Posts Tagged With: eggs

Japanese Rice Omelette

Japanese Entree

RICE OMELETTE
(Omurice)

INGREDIENTS – FRIED RICE

3 ounces boneless chicken
1 small onion
1½ tablespoons butter (1½ tablespoons more later)
1½ cups cooked rice (warm)
¼ cup ketchup
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – OMELETTE

4 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1½ tablespoons butter
1 ketchup bottle for squirting

SPECIAL UTENSILS

no-stick pan
paper towels

Serves 2. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – FRIED RICE

Slice chicken into ½” cubes. Mince onion. Add 1½ tablespoons butter and onion to regular pan. Sauté onion at medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Add chicken. Sauté for 2 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Add rice, ketchup, pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 2 minutes or until rice is hot and coated with ketchup. Remove and cover to keep warm.

PREPARATION – OMELETTE

Add eggs and milk to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk. Add 1½ tablespoons butter to no-stick pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add ½ of the blended eggs. Tilt pan so that egg mixture covers the surface. Cook egg mixture using medium heat for 1 minute or until egg starts to set on the bottom, but is still runny on top. Sprinkle ½ of the fried rice onto the setting egg mixture, leaving 2″ of egg uncovered on the left and right sides. Use spatula to fold uncovered sides over the rice as far as they can go.

Tilt pan to the right so that the right side of the omelette gets curved slightly by the pan. Then tilt the pan to the left for the same result. Put serving plate on top of pan. While holding plate, turn pan upside down so that the egg side of the omelette is on the top. Cover with paper towel to remove oil and to gently shape omelette into the shape of an American football. Remove towel and artistically drizzle omelette with ketchup. Repeat for the second omelette.

TIDBITS

1) The above picture of Omurice looks a lot like a triangular sail. This is no accident. Look at the Viking ship shown in the picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

2) Now, add a happy face to the triangular sail.

 

 

 

 

 

3) Let’s put those two pictures together.

 

 

 

 

4) Whoa! The pictures are nearly identical.. The Vikings did get the idea for their sail from the Japanese rice omelette. These pictures prove the Erik the Happy saga is true beyond all questioning.

5) In the Happy saga, Erik and his crew of oarsmen set off from Sweden to raid Northumbria. But, he refused to ask for directions and ended up in Japan. While there, Erik dined on a rice omelette. His synapses fired and he made the sail you see above. Voyaging back to Sweden with a sail was a snap.

6) Erik the Happy told Ragnar Lothbrok how easy sailing can now be, Just two months later, in the summer of 792. Ragnar built a long boat and added a triangular sail. He sailed to Northumbria and sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne. Much bloodshed and looting ensued. The age of the Vikings had begun. 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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Simple Fig Bars

American Dessert

SIMPLE FIG BARS

INGREDIENTS

6½ tablespoons butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour (2 tablespoons more later)
½ cup wheat flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
½ pound fig jam

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
14″ x 10″ cookie sheet
parchment paper

Makes 32 bars. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add butter and brown sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy.

Add 1 cup flour, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Gradually add in flour mix from small mixing bowl to egg/sugar mix in large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy. Use hands to form a round dough ball. Cover and place in refrigerator for 1 hour or until firm.

Dust 14″ x 10″ flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball. Roll out dough ball until it’s ¼” thick. Cut dough along its length into 10″ x 3½” strips. Spread ¼ of the fig jam down the middle of a strip until it’s 1″ wide. Carefully fold both edges of the dough over the fig jam. Pinch seam together to complete fig/dough log. Repeat for each dough strip. Cut each log into 2 shorter mini-logs to make transferring them to the parchment paper easier.

Place parchment paper on cookie sheet. Use spatula to carefully place mini logs seam side down on parchment paper. Use fingers to smooth together any tears in the mini logs. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until mini logs turn golden brown and feel slightly firm. Cut each mini log into 4 fig bars. Let cool on cookie sheet for 15 minutes or until slightly warm. Store in airtight container.

TIDBITS

1) Be sure to mark your calendar for January 16. That’s International Hot and Spicy Food Day.

2) It’s also National Fig Newton Day.

3) So eat hot-and-spicy food and fig bars on that day (IHSFNFND).

4) You might not want to do anything else.

5) Indeed. The Super Bowl used to held in January, but the prospect of having their biggest game of the year fall on International Hot and Spicy Day AND National Fig Newton Day terrified National Football League Executives. They knew the NFL would lose the match up.

6) This is why recent Super Bowls have been held in February.

7) Baseball, for decades, held its World Series in October for the very same reason.

8) Now, World Series Games spillover into November.

9) November is still two months away from IHSFNFND.

10) But the end of the World Series is getting ever closer to that eventful culinary day, because of ever increasing rounds of post-season play.

11) The World Series might eventually coincide with IHSFNFND. If that happens, television executives will simply throw up their hands and stop broadcasting the Fall Classic. This is something even World War II could not do.

12) This must not happen. Contact your senator. Now.

13) It’s worth noting that fig bars’ existential challenge to professional sports in America derives from their many great attributes.

14) Fig bars are high in fiber. Football and baseball are not.

15) Fig bars have many vitamins. Football and baseball do not.

16) Fig bars have many minerals. Football and baseball do not.

17) Fig bars are a tasty snack. Football and baseball do not.

18) Fig bars help digestion. Football and baseball do not.

19) Indeed, footballs and baseballs are even difficult to eat.

20) Oh crudness, National Fig Week runs from November 1 to November 7. The same time as the World Series. Stock up on fig bars; we live in dark, troubling times.

 

– 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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You Need to See Eggs in a Sauna

All people need to relax. So do chicken eggs. They have their whole lives in front of them. What will it be like? They don’t know. Scary. They need to spend their last pre-coming out moments letting their hair down. So where do they go? To a sauna! The picture below show eggs chilling in a South Korean* sauna. Proof you cannot deny.

You Need to See #22

 

* = It might true that North Korean eggs also frequent saunas. I tend to doubt it. North Korea is under a brutal, repressive dictatorship.

P.S. It’s not yet clear why the groups of three thing is so prevalent among sauna-going eggs.

 

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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Full English Breakfast (Fry Up)

British Breakfast

FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
(Fry Up)

INGREDIENTS

1 15-ounce can baked beans*
1 large tomato
4 pork sausages, breakfast sausages, or bangers
4 slices bacon**
6 mushroom caps
2 slices black pudding (optional)***
1½ tablespoons olive oil
2 slices bread
2 eggs

* = Try to use Heinz beans. Heinz is really popular in England
** = back bacon, pork belly, or regular bacon
*** = can be found online

SPECIAL UTENSILS

3 pans and 1 pot (Not really special, but you’ll need 4 of them.)
sonic obliterator (Now this is a truly special kitchen utensil. Once you get one, you’ll wonder how your ever managed to do without one.)

Serves 2. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut tomato into 4 slices. Add beans to small pot. Simmer at low heat until the sauce that comes with the beans thicken. Cover and reduce heat to warm or lowest setting. Stir enough to prevent burning.

Poke sausages with fork or toothpick. (This keeps the sausage juices from building up and coming out in a hot jet.) Add sausages to 1st pan. Fry sausages at medium heat for 15 minutes or until completely browned. Turn enough to ensure even browning. Turn enough to prevent burning Cover and reduce heat to warm..

While sausage fry or warm, add bacon to 2nd pan. Fry bacon for 3 minutes or until it reaches your desired level of doneness. Turn occasionally to ensure even browning. Cover and reduce heat to warm. Remove from heat and set aside Turn enough to prevent burning.

While sausages simmer, add mushrooms to 2rd pan. (The one that had the bacon.) Sauté at medium-high heat for 2 minutes or until they turn brown. Turn enough to keep from burning. Remove mushrooms from heat. Add black pudding to 3rd pan. Sauté at medium heat for 3 minutes or until it both sides turn crispy. Flip once. Remove and set aside.

Add 1½ tablespoons olive oil to 3th pan. Heat at medium heat until tiny piece of bread in the oil starts to dance. Add bread slices. Sauté for 2 minutes or until both sides are crispy and golden brown. Flip once. Remove and set aside Add eggs to this, the 3rd pan. Fry eggs until they are done to your liking. Remove from heat and set aside. Add tomato slices. Reduce heat to low-medium. Sauté for 2 minutes. Flip once.

Add equal amounts of everything to 2 serving plates. Use sonic obliterator on anyone gives you any guff at all during the cooking or the presentation. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) People ask me, “How does one start writing again while suffering from writers’ block?”

2) Go find your muse. Of course, you might just discover that your muse has gone on a drunken bender.

3) So you go on a pub crawl to find her. At each stop, you ask the bartender if he’s seen your muse.

4)“I’m not telling you a thing,” says the bartender, “until you’ve ordered a drink.”

5) So, you order and down a whiskey.

6) “Your muse was here ten minutes ago,” says the man serving drinks, “but she went to the next bar up the street.”

7) So you enter the next bar. That bartender also refuses to talk unless you’ve bought a drink. You order another whiskey. The barkeep informs you that she moved onto a bar two blocks west. “She was a with a gal called Betty.”

8) And so it goes. You drink a whiskey at every bar you go into. The bartender states that you just missed her, but you can find at a bar that’s really not very far away. And so you stagger doggedly on after her.

9) Hours later, your muse parts company with Betty. But the muse conquers bar after bar.

10) Eventually, you give up. You decide to head home. In your car.

11) A vigilant traffic cop notices you weaving from lane to lane. He pulls you over.

12) “But officer,” you hear yourself saying, “I’m a writer. I was looking for my muse, but she was on a pub crawl.”

13) The officer sneers. “Like, I haven’t heard that one before.”

14) This is why writing is not as easy as some people think.

 

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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Fragrant Beef Stew From Vietnam

Vietnamese Entree

FRAGRANT BEEF STEW

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

2¼ pounds beef, chuck, top round
3 garlic cloves
3 lemongrass stalks or 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
¼ teaspoon annatto powder
2 teaspoons Chinese five spice
½ tablespoon minced ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1½ tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar or brown sugar

INGREDIENTS – STEW

3 carrots
3 shallots
1 tomato
1 green chile or Thai chile
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cinnamon stick
3 kaffir, curry, or bay leaves
3 star anise pods
2⅓ cups coconut water, beef stock, or beer
¼ cup fresh* Thai basil or basil
⅓ cup fresh** mint leaves

* = or 4 teaspoons dried Thai basil
** = 5¼ teaspoons dried mint

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 10 minutes.

PREPARATION – MARINADE

Cut beef into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves. Remove white outer leaves from lemongrass stalks. Mince remaining green part of lemongrass. Add all marinade ingredients to mixing. Mix with hands until well blended and beef cubes are well coated. Marinate for 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – STEW

Dice carrots, shallots, and tomato. Seed and mince chile. Dice Thai basil and mint. Add vegetable oil to large pot. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Oil is hot enough when a little bit of shallot starts to dance in the oil. Add marinated beef cubes. Sauté at medium-high heat until beef cubes turn completely brown. Stir enough to ensure even browning. Add shallot. Sauté at medium-high heat until shallot softens.

Add tomato, chile, cinnamon stick, kaffir leaves, and star anise. Stir until well blended. Add coconut water. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Stir until well blended. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add carrot. Simmer for 30 minutes more or until beef cubes and carrot become tender. Remove cinnamon stick, kaffir lime leaves, and star anise pods. Garnish with Thai basil and mint.

1) The Western Roman Empire fell in 476.

2) Too many barbarian armies attacked Rome for its vast supply of eggs.

3) The barbarians loved to eat Pionono.

4) For every single meal.

5) This meant they needed Rome’s eggs.

6) Rome had lots of eggs and chickens. All civilizations have them.

7) So, the invading hordes destroyed Rome. The lands descended into anarchy.

8) With the collapse of Western Civilization, came the disappearance of the poultry industry.

9) Hardly anyone had eggs.

10) If word got out that you had a chicken ranch, cutthroat gangs would raid your lands and carry you off to lead a hard existence in some faraway land.

11) And you’d never eat another egg.

12) Not ever. And without eggs, you could never eat Pionono again. Who’d want to go through life knowing that?

13) Clearly, this was an untenable existence.

14) But would could be done?

15) As we all know, the gene that directs some people to chicken ranching, also makes them extremely poor fighters. These ranchers needed brave, sturdy fighters to protect them.

16) Indeed in the sixth century, strongmen emerged all over Western Europe to protect the chicken ranchers in return for eggs. This arrangement soon extended to all aspects of agriculture. This system became known as feudalism.

17) Now, no inventions occurred under feudalism as thinking stagnated. But hey, eggs.

 

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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Wanda Wunder Wonders About Eggplants

Wanda Wunder wonders just what our vegetables can do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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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Hottest New Sport – Egg Volleyball

Egg volleyball burst upon the collegiate scene this August and is taking our universities by storm. Listen to what the egg-volleyball luminaries are saying.

“We’re all scrambling to find the find the best athletes,” said Eunice Oeuf, Women’s Athletic Director for the University of Wisconsin.

“High-school athletes know there’s a high demand for their talents,” said Coach Ben “Data Base” Yumurta of the Cal Tech Beavers. “The big schools eat up most of the hot prospects. We get all sorts of rejections. You really need a hard shell to make it in this coaching job.”

“We poached an egg-volleyballer who had committed to Stanford,” said college recruiter Joe Eieren of the UCLA Bruins. “Now, we’ll whip them.”

“We’re forming men’s and women’s volleyball teams,” said Executive Chef Sue Vide of the Culinary Institute of America,” Our students already know how their way around eggs and have the necessary supple wrists for egg volleyball. We expect to leave our opponents with egg on their faces.”

“Other teams will crack under pressure when they face us,” boasted Yoko Arrautzak of the Duke Blue Devilled Eggs. “They might even run.”

Yancy Atody, hard-boiled coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, scoffed at this claim. “We’ll make omelettes out of them.”

“Ha,” retorted Coach Arrautzak, “They don’t have the eggs to beat us.”

Albert “Al” Bumen, spokesman for the American Poultry Council can’t stop smiling. “We’re so pleased that the universities are finally taking this support seriously. We’ve been tossing this idea to them for decades.

 

– 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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Sauna Eggs

Korean Appetizer

SAUNA EGGS

INGREDIENTS

8 eggs
enough water to cover eggs.
½ tablespoon salt
ice

SPECIAL UTENSIL

instant pot or sauna

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours to bring to room temperature and 1 hour 45 minutes to cook.

PREPARATION – INSTANT POT

Let eggs sit at room temperature for 2 hours. (This will help keep them from cracking.) Carefully add eggs to instant pot. Add enough water to cover eggs. Add salt. Secure lid on instant pot and set valve to “airtight” or “sealing.” (Exciting things can happen if you don’t.) Press “time adjust” or “manual” button. Set timer to 1 hour 30 minutes, or 90 minutes.

Fill large bowl with ice and water. When instant pot has stopped cooking, set valve to release steam. (Oh gosh, this is important.). Slowly release lid. Use slotted spoon to remove eggs and transfer them to large bowl. Allow eggs to cool in ice water for 10 minutes or until they are cool enough to peel. Peel eggs.

These eggs have a nutty taste.

PREPARATION – SAUNA

Put eggs on benches in sauna. Let eggs cook for 7 hours at 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Let eggs cool in ice water and peel in ice water. All this is a wild guess. I don’t have a sauna. I don’t know anyone who has a sauna who’d let me cook eggs in it for 7 seven hours. I do know that eggs already cooked in a sauna or in an instant pot are quite an appreciated appetizer for Korean sauna goers.

TIDBITS

1) South Korean chickens lay their eggs in saunas. Not for seven hours of course, that would turn their would-be offspring into Sauna Eggs. No they just lay their eggs on the sauna floor and then roll them outside. The short time in the sauna is enough to toughen the chickens to be for the rest of their lives. And, oh my gosh, the mama hens, laying eggs time after time in the sauna, become super tough and resilient. So much so that the South Korean army positions an entire division of sauna hens along the armistice line with North Korea. No army in the world has trained enough to fight sauna chickens and no soldier is brave enough to attack 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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Sauna Baked Eggs

People often talk how it’s so hot that they could fry an egg on the sidewalk or on the hood of a jar. Indeed, I saw a film of a British soldier frying an egg on the hood of his jeep. He was part of the British army fighting the Germans in North Africa in 1940-1942.

But what about baking an egg? I had done research on the Finnish Sauna World Championship. Temperatures inside their saunas reached 240 degrees. I wondered if that would be high enough to bake an egg. So, I made the below photos. I was just being whimsical. Then I found out their is such a thing as Korean Sauna Baked Eggs!

Korean sauna goers would munch on eggs actually baked in the sauna. Who knew? The baking took seven hours, turning the egg-white brown and giving the whole egg a nutty flavor. Nowadays, most people make sauna eggs with a specialized rice cooker or with an instant pot. Now you know. And I’ll have to try making Sauna Baked Eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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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Romanian Salata de Boeuf (Beef Salad)

Romanian Entree

SALATA DE BOEUF
(Beef Salad)

INGREDIENTS

1 pound thin beef sirloin
1⅓ pounds potatoes
2 carrots
2 eggs
⅓ cup green peas
1 cup diced or sliced pickles
½ cup pickled red bell peppers
1 cup mayonnaise (¼ cup more later)
2 tablespoons mustard
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh parsley

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour. No mayonnaise topping at front, so you can see inside.

PREPARATION

Add sirloin and enough water to cover. Bring to boil at high heat. Boil for 30 minutes or until sirloin is tender. Drain. Remove sirloin, let cool, and chop into ½” cubes. While beef cooks, add potatoes and enough water to large pot. Bring to boil at high heat. Boil for 25 minutes or until tender. Drain. Let potatoes cool. Peel potatoes and chop them into ½” cubes.

While sirloin and potatoes cook, add carrots and water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Boil for 15 minutes or until carrots becomes tender. Drain and cool. Chop carrots into ½” cubes. Add water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Carefully add eggs. Boil for 8 minutes for soft boiled and 12 minutes for hard boiled. Let cool. Peel and cut each egg into 6 slices.

Add sirloin, potato, carrot, peas, pickles, pickled red-bell peppers, 1 cup mayonnaise, mustard, pepper, and salt. Mix by hand until well blended. Add this mixture to a serving plate. Mold by hand into a flat, round shape like a layer of cake. Use spatula to coat cake-shape mixture with ¼ cup mayonnaise. Dice parsley. Garnish with egg slices and parsley.

TIDBITS

1) Prehistoric humans believed the Sun was a god. Egg yolks look like the Sun. Our ancestors reasoned that egg yolks themselves must possess a bit of divinity. The ancient Egyptians went further. Any animal that could birth so much godliness must itself be divine. The chicken became the preeminent Egyptian god. However, during the 18th dynasty, the priests of Amun Ra gained power and destroyed the Chicken Cult. Chickens would never again be worshipped. Their eggs, however, may be enjoyed in this dish.

 

– 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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