Posts Tagged With: Comic Chef

Italian Entree

MOZZARELLA HAMBURGER

INGREDIENTS

SAUTE
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
¼ teaspoon sea salt

BURGER MIX
1½ pounds ground beef
2 eggs
1½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ tablespoon basil
½ teaspoon oregano
no-stick cooking spray

8 hamburger buns or 16 slices of bread
8 slices of mozzarella
8 leaves of lettuce

PREPARATION

Dice garlic cloves and onion. Melt butter in frying pan. Add olive and peanut oils. Put thyme, black pepper, meat sauce, and sea salt in pan. Sauté these ingredients on medium heat for about 5 to 10 minutes or until onion is soft. Set aside.

(You can dice garlic, but there are no garlic dice.)

Combine ground beef, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, basil, and oregano in mixing bowl. Add sautéed ingredients. Mix again.

Form 8 patties. Put them in frying pan coated with no-stick spray. Fry patties on medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, flipping them over with care and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more. Put mozzarella slices on top of each patty. Fry for 1 more minute. Heat patties more if they are not yet cooked to your satisfaction.

Toast 8 buns. Assemble buns, patties, and lettuce.

TIDBITS

1) Marco Polo traveled in China from 1275 to 1292. He brought back pasta to Italy, which was eagerly eaten by the peasantry but not by the nobility. (Goodness! That last sentence wasn’t clear, was it? I meant to convey the peasants ate pasta. They did not eat Italy.)

2) Marco Polo did not bring back hamburgers as the Great Khan of China was apparently too busy trying to subjugate the world to develop this wondrous culinary treat.

3) Cosimo de’ Medici gained power in Florence. His great financial and political skills brought prosperity to Florence, but, alas, no hamburgers.

4) Lorenzo de’ Medici took sole power in Florence. His rule brought Florence to its height of prestige. The arts flourished. Michelangelo produced magnificent works of art. No one produced a hamburger.

5) Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492. Did the original Americans possess the knowledge of the hamburger? (See Tidbit 7.)

6) In 1494, Naples, angered by Florentine politics, called in the French king Charles VIII to fight Piero de’ Medici and the Florentines. Hundreds of thousands of Italians presumably hoped Charles VIII would bring the hamburger to Italy.

7) The French, already showing antipathy to American cooking, discovered only two years before, not only refused to bring the hamburger to Italy, but suppressed all knowledge of it coming from the New World.

8) In 1495, Milan, Venice, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, and Aragon seething over the suppression of the hamburger formed an alliance to drive the French out of Italy.

9) From 1495 to 1866, various Italian states and the Spanish, French, and Austrians waged nearly constant war up and down the Italian peninsula. This naturally delayed the development of the Italian hamburger. In fact, this blessed culinary treat would occur in the relatively tranquil America of 1826.

– 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.