar (⅓ cup later in SAUCE)
1 green pepper
1 cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice
1 tablespoon cornstarch (3 tablespoons more later in SAUCE)
4 chicken breasts

SAUCE

1½ cups water
⅓ cup orange juice
⅓ cup rice vinegar
¼ cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon ginger
1 clove garlic
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons cornstarch

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

hammer (If brown sugar is brick hard.)

PREPARATION OF RICE BED

Cook rice according to instructions on accompanying bag. This should take about 30 minutes. Add diced green bell pepper to top of rice while cooking.

PREPARATION OF MARINADE

Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. This is best done when the chicken is partially thawed. Mince garlic. Dice green pepper. If the brown sugar in its box is as hard as a brick, pound the box until the sugar fragments into little bits or individual granules, or until it cries, “Uncle.”

For the marinade, combine the rice vinegar, flour, salt, poultry spice, and cornstarch in large bowl. Mix thoroughly with whisk or fork. Add chicken cubes to bowl. Mix the chicken cubes with ingredients already in the bowl with your hands until the cubes are thoroughly coated. (Your hands will be considered icky for handshaking, so wash them before greeting anyone except door-to-door salesmen.)

PREPARATION OF SAUCE

Combine the 1½ cups water, orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, pounded-into-submission brown sugar, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, and sesame oil. Cook over medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Bring to boil.

Gently-–to avoid being splattered by heated sauce–add the coated chicken cubes until the saucepan is full. Cook on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, or until the coated cubes are golden brown and the chicken is no longer pink inside. Remove cubes with a spoon with holes in it so as to keep the sauce in the pan. Add remaining chicken cubes until all are cooked.

Add 3 tablespoons cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water to sauce remaining in pan. Stir thoroughly with fork or whisk.

Put rice in bowl. Put cooked chicken cubes on top. Spoon sauce over everything. This is great.

TIDBITS

1) Chickens are eaten all over the world because they are tasty and can be found on all continents except Antarctica.

2) Penguins are only found on one continent, Antarctica. Nobody on the upper six continents eat penguins. Perhaps penguins are protected because they come from a continent that since 1959 has been claimed by no nation.

3) After the British-Argentine war over the Falklands, British fighter pilots flew patrol after patrol over the retaken islands. To relieve boredom, they would fly back and forth over penguin colonies. Thousands and thousands of eyes followed them. After a few minutes of this, the jets would rocket straight up into the air. Thousands of penguins would tilt their heads farther and farther back to follow the jets until they all fell over like bowling pins.

4) I’d bet chickens would like to move en masse to Antarctica where they too would be protected.

5) Of course, that assumes that chickens have the brains to think up such a scheme, could cooperate enough to pull it off, and have enough money to book passage for all of them to Antarctica.

6) As of publication, chickens have shown no such abilities.

 

– 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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Kung Pao Chicken

Posted on February 4, 2023 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

KUNG PAO CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

MARINADE

2 chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic
1 stalk green onion
1 tablespoon soy sauce (2 more tablespoons later)
1½ tablespoons cornstarch (1 teaspoon more later)
½ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice (¼ teaspoon more later)
2 teaspoons rice wine
1½ tablespoons water

SAUCE

1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon malt vinegar
¼ teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil

4 red chiles
½ cup unsalted roasted peanuts
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSIL

wok or skillet

Serves 4. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION OF MARINADE

Cut chicken into 1-inch cubes. Mince garlic. Dice green onion. Mix 1½ tablespoons cornstarch, garlic, green onion, ginger, ¼ teaspoon poultry spice, rice wine, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and water. Cover all sides of the chicken cubes with this mixture. Set aside for at least 30 minutes.

PREPARATION OF SAUCE

Combine 1 teaspoon cornstarch, malt vinegar, ¼ teaspoon poultry spice, salt, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, sugar, and sesame oil in 2nd mixing bowl. Set aside.

FINAL PREPARATION

Cut red chiles in half, remove seed, and mince (I cannot say strongly enough, WEAR GLOVES OR WASH YOUR HANDS THOROUGHLY WITH SOAP after touching the chiles and their seeds. They make your skin burn. My gosh, they cause pain. Don’t rub a throbbing temple or wipe sweat from your upper lip immediately after touching red chiles and their seeds. Your face will be on fire. And guy chefs, this is a really bad time to scratch your balls.)

Put unsalted peanuts and 1½ tablespoons vegetable oil in wok. Sauté at 350 degrees until peanuts start turning golden brown. Stir frequently. (The golden brown phase is astonishingly short. The following dark brown/black state is forever.)

Add the coated chicken cubes. Sauté at 350 degrees. Fry for 2 minutes or until chicken is done or no longer pink inside. Stir and turn cubes frequently.

Add red chiles and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Sauté at 350 degrees and stir until the peppers turn dark. Add soy/malt vinegar/sugar/sesame oil sauce. Cook until sauce thickens. Stir frequently.

Thank the person who washes and cleans after this meal. If you are both the cook and cleaner, sit down, have a cold root beer, and admire the halo above your head.

TIDBITS

1) If all strange dishes taste like chicken, why not have chicken?

2) Kung Pao chickens are much milder than their more peppery cousins, Kung Fu Chickens.

3) Peppers that look similar to each other can vary greatly in spiciness. So, keep that in mind when you and a bunch of friends from Madison, Wisconsin travel to St. Louis, Missouri to see two classmates get married and you all stop in a restaurant that serves free peppers.

4) Throat germs don’t like peppers either. Hah, take that!

5) Some people think that cuisine near the Equator is filled with peppery dishes because food didn’t keep well there before refrigeration. I think people in Cuba eat more peppers than the Swedes because peppers are grown in Cuba and not in Sweden.

 

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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Cajun Hamburgers

Posted on January 1, 2023 by pauldelancey

Cajun Entree

CAJUN HAMBURGERS

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds ground beef
1 medium onion
1 teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon coriander
No-stick cooking spray
6 slices provolone cheese
6 hamburger buns

PREPARATION

Completely defrost hamburger meat. Mince onion in food processor. Preheat skillet to 350 degrees. Mix onion, paprika, salt, cayenne, poultry spice, cumin, thyme, and coriander on large plate. Form 6 hamburger patties. Coat both sides of the patties with no-stick spray.

Place the patties on plate and move them around until they are coated with spices on both sides. Place patties in skillet, gently turning them over every 1 minute, or until spices are blackened. Keep skillet’s lid on while frying.

This is a great dish if you wish to impress people at a barbeque or at an embassy if somehow you manage to get past the guards.

TIDBITS

1) I’ve never seen a Cajun hamburger, but if I were Cajun and was hankerin’ for a burger this is how I would make it.

2) Hamburg is a major seaport in northern Germany. A panhandler at its main train station kicked me in my shin when I declined to give him a handout. On the other hand, one of the city’s prostitutes smiled and said, “Have a nice day,” after I had said no.

3) I had Chinese food on that stopover in Hamburg. I couldn’t find German food near the train station. I went to Tijuana once with a friend. We couldn’t find Mexican food, so we settled for Chinese. What is it with Chinese food being everywhere? If I went to Beijing, would I only be able to find German or Mexican cuisine?

4) Provolone cheese is not really very Cajun. But its inclusion is in keeping with the theme of “Cooking with what’s handy.” I had provolone cheese, so I used it. Besides, it made a nice culinary contrast and complement to the Cajun spices.

5) Or maybe it is not too hard to imagine a French-Italian couple kicked out of Acadia, Canada by the English in the 18th century settling in the bayous of Louisiana sustaining themselves by selling Cajun burgers with provolone cheese.

 

– 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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De Lancey’s Asian Fun Festival Tours

Posted on November 25, 2022 by pauldelancey

Himari, your tour guide

Third Saturday of February – Saidaiji Eyo Naked Man Festival – Men, clad only in loincloths race toward Saldaiji Templein in Okayama to collect lucky sticks. Register in advance with Saldaiji temple and buy a loincloth. Then you run around the temple for two hours and through a fountain of frigid water. This purifies your body and soul. Fully purified, the race becomes competitive. Indeed, the event has become quite a team sport with many teams sponsored by local businesses. The goal is to catch one of two wooden sticks, shingi, thrown into the racers midst by a temple priest. Catching a shingi confers good fortune for a entire year. Spectators vie for 100 lucky items thrown in the crowd. Amazingly enough, there’s a more subdued version of this for the local children. This strengthens the bonds between residents. Tourists can shop at the excitingly named street of Go Fuku Dori.

Late April to May – Steamed Buns on Bamboo –  The festival takes place in Hong Kong on or around Buddha’s Birthday. Contestants climb a giant bamboo tower covered in Chinese steamed buns. Buns picked from the top of the bamboo tower or taken on the backs of the contestants to the top are consider luckier than ones at the bottom.  Climbers try to grab as many lucky buns as they can in three minutes. Hard to reach buns give extra points. Or you could simply go for the prestigious Full Pockets of Lucky Buns award. This is won by the climber who grabs the most buns in three minutes. There is also a rather exciting team-relay event. The week-long festivities includes incense, prayers for prosperity and health, and offerings to festival’s god, Pak Tai. Wander the grounds and sample the incredible variety of steamed buns. See the festival’s spectacular parade, elaborate lion and unicorndances and marching bands. Witness the martial arts demonstrations. Don’t miss the “Floating Children” parade where children dress as Chinese deities. They sit on stands so high that they appear to be floating.

 

– 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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Cambodian Lap Khmer (Beef Salad)

Posted on September 26, 2022 by pauldelancey

Cambodian Entree

LAP KHMER
(Beef Salad)

INGREDIENTS

6 ounces fresh beef sirloin or tenderloin steak cut thinly as possible
1½ tablespoons fresh basil*
1½ tablespoons fresh mint*
¼ pound Chinese long beans (also called yardlong beans)
1 red chile pepper
½ small red onion
1½ tablespoons fish sauce, Hoisin sauce, or soy sauce
1¼ teaspoons sugar
¼ pound bean sprouts
2½ tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 lemongrass stick or 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¾ teaspoon prahok, shrimp paste**, fish sauce, or even omit
2 tablespoons water

* = or use 1 tablespoon each of dried basil and dried mint. Again, if your guest gives you guff about this, turn your sonic obliterator on her. It’s okay, you are the master of your kitchen. (See Courgette v Aubergine, 1973.)

** = prahok can be found in Asian supermarkets on online. Shrimp paste is the closest substitute to prahok. It too can be found in Asian supermarkets or online. However, foodies will tell you shrimp paste really is only a distant substitute. Indeed, an entirely reasonable approach to finding prahok is to not use it at all. If some oaf complains about the missing prahok, zap him with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your kitchen.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

large freezer bag
deli slicer or kitchen mallet
sonic obliterator

Serves 2. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION – BEEF SIRLOIN

Put sirloin in freezer bag. Push out all air from freezer bag and close tightly. Freeze meat for 1 hour. (Meat will firm faster in the freezer if you put the bag on a metal tray before putting it in the freezer. Periodically check to see if sirloin has firmed. The sirloin is just firm enough if a knife goes the meat smoothly.

If cutting with knife, make sirloin strips by cutting against the grain as thinly as possible. If cutting by deli slicer or mandoline, set the cutting thickness to ⅛. (Be sure to use the safety features on these kitchen tools. (If you can’t slice the sirloin thinner than ⅛”, flatten the slices with a kitchen mallet until they are ⅛” thick. )

PREPARATION – REST

While sirloin firms in freezer, dice basil, mint, Chinese long beans, red chile peppers, and red onion. Add basil, mint, Chinese long bean, red chile pepper, red onion, fish sauce, sugar, and bean sprouts to 1st mixing bowl. Toss with fork until well blended.

Cut beef slices into strips 1″ wide and 2″ long. Add beef strips to 2nd mixing bowl. Pour lime juice over beef. (The citric acid in the lime juice will “cook” the sirloin in the same way as ceviche does for fish.) Cover and set aside for 15 minutes.

While sirloin marinates, remove outer, white layers of lemongrass. Mince remaining green part of lemongrass (Skip this bit, if you’re using lemongrass paste.). Add vegetable oil to pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat until a bit of garlic will dance in the oil. Carefully add garlic and lemongrass to hot oil. (Add sirloin here if you want it sautéed.) Sauté on medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Add prahok and water. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Remove from heat.

Add all ingredients to large salad bowl. Toss with forks until well blended.

TIDBITS

1) Lap Khmer is a Cambodian dish. Cambodian was, as of press time, the most popular cuisine in Cambodia. However, the cuisines of: Paraguay, Austria, Mali, El Salvador, and Luxembourg remain quite underappreciated.

2) Indeed, Greenland, with a cuisine that emphasizes: whale, musk ox ptarmigan, lump fish roe, seal meat, and wild cloudberries quite shunned by native Cambodians. Sad to say, you’ll never hear the following conversation in Cambodia.

Acharya: Hey Thyda, where would you like to eat tonight?
Thyda: I dunno. Where would you like to eat?
Acharya: I dunno, what do you want?
Thyda: I dunno, how about Greenlandic?
Acharya: Great,. I was thinking about Greenlandic cuisine this very morning. But which restaurant?
Thyda: How about The Fragrant Elephant? My friend Jorani says their food’s quite tasty. And it’s just two streets away from us.
Acharya: But won’t it be crowded?
Thyda: Yes, it will. We’ll have to make reservations right now.
Acharya: And don’t forget, let’s save room for fresh wild Arctic berry desserts. You know how much I love them.

 

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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Cantonese Ginger Beef

Posted on April 13, 2022 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

CANTONESE GINGER BEEF

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

¾ pound sirloin steak or flank steak
2 teaspoons sesame oil or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon mirin or rice wine
1 tablespoon light soy sauce or soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

¼ cup chicken stock
4 teaspoons oyster sauce or hoisin sauce
¾ teaspoon light soy sauce or soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch

INGREDIENTS – FINAL

1½” ginger root
3 scallions or green onions
1 cup peanut oil or vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSILS

wok (optional, not to be confused with an EwokTM. Although having an Ewok would be cool.)

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION – MARINADE

Cut steak against the grain into as thin as possible slices. Cut these slices into 1″ squares. Add all marinade ingredients to large mixing bowl. Stir with hands until cornstarch is no longer visible and steak squares are well coated. Let sit for 20 minutes.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

While steak marinates, Add all sauce ingredients to small mixing bowl. Stir with fork until cornstarch is no longer visible.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Peel ginger root. Cut ginger root into thin strips or rounds. Cut scallions into ½” long pieces. Add peanut oil and marinated steak squares to wok. Sauté at medium-high for 3 minutes or until steak squares brown. Stir enough to ensure even browning. Remove steak squares and drain on paper towels. Remove all but 1 tablespoon oil from work.

Add ginger strips and scallion pieces to work. Sauté for 30 seconds. Stir frequently. Return steak squares and add sauce to wok. Stir fry using medium-high heat until liquid starts to boil and steak squares are cooked through. Stir frequently.

TIDBITS

1) America has the Easter Bunny. It is both a symbol of the Resurrection and of fertility.

2) Britain also has the Easter Bunny.

3) The Easter originally came to America from Germany.

4) But Germany hasn’t really celebrated the Easter Bunny for a long time.

5) Germany also started two world wars.

6) Coincidence? Perhaps.

7) Australia doesn’t have an Easter Bunny either. In 1859 or so, someone released rabbits into the wilds. The rabbits bred like rabbits. Soon, rabbits were displacing all sorts of native critters and munching acres upon acres of crops. Farmers hated that. So, Australia periodically wages a campaign against the rabbit hordes. But the rabbits keep coming back. Farmers still hate them.

8) Thus, the land Down Under doesn’t have an Easter Bunny. It has the Easter tilby. A tilby looks a bit like a rabbit. The tilby has great sex, producing eight babies a year. This number is apparently, less than what the rabbit can do. But even so, the Easter tilby isn’t as celebrated as the Easter Bunny is in other lands.

9) America, Britain, Germany, and even Australia aren’t the only nations with a rabbitish animal celebrating fertility.

10) Oh no, the Cantonese region of China honors fecundity through cattle.

11) What is the singular form of cattle? Technically, there isn’t one. However, extensive research –Watching hours of the TV show Rawhide–gives us “beeves” as an alternative word for “cattle.” “Beef” is the singular form of “Beeves.” There you go.

12) It might seem strange for a beef to symbolize fertility. Would a bee have been a much better representative for reproduction?

13) Yes, it would have. Except that in 1884, a British newspaper, The Lion, wrote an article about Canton’s annual Bee Festival. Only The Lion didn’t say that. A misprint turned the celebration into the Beef Festival.

14) Hundreds of thousands of tourists thronged Canton to honor beef., spending millions of pounds while there. The Cantonese government knowing a good thing when they saw it, officially renamed the event, The Beef Festival. Local restaurateurs developed this dish to serve their British guests. 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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Adventures in Cooking

Posted on April 11, 2022 by pauldelancey

I often list substitutes in my recipes as the original ingredient is found easily only in the recipe’s native land. Sometimes though, finding the ingredient, usually an herb, is impossible even on the internet.

My most exciting ingredient search was for an herb that grows only in the wilds of Sinkiang Province. And even there, the herb is rare. Then there’s the problem of the Chinese police not believing I was scouring the countryside for an herb.

 

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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Fun Festivals – Steamed Buns On a Bamboo Tower

Posted on February 6, 2022 by pauldelancey

 

Would you climb a giant bamboo tower for these?

Lovers of bamboo and buns will not want to miss Hong Kong’s Cheung Chau Ben Festival . The festival takes place on or around Buddhas Birthday, near the end of April or May. in Hong Kong. Contestants climb a giant bamboo tower covered in Chinese steamed buns. Um, okay, it’s not entirely clear from that whether the tower is covered in Chinese steamed buns or the climbers are covered in them. Either way, it’s pretty darn exciting. Anyway, buns picked from the top of the bamboo tower or taken on the backs of the contestants to the top are consider luckier than ones at the bottom. People there go vegetarian during this festival. It’s not clear why. Maybe I would too if I had to climb a tall tower with steamed buns all over me.

The festival’s star attraction are the huge bamboo towers covered with handmade buns. Legends says the island was plagued by an epidemic that killed thousands. Resourceful Cheung Chau locals brought in the god Pak Tai and built it a temple. Pak Tai then shooed the plague and evil spirits away.

In this festival, the inhabitants honor Pak Tai with the Bun Grabbing contest. (Naughty, mind your thoughts.) Contests clamber up a 60-foot tower that’s covered with steam buns. Climbers try to grab as many lucky buns as they can in three minutes. Hard to reach buns give extra points. Or you could simply go for the prestigious Full Pockets of Lucky Buns award. This is won by the climber who grabs the most buns in three minutes. There is also a rather exciting team-relay event.

It’s not at all clear to me how grabbing buns of a bamboo tower shows gratitude to a god who stopped a plague or why these buns are lucky. But there you go. The locals love the event. Tourists from all over the globe come to see it. And you should too. So make your flight plans. Book your hotel and by all means see the Bun Grabbing contest. It’s on the last day of the festival.

But there’s more to this festival than grabbing buns. The week-long festivities includes incense, prayers for prosperity and health, and offerings to festival’s god. Pay a respectful visit to Pak Tai’s altars.

Then wander around the grounds and sample the incredible variety of steamed buns sold by the many food vendors. Heavens, those steamed buns are tasty. And be sure to bring home souvenirs of the event.

Don’t get so distracted by the yummy buns that you miss the festival’s spectacular parade. See elaborate lion dances (No, no ravenous, wild lions are used), and marching bands. Be entranced by the martial arts demonstrations. Biff, biff. Don’t miss the “Floating Children” parade where children dress as Chinese deities. They sit on stands so high that they appear to be floating.

But wait, there’s more. See unicorn dances. Does your town have anything like that? No, I didn’t think so.

It’s well worth arriving in Hong Kong the weekend before the festival for the preliminary Bun Carnival. Watch instructions teach you how to climb the Bun Tower. Climb it for fun. Practice on it. If you find you’re good enough, why not enter the event itself? Go for it. Do it for yourself. Do it for me. Do it for all us who aren’t able to attend.

Oh my gosh, this sounds like such a fun festival.

 

– 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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