Posts Tagged With: entree

Brown Sugar Smoked Salmon

Posted on April 3, 2021 by pauldelancey

American Entree

BROWN SUGAR SMOKED SALMON

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 pounds salmon fillets
vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSILS

smoker
electric thermometer
wood chips (apple, cherry, and alder are the most popular)

Serves 6. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add brown sugar, dill, pepper, and salt to small mixing bowl. Blend thoroughly with whisk. This is the rub. Cut salmon into 6 fillets. Pat salmon fillets dry. Rub an equal amount of rub all over the meat sides of each fillet. Let fillets sit in refrigerator for 2 hours.

30 minutes before fillets have finished refrigerating, brush grills in smoker with vegetable oil. This prevents the fish from sticking. Preheat smoker to 220 degrees. When temperature of smoker reaches 220 degrees, place fillets meat side up on grills. Smoke salmon until its internal temperature reaches 150 degrees. It should take about 1 hour 15 minutes, depending on your smoker. The salmon fillets should be pink and flaky.

TIDBITS

1) Plates are round because alien spaceships were round. Alien UFOs were living things. Aliens conquered Earth 66 million years ago. The outer spacers treated our dinosaurs most horribly. A scant million years later the dinos formulated their plan of rebellion, “Rush ‘em, crush ‘em, chomp ‘em.” The uprising was succeeding! Hooray! All the dinosaurs looked up and did a happy dance.

3) But the huge mother spaceship, it really was a mother, beamed a huge death ray at the rampaging dinos. The ray, however, merely reflected off the rebels’ cat-like eyes, disintegrating the mother ship. Circular living bits fell to Earth. Whenever the dinos laid eggs they did so on these bits, for the smarter dinosaurs knew round things can’t grow if weighed down. Today, we weigh down our round plates with food, just in case they are spaceship babies. When we’re not using our plates, we stack them in the cupboard for the same reason. You can’t be too careful with space aliens.

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Baked Scotch Eggs

Posted on March 30, 2021 by pauldelancey

British Entree

OVEN BAKED SCOTCH EGGS

INGREDIENTS

6 eggs (1 more later)
1 egg
1 pound pork sausage
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup Panko bread crumbs or regular bread crumbs

SPECIAL UTENSIL

baking sheet
parchment paper
x-ray vision or SupermanTM

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add sufficient water to cover eggs. Bring water to boil using high heat. Use slotted spoon to gently lower eggs into water. (You don’t want eggs to crack. Boil 6 eggs for 8 minutes. ( Or 4 minutes for runny yolks, 6 minutes for creamy yolks, and 10 minutes for hard-boiled. Drain and gently transfer eggs to bowl filled with cold water. Let cool, then peel.

While 6 hard-boiled eggs cool, add 1 egg to small mixing bowl. Beat egg with whisk or fork. Add pork sausage, pepper, and salt to medium mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Divide pork sausage mix into 6 balls. Add pork balls to flat surface.. Flatten each pork ball until it is a patty about 1″ thick. Place a boiled egg in the middle of each patty. Shape patty completely and evenly around egg.

Dip each patty in beaten egg, then dredge through bowl with seasoned bread crumbs. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper. Gently add sausage/bread-crumb egg to parchment paper. Bake coated eggs for 25 minutes or until bread crumbs turn golden brown and sausage is firm. (And no longer pink as well. X-ray vision helps here. If you don’t have such an ability, please see if Superman is available.) Turn coated eggs over once to ensure even cooking.

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) As always, offer Superman a serving if you’ve used his x-ray vision. You’ll be stunned to find out how many people don’t thank super heroes for their help. Good manners are always in fashion.

2) Besides, what if you’re caught in a building that’s being consumed with a raging fire. Do you want Superman to sulk and dawdle because you’d neglected to thank him?

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bariis Iskukaris – Spicy Rice and Meat From Somalia

Posted on March 22, 2021 by pauldelancey

Somali Entree

BARIIS ISKUKARIS
(Spicy Rice and Meat)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup basmati rice
½” ginger root
2 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 large tomato
3 cardamom seeds
3 cloves
¾ pound lamb, beef, goat, or chicken
2½ tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
1 cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon vegetable seasoning
1½ cups water
½ teaspoon saffron threads

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, grate ginger root. Mince garlic cloves and onion. Dice tomato. Grind cardamom seeds and cloves into powder. Cut meat into ½” cubes. Add ghee, garlic, onion, cardamom, cinnamon stick, and cloves to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently.

Add meat cubes, coriander, cumin, ginger, salt, and vegetable seasoning. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes or until meat browns. Stir frequently. Add tomato. Cover and cook at medium heat for 10 minutes or until a sauce is obtained. Stir occasionally.

Add 1½ cups water. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until meat is tender and most of the water has been absorbed. Stir occasionally. Add saffron. Cover, and simmer at low heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove cinnamon stick. Add rice to plate. Ladle spicy meat mix onto rice.

TIDBITS

1) Food left on a burner can burn within minutes or at the most, within a day. Bears take two weeks to three months to hibernate. It’s a certainty that any food bears left on the stove at the start of their Big Sleep will have turned into ashes by the time they stirred. There’s no evolutionary future for a species that habitually burns its food. That’s why we descended from apes.

– 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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Biryani From Pakistan

Posted on March 20, 2021 by pauldelancey

Pakistani Entree

BIRYANI

INGREDIENTS

2 medium onions
1 pound lamb or chicken
2 green chiles
1 garlic clove
¾” ginger root
1 large tomato
3 cardamom seeds
3 cloves
1½” cinnamon stick
¾ teaspoon garam masala
3 peppercorns
1 teaspoon red chile flakes or ½ teaspoon cayenne
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric
6 tablespoons ghee or butter
1¼ cups basmati rice
2½ cups water
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon saffron or  ¾ teaspoon safflower
¼ cup warm water
½ cup fresh mint leaves

SPECIAL UTENSILS

blender or food processor
mandoline
sonic obliterator

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Slice onions ⅛” thick using mandoline or knife. Cut lamb into 2″ cubes. Seed and dice green chiles. Use food processor to turn garlic cloves and ginger root into a paste. Puree tomato in blender.

Add green chile, onion, cloves, cardamom seeds, cinnamon, garam masala, peppercorns, red chile flakes, salt, turmeric, and ghee to large pan. Sauté at medium-high heat or until onion softens and browns. Stir frequently. Add garlic/ginger paste. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until garlic/onion paste becomes fragrant. Stir frequently. Add tomato. Cook at medium heat for 3 minutes. Add lamb. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes or until lamb starts to brown. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir enough to prevent burning.

While lamb simmers, add rice, 2½ cups water, and bay leaf to pot. Bring to boil using high heat for 15 minutes or until rice is al dente. Stir occasionally and add water as necessary to avoid burning the rice. Remove bay leaf. Drain and set aside. Add saffron and ¼ cup warm water to small mixing bowl. Stir, Add rice and saffron/water mixture. Cover and simmer at low-medium heat for 30 minutes or until rice is tender. Stir occasionally. Remove cinnamon stick.

While lamb/rice/saffron simmers, dice mint leaves. Garnish dish with mint leaves. Use sonic obliterator on any guest who crosses you in any way at anytime during preparation or serving.

TIDBITS

1) Pakistan is home to the ATM at the highest elevation in the world, 15,397.

2) The highest polo stadium on Earth is also in Pakistan. at 12,140 feet.

3) This means you can leave the stadium after a particularly exciting match and still have to climb up over a half mile to withdraw some cash. So, It really is best to come prepared with enough money for post-game activities.

4) Over half of the world’s hand-sewn soccer balls come from Pakistan. The British rulers of Pakistan, during the time of the Raj, loved to play soccer. But it took forever to ship soccer balls from Britain to Pakistan. The rest of the trip was by train. By the time, the soccer balls got to the soccer pitches, everybody would have gone home months ago. So, the British soccer officials asked the local businesses to make soccer balls. They produced fantastic leather spheres. Now, the British could play soccer whenever they wanted. The local businesses burgeoned. Now Pakistan dominates the hand-sewn market.

5) This is just one consequence of global imperialism.

6) Pakistan’s national anthem has been rated as one the best in the world. Well done, Pakistan.

7) On the other hand, two Pakistani brothers created the world’s first computer virus. Boo.

8) In 2011, Pakistani officials arrested a monkey crossing its border with India. I don’t know the charges. I’d really like to know the charges. No passport?

9) The national fruit is the mango.

9) One of the two national languages of Pakistan is Urdu. Only 7% of the population speak it. The most used non-English language is Punjabi.

10) Okay, suppose you’ve just withdrawn some rupees from the word’s highest-up ATM and you wish to buy some mangos at the local market. How would you say it? You would tell the merchant, “Iha aba kina hai?”

11) There, you have one fewer thing to worry about should you ever travel to Pakistan.

– 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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Koftay – Pakistani Meatballs

Posted on March 19, 2021 by pauldelancey

Pakistani Entree

KOFTAY
(Meatballs)

INGREDIENTS – MEATBALLS

½ inch ginger root (½ inch more later)
1 onion (1 onion more later)
1 egg
1¼ pounds ground beef (80% is best)
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)
¼ cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

1 garlic clove
½ inch ginger root
1 onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup full fat Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon coriander
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
2 cups water
½ cup fresh (3 tablespoons if dry) tarragon, cilantro, or parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

food processor or blender

Serves 6. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION – MEATBALLS

Add ½” ginger root and 1 medium onion to food processor or blender. Blend until you get paste. Beat egg in small bowl. Add ginger root/onion paste, egg, and all other meatball ingredients to large mixing bowl. Mix ingredients with hands until well blended. Form mix into 1″ meatballs.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

Mince garlic clove, ½” ginger root, and 1 onion. Add garlic, ginger, onion, and oil to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add coriander, red pepper flakes, salt, turmeric, water, and yogurt. Reduce heat to low. Blend with fork.

Add meatballs. Simmer at warm-low heat for 30 minutes. Stir gently and occasionally. While meatballs simmer in sauce, mince tarragon. Garnish meatballs and sauce with tarragon.

TIDBITS

1) Koftay is an Ancient Urartian word meaning meatball.

2 Urartu was an ancient kingdom with lands in what is now eastern Turkey.

3) Urarti civilization thrived under King Sarduri I (832 BC – 820).

4) He formed the fierce Urartian Guard. These proud horsemen swept everything before them.

5) Indeed, the floors of Sarduri’s palace were as clean as anything. Hence, the well-know saying, “As tidy as Sarduri.”

6) Yeah, you could have a safe operation on his tiled floors.

7) And people did. Especially since the Urartian Guard’s practice of riding into battle with brooms meant they incurred quite a few casualties.

8) But it was okay, they were sewn up and were as good as new.

9) Ordinary Urartians noticed the medical success of Sarduri’s palace. They clamored for equal treatment. In 827 the king granted universal health care to his grateful subjects. He could afford this as his other band of horsemen, Urartian Band, armed with lances, sacked one city after another. The gold coins they looted all flowed into the king’s coffers while the meatballs they carried off went to the people

10) Sarduri assessed his people a 10% copay for health care. The coinage starved inhabitants paid in koftay. Our modern word “copay” derives from this concept.

11) However, the Urartian empire declined soon after the king’s death, and eventually disappeared. So did the concept of koftay health care.

12) Universal health care system resurfaced briefly in the late Roman Republic when the reforming Gracchi brothers proposed reinstating koftay. However, the patrician nobility refused. Indeed, they killed the reformers. The Republic soon fell, then did the Empire, followed by barbarian invasions. The Dark Ages of Europe would stretch on for a millennium.

13) However, universal health care would come back to Europe in the late twentieth century. Not so much in America.

14) That’s because Italy loves meatballs so much more than the United States. However, we do have the concept of copay for our private health-care system. We owe this idea to the innovative Urartians and their scrumptious meatballs.

15) 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Chicken Kebabs from Lebanon

Posted on March 2, 2021 by pauldelancey

Lebanese Entree

CHICKEN KEBABS

INGREDIENTS

3 boneless chicken breasts
7 garlic cloves
1 green bell pepper
1 small onion
¼ cup lemon juice
6 tablespoon Greek or plain yogurt
3 tablespoons olive oil
¾ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon white pepper or pepper
2 tablespoons red vinegar or apple cider vinegar
¾ teaspoon tomato paste
6 pita loaves

SPECIAL UTENSILS

outdoor grill
6 skewers (If wooden, soak in water for 20 minutes.)

Serves 6. Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Crush garlic cloves. Seed and chop green bell pepper into 1″ squares. Chop onion into 1″ squares. Add all ingredients to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until chicken cubes are well coated. Cover and let marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours.

Thread chicken cubes, bell pepper squares, and onion squares onto skewers. Turn heat on grill to medium. Add skewers to grill. Heat all sides for 3 minutes each. Place skewers in large pot and cover. Let rest for 10 minutes. (This step helps keep the chicken cubes moist.) Serve on skewers or if using pita loaves, remove all ingredients from skewers and place on pita loaves.

TIDBITS

1) Kebabs have been around since Ancient Greece. See Herodotus’s History of Greek Kebabs. You might think it should have been called History of Ancient Greek Kebabs. However, he lived in ancient times only to us. He thought he was being quite modern. Anyway, Herodotus noticed the shape of the pita bread would make a nifty shield and the skewer would make a spiffo spear. Ancient Greek warriors, hoplites, adopted both ideas and would become their era’s fiercest warriors. 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chilli Taiyo (Spicy Tuna Casserole)

Posted on March 1, 2021 by pauldelancey

Solomon Islander Entree

CHILLI TAIYO
(Spicy Tuna Casserole)

INGREDIENTS

½ pound thin noodles (Chinese or Italian)
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 12-ounce can tuna*
4 ounces chili paste*
2 tablespoons lime juice.
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
8 fresh basil leaves

* = If you are willing to order from Australia, you can buy cans of chilli taiyo instead of getting the first two ingredients. You can also substitute the chili paste with 6 very small but quite spicy hot peppers. Do you feel lucky?

Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook noodles according to instructions on package. Drain and reserve noodles.

Mince garlic cloves. Dice onion. Add garlic, onion, and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Add tuna and chili paste to pan. Stir with spoon until well blended. Flatten the tuna. Cook at medium heat for 15 minutes. Stir frequently enough to prevent burning. Add lime juice, pepper, and salt. Stir until blended. Cook for an additional 7 minutes or until tuna reaches your desired level of crispiness. Stir frequently enough to prevent burning.

Add noodles to tuna in pan. Simmer at low-medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently enough to prevent burning. Garnish with basil leaves.

TIDBITS

1) This entree is served in a round bowl.

2) Have bowls always been round?

3) No, although culinary archeologists have found many round bowls in Cro-Magnon burial grounds, the evidence shows that Neanderthals used rectangular bowls.

4) Moreover, when experts say that Neanderthalic bowls were rectangular, they were being generous. Not a single bowl fashioned by a Neanderthal boasts of having a straight edge. It’s almost as if the neanderthals didn’t care if their bowls made a fashion statement. In fact, the Neanderthals often made bowls with more than four angles, with hardly any of them being 90 degrees.

5) Please refer to the definitive study on this matter: von Kartofflen, Otto, Ph.D., “Lack of Geometric Precision in Neanderthalic Bowls, Indifference or Straight-Edge and Right-Angle-Tool Technology Deprivation, Prehistoric Research, August, 1973.

6) Many culinary researchers believe possession of round bowls enabled the Cro Magnons to overcome their Neanderthal cousins. Perhaps the round bowls could be hurled farther, like a discus.

7) This discus-bowl theory is gaining more and more credence. One only has to look at Ancient Greek paintings on vases. The earliest depictions show the athletes flinging round bowls. As time went on, discuses supplanted the bowls.

8) In 1673 B.C., geometricians of Sumer-Akkad develop the first straight edges and right angles. People could now dine out and eat off tables! It was the first golden age of dining out.

9) But this golden age of eating, did not last for ever. For in the times of legend, knights all wanted to be seated nearest to the king while feasting. The closer you were to your liege lord’s chair, the more prestige you had. If you sat far away, the more prestigious knights would laugh at you and say “Na na na poo poo” to say and you would hang your head in shame.

10) But then the quite possibly fictitious ruler, King Arthur, thought why not make a round table? With such a table, there is no specific king’s chair, so no one will know how far, in advance, how much or little prestige they have when sitting down to sup. This idea worked marvelously well. Jockeying for position and status by the knights in the feasting hall disappeared.

11) Hundreds of years later, a knight noticed that you could count how many spots you sat away from the king. War, born out of rivalry, would have broken out but for the soothing round shapes of their soup bowls. It was a near run thing. This is why bowls, to this day, are always round.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Round shape brings peace.                                                                       Rectangular shape brings war.

 

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Beef Smore From Sri Lanka

Posted on February 25, 2021 by pauldelancey

Sri Lankan Entree

BEEF SMORE

INGREDIENTS

2 pound piece of sirloin or beef chuck
2 tablespoons vinegar
½ teaspoon pepper
3 garlic cloves
1″ ginger root
1 large onion
1 small green chile
1 stalk lemongrass (tender inner bottom part only)
2½ tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
2″ cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
10 fresh curry leaves or ½ teaspoon dry curry leaves or curry powder
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1¼ cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon lemon or tamarind juice

Serves 6. Takes 2 hour 30 minutes

PREPARATION

Make holes in beef with fork. (This will aid in marinating.) Add beef, vinegar, and pepper to bowl. Marinate for 1 hour.

While beef marinates. Mince garlic cloves, ginger root, green chile, and onion. Seed and mince green chile. Thinly slice lemongrass. Add ghee to pan. Heat ghee at high heat until is hot enough to make a fenugreek seed dance. Carefully add beef to pan. Sauté for 2 minutes on each side or until browned all over. Remove meat to plate. Leave beef juices in pan.

Add garlic, ginger, green chile, onion, cinnamon stick, fenugreek seeds, fresh curry leaves. and lemongrass. Sauté for 3 minutes on medium heat. Stir frequently. Add beef back to pan. Add beef, red pepper flakes, coconut milk, and lemon juice. Lower heat to low and simmer 40 minutes or until the beef reaches your desired level of doneness and coconut milk reduces to a gravy. Turn beef over every 10 minutes. Slice beef to your desired thickness. Spoon onion gravy over beef slices.

TIDBITS

1) At first, Sri Lankan Beef Smores were cooked on a handy twig over an open flame.

2) But the weight of the meat made the twig snap

3) The sirloin would fall into the ashy fire pit.

4) Chefs then shouted, “I need more sirloin.”

5) So many sirloins landed on ashes that this requested shortened to, “I need smore sirloin.”

6) Then eventually to “Smore” by the Monosyllabic Chef Association (MCA).

7) And so it went. Sirloin after sirloin fell into one campfire pit after another.

8) This food wastage bankrupted one restaurant after another.

9) Clearly, the food-service industry needed a new idea.

10) And in 1619, Chef Kasun Perera revolutionized everything when he said, “Why not move this meal indoors? We won’t get rained on.”

11) “Or even stampeded by elephants.”

12) Sure, moving the meal to avoid getting crushed by wild beasts seems obvious now.

13) But isn’t the way with all new ideas?

14) No, not all new ideas arise from Stampeding Elephant Fear Syndrome (SEFS). Rather, all new ideas will eventually seem obvious.

15) You could have skipped to this tidbit from tidbit 11, but it wasn’t obvious then. It is now. See?

16) Or even have skipped to here. Any way, moving fire pits inside dramatically lessened the number of deaths due to elephants.

17)However, way too many restaurants burned to the ground from the flames in the open pits.

18) Customers look askance at fleeing a burning restaurant.

19) The restaurant industry needed another fertile mind.

20) It got with Tharindi Bandari, when in 1878, he said, “How about cooking things on a pan on a metal stove?” They will be no fires when we cook our beef smores this way.”

21) It’s impossible to overstate how this brainstorm transformed cooking.

22) Now, the entire world enjoys fire-storm free dining.

23) America came up with a different solution to the ashy sirloin problem. In 1958 little Timmy Perkins replaced the ingredients of the Sri Lankan Beef Smore with marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate saying, “The weight of melting marshmallow will never break our twig.” It worked! It tasted great. “I’ll have smore,” said Timmy’s dad. And in 1997, Timmy’s brilliance would win him the Noble Price for Culinary Achievement.

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Coconut Shrimp Curry

Posted on February 24, 2021 by pauldelancey

Sri Lankan Entree

COCONUT SHRIMP CURRY

INGREDIENTS

3 garlic cloves
1½” ginger root
2 small green chiles
1 medium onion
1 small tomato
12 fresh curry leaves
1 teaspoon dry curry leaves, or curry powder
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cinnamon stick
4 teaspoons curry powder
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric
1½ tablespoons lime juice
1 13.5-ounce can coconut milk
1¼ pounds shrimp (about 24 count)

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves, ginger root, green chiles, and onion. Dice tomato. Add garlic, ginger, chiles, curry leaves, onion, and oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add tomato, cinnamon stick, curry powder, red pepper flakes, salt, and turmeric. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add lime juice and coconut milk. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes or until coconut milk thickens. Stir frequently. Add shrimp. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 4 minutes or until shrimp turns orange or pink.

TIDBITS

1) The grass that cows eat affects the taste of butter that is made from their milk. Indeed, butter from Isigny Sainte Mère is the best tasting in the world. Why? The area’s rich pastures are chock full of mineral salts and just the right traces for buttery excellence.

2) Shrimp cooked in coconut milk tastes great. So, of course, shrimp vendors tried feeding coconut milk to these little crustaceans. But expecting shrimp to climb up trees and crack open the coconuts resulted in disappointment. Nothing happened even when they put the shrimp in trees. Of course! Shrimp can’t breathe out of water. The shrimpers tried planting coconut trees in water. It turned out that coconuts trees don’t grow in water. The once plucky entrepreneurs gave up the whole idea. Now we’ll never know if shrimp could have been trained to extract milk from coconuts.

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Haitian Griots

Posted on February 17, 2021 by pauldelancey

Haitian Entree

GRIOTS

INGREDIENTS

3 pounds pork shoulder
1 green bell pepper
1 medium onion
1 shallot
1 Scotch bonnet or habanero pepper
½ tablespoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon thyme
3 tablespoons lime juice
⅓ cup orange juice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ cup fresh parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

large oven-safe pot The entree, not a safe riot.

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour, then 8 hours to marinate, and 2 hours more.

PREPARATION

Cut pork into 1″ cubes. Dice bell pepper, onions, Scotch bonnet pepper, and shallot. (Scotch bonnet is a truly spicy pepper. Wash your hands after handling it and for goodness sake, do not wipe your forehead after touching it.) Add all ingredients except oil and parsley to large oven safe pot. Mix with hands until well blended and pork cubes are thoroughly coated. (Wash your hands!) Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover oven-safe pot and put in oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 30 minutes or until pork is tender. Remove pot from heat. Use slotted spoon to remove pork cubes from oven-safe pot. Pour liquid from oven-safe pot into regular pot. Return pork cubes to oven-safe pot. Add oil. Stir until pork cubes are well coated with oil.

Return oven-safe pot to oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. While pork in oven-safe pot bakes, add liquid to second, regular pot. Cook over medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until liquid has been reduced by half. Stir occasionally. Drizzle liquid over pork cubes. Dice parsley. Garnish pork with parsley. Goes well with rice or fried plantain.

TIDBITS

1) Governments rate riots for the maturity of their audiences. A Griot rating, that is a G-Riot, means that families can safely let their children go see the disturbance. However, deadly riots such as the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution, usually get an R, or restricted, rating.

– 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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