Posts Tagged With: entree

Shrimp in Chocolate Sauce

Posted on February 13, 2021 by pauldelancey

Spanish Entree

SHRIMP IN CHOCOLATE SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

2 garlic cloves
1 small onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup beef, fish or vegetable stock
1 pound jumbo shrimp (16 count), peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons sherry or red wine
½ teaspoon (2 squares) bittersweet chocolate
⅛ teaspoon pepper
⅛ teaspoon salt

Serves 2. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic and onion. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, garlic, and onion to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. While onion sautées, add beef stock to pot. Cook stock on medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Add stock to sautéed onion. Heat sautéed onion/stock at medium heat for 5 minutes or until liquid reduces by half. Reduce heat to lowest level and simmer.

Add enough water to cover shrimp to pot. Boil water at high heat. Add shrimp. Boil for 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink or orange. Remove shrimp with slotted spoon. While shrimp boils, add sherry and chocolate to tiny pot. Simmer on low-medium heat for 3 minutes or until chocolate melts. Stir frequently.

Add shrimp to plate. Sprinkle with pepper and salt. Ladle sautéed onion/beef stock over shrimp. Ladle chocolate sauce over all.

TIDBITS

1) Some dishes evolve over time. Pies are an example of this, Their ingredients change over time. Spelt flour would become wheat before finally settling on the often used white flour.

2) Other culinary creations, such as this one, are born in an instant. Culinary historians note that a food fight broke out at the main cafeteria at Revelle College, UCSD, on April 1, 1977. Tired of an never ending succession of shrimp dishes, the students took to tossing the crustaceans. Shrimp went everywhere. Some landed in the chocolate sauce.

3) Shrimp in chocolate sauce tasted great. Pedro Martinez, a bystander, tasted the chocolate coated shrimp. He brought the idea back with him to Spain and opened a restaurant, El Camaron Loco. Just recently, it obtained its third MichelinTM star. Now, Spanish cuisine is the envy of the world.

– 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

Couscous

Posted on February 10, 2021 by pauldelancey

Algerian Entree

COUSCOUS

INGREDIENTS – STEW

1½ pounds boneless chicken or lamb
½ teaspoon cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon clove powder
½ teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt (⅛ teaspoon more later)
1 medium onion
2 cups chicken or lamb stock stock*
1½ tablespoons tomato paste
1 large carrot
1 zucchini
2 tablespoons olive oil (9 total teaspoons later)
2 tablespoons olive oil (7 total teaspoons later)

INGREDIENTS – COUSCOUS

1 cup couscous**
⅛ teaspoon salt
7 total teaspoons olive oil (3 times with 2 teaspoons and 1 time with 1 tablespoon)
about 1 cup water
1 cup cooked chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans)

* = This is an approximation. There should be 1″-to-2″ of liquid of space from the top of the liquid in the base pot to its lid. The couscous will get mushy if they come in contact with the water below.
** = This is couscous, the grain. Confusingly enough, the whole entree is also called couscous.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

double boiler (Similar to the more authentic couscousiere, but much easier to find.)
sonic obliterator

Serves 6. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION – STEW

Cut meat into 1″ cubes. Add meat, cinnamon, clove powder, coriander, pepper, and ½ teaspoon salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until lamb cubes are well coated. Dice onion. Trim and cut carrot into and zucchini into 4 pieces each. Add meat cubes and 2 tablespoons olive oil to base pot, bottom part of double boiler. Sauté at medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until meat cubes are browned on all sides. Turn enough to ensure even browning. Remove meat cubes and set aside. Leave oil in base pot.

Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and onion to base pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Return set-aside meat to base pot. Add chicken stock and tomato paste to base pot. (Again there should be 1″-to-2″ of space from the top of the liquid in the base pot to the bottom of the steamer basket.) Stir until well blended. Bring to boil at high heat.. Stir occasionally. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add carrot and zucchini. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

PREPARATION – COUSCOUS (the grain)

While stew simmers, add couscous and ⅛ teaspoon salt to medium mixing bowl. Mix by hand. Add 2 teaspoons olive oil. Mix by hand until couscous are well coated. Add water to bowl, about 1 cup, until couscous are just covered. Gently fluff couscous and let sit for 10 minutes.

Coat steamer basket, the top part of the double boiler, with 1 teaspoon olive oil. Put steamer basket on base pot. (It should fit snugly.) When steam comes into basket, add couscous. Cover and let entire double boiler steam for 10 minutes. (This is the 1st time the couscous will be steamed.)

Remove steamer basket. Let stew simmer uncovered while you perform the following steps. Remove couscous. Add couscous and 2 teaspoons olive to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well coated. Add ½ cup water. Mix with fork until well blended.

Add couscous to steamer basket. Gently fluff couscous. Put steamer basket back on base pot. Do not cover. Continue to simmer at low heat for 10 minutes. Remove steamer basket. Add chickpeas. Stir once. (This is the 2nd time the couscous will be steamed.)

Remove steamer basket. Let stew simmer uncovered while you perform the following steps. Remove couscous. Add couscous and 2 teaspoons olive to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well coated. Add ½ cup water. Mix with fork until well blended.

Add couscous to steamer basket. Gently fluff couscous. Put steamer basket back on base pot. Do not cover. Continue to simmer at low heat for 10 minutes. Remove steamer basket. Add chickpeas. Stir once. (This is the 3rd time the couscous will be steamed.)

Add couscous to large serving bowl. Fluff the couscous with a fork. Add meat cubes to center of couscous. Use slotted spoon to ladle chickpeas and veggies over meat and couscous. Serve to appreciative, adoring guests. If any person at the dining table gives you any guff at all, zap him with your sonic obliterator on him. You don’t need that sort of negativity in your kitchen. And you won’t be convicted, either. (See Courgette v Rhode Island, 1973)

TIDBITS

1) You really need a sonic obliterator in your kitchen. Sure, you could off a sassy guest with a kitchen mallet. But there would be a mess everywhere. You certainly don’t need a disorderly kitchen when you’re upset. With a sonic obliterator, the unappreciative oaf disappears completely, leaving your kitchen nice and tidy. And isn’t what all chefs want at the end of the day?

2) I also recommend strongly, Culinary Law and Precedents, 1973. It really is a must-have resource for the high-strung chef.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Piri Piri Shrimp

Posted on February 9, 2021 by pauldelancey

Mozambican Entree

PIRI PIRI SHRIMP

INGREDIENTS

5 garlic cloves
6 piri piri chiles of 6 Thai chiles or 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper)
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 bay leaf
10 tablespoons peanut oil
2¼ pounds shrimp (16-to-20 per pound, shelled and deveined)
1 lemon (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

blender
outdoor grill
6 skewers

Serves 6. Takes 10 minutes, then 6 hours marinating, and 10 minutes more.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves and chiles. Add all ingredients except shrimp to large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork until well blended. Add shrimp. Mix with fork until shrimp is well coated. Cover and let marinate in fridge for 6 hours. Keep marinade.

10 minutes before marinating is done, heat outdoor grill to medium heat. Thread 6 shrimps onto each skewer. Grill shrimp for 2 minutes or until it turns pink. Flip skewers over and grill the other side for 2 minutes or until it to is pink. Cut lemon into 6 slices. Serve with lemon slices.

TIDBITS

1) Everyone dueled everyone else in Early Renaissance Italy. These scheduled acts of violence, of course, don’t include impromptu acts of deadly sword fighting that lurked outside your door, in the town plaza, and all points in between.

2) Seafood restaurants suffered the most. They were the farthest businesses from people’s homes. No diner ever got there and back alive. Then in 1493, Giuseppe Carpaccio of Venice, came up with the idea of putting the shrimp he sold on his diner’s swords. His customers couldn’t finish his large portions and staggered home, their sabers still covered in shrimp. You, of course, can’t stab anyone with shrimp. You don’t even feel like killing anyone when your tummy’s filled with yummy shrimp. A golden age of peace descended upon Italy, or until the French invaded a year later. Oh well.

– 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: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lomo Saltado

Posted on February 8, 2021 by pauldelancey

Peruvian Entree

LOMO SALTADO

INGREDIENTS

½ pound French fries
1 aji amarillo chile or jalapeno
½ red onion
1 large tomato
¼ cup fresh cilantro
1 pound sirloin or ribeye
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 tablespoons vinegar

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
wok or large pan.

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook French fries according to instructions on package. While French fries cook, use mandoline or knife to cut aji amarillo into ¼” rings and red onion and and tomato into ½” slices. Dice cilantro. Slice sirloin into ¼”-thick strips. Rub pepper and salt onto sirloin strips.

Add oil to wok. Heat oil using high heat until a tiny bit of onion in the oil starts to dance. Add sirloin strips. (Don’t let the strips touch each other. You might have to cook in batches.) Sauté each batch at high heat for 2 minutes or until meat browns. Stir occasionally. Add browned batches of sirloin strips, aji amarillo, red onion, and tomato. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 3 minutes or until tomato starts to soften. Stir frequently. Add soy sauce, vinegar, and French fries. Sauté for 3 minutes or until sirloin is done to your liking. Garnish with cilantro.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe is from Peru. Peru is a country on the planet Earth. The outer part of Earth is its crust. The crust covers oceans of hot magma. Volcanoes occasionally spew out magma. The magma that flows along the ground, lava. incinerates all its path. The magma that flies into the air blocks the Sun and kills crops. When that happens, we get a winter that lasts for years. Mass extinctions occur. Peru is part of the Earth’s crust. Thus, when we wish for Peru to disappear because our luggage has disappeared when we flew out of the country, we are indirectly wishing for a large section of our planet’s crust to disappear. Then all of the horrible things in the above tidbit would happen. We’d all die! That’s bad. Be careful what you wish for!

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Beef Rendang

Posted on February 7, 2021 by pauldelancey

Indonesian Entree

BEEF RENDANG

INGREDIENTS

4 red chiles
1 inch galangal or ginger root
5 garlic cloves
¾ teaspoon peppercorns
6 shallots
1 inch turmeric root
1 stalk lemongrass
2 pounds beef tenderloin or top round
2 tablespoons oil
1 inch cinnamon stick
½ tablespoon salt
3 kaffir lime leaves or ½ teaspoon lime zest
1 salam leaf or bay leaf
3 13-ounce cans coconut milk

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Seed red chiles. Add red chile, galangal, garlic cloves, peppercorns, shallots, and turmeric to spice grinder. Grind until these spices become paste. Remove and discard upper ⅔rd of lemongrass stalk. Remove and discard the three outer layers. Dice remaining lemongrass. Cut beef into 1″ cubes.

Add spice paste and oil to work or large pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 2 minutes or until paste becomes fragrant. Stir constantly. Add all remaining ingredients to wok. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 hour. Stir enough to prevent burning. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes or until the milky part of the liquid is gone, leaving a little bit of coconut oil. (Most of the liquid should be evaporated.) Stir enough to prevent burning. Simmer on low for another 15 minutes or until beef and sauce turn brown. Remove cinnamon stick, bay leaf, and kaffir lime leaves. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) The dish into the above picture is served on, well, a dish. The dish is round.

2) Why is it not square?

3 )Because you cannot roll something is square

4) Why does it matter if you can roll a dish? After all, if you rolled the above dish before you ate, you lost the food.

5) Clearly, the round shape was designed for something else in mind.

6) What was that?

7) One theory, advanced by culinary, archeologists, is that primitive caveman invented the stone FrisbeeTM.

8) They didn’t call it the Frisbee, of course. It’s named after the Frisbee Pie Company which sold its wares in round pie dishes.

9) Culinary historians believe most prehistoric companies were called Ogg, Inc. because nearly all cavemen were named Ogg. Cavewomen were called Ogg.

10) Therefore, these ancient humans probably named their invention the OggTM.

11) Isn’t surprising early humankind possessed the knowledge to incorporate and trademark things?

12) Alas though, the Ogg proved a dismal failure. If you didn’t catch it, it hit you in the head and that was that.

13) Indeed, culinary historians believe widespread Ogg playing extinguished the Neanderthals.

14) After a much briefer fling with the sport, the Cro Magnons abandoned Ogg tossing.

15) Tossing the Ogg around was supposed to be a fun leisure time activity. But making the circular Ogg took up all their free time. So, what was the point of making Oggs?

16) None, the Cro Magnons concluded. So, they went on to make spears, axes, animal skins, and the like. Humanity went on not quite a talc age, which is a bit below a golden age.

17) Throwing round things became a popular sport in Ancient Greek Olympics. Physically fit from throwing the much lighter and metallic Ogg–by then called the discus–Greeks explored the entire known world.

18) The Romans, inheritors of Greek civilization, conquered the entire Mediterranean and much of northwestern Europe. The Roman built roads to facilitate rapid deployment of legions from crisis point to another. And we all know, the Roman legionnaire loved to throw the discus.

19) The Roman army passed on discuss throwing to the natives wherever they went. The natives became buff as well. So, the Roman conquest proved to be quite the good thing for the locals once everybody got past the initial wholesale slaughter-and-enslavement phase. And ever since then we have lived in a round-thingy-throwing golden age.

20) But it’s sobering to think how the Cro Magnons, the last remaining branch of humankind, came to throwing themselves into extinction.

– 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

Medfouna

Posted on February 7, 2021 by pauldelancey

Moroccan Entree

MEDFOUNA
(Marrakech Pizza)

INGREDIENTS – DOUGH

2¼ teaspoons yeast
¾ cup warm water
1¾ cups all-purpose flour (4 more tablespoons later)
½ cup wheat flour or semolina
¾ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – FILLING
1 onion
1 red chile
⅓ cup fresh parsley
1 teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon sea salt or salt (¼ teaspoon more later)
1 pound steak or lamb (minced or ground)

INGREDIENTS – FINAL

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 egg
¼ teaspoon sea salt or salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
plastic wrap or kitchen towels
baking sheet
parchment paper

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

Add yeast and warm water to 1st large mixing bowl. Stir with fork until yeasts dissolves. Let sit for 10 minutes or until yeast becomes bubbly. Gradually add in 1¾ cups all-purpose flour, wheat flour, and salt. Stir with fork until well blended. Use medium setting for electric beater on flour/yeast mix until you get a smooth and elastic ball of dough.

Divide dough into two equal balls. Place in bowls and cover with plastic wrap or kitchen towels. Let rise for 45 minutes or until dough doubles in size.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While dough rises. mince onion. Seed and dice red chile. Dice parsley. Add all filling ingredients to 2nd large mixing bowl. Mix well with hands until well blended.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour. Roll out one dough ball until it’s a circle 11″ across. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper. Put 11″ dough circle on parchment paper. Poke the circle 10 times with a fork. Spread filing over 11″ circle, leaving 1″ uncovered around the edges.

Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour. Roll out remaining dough ball into an 11″ circle. Place this 11″ dough circle on top of filling. Dip fingers in water and press edges together to form a seal. Beat egg. Spread egg on top. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake at 360 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) In 1801, William Playfair ordered medfouna in a small cafe in while in Marrakech. He sliced his pizza into four pieces. He ate a slice. It was delicious. Playfair gazed at the three remaining pieces. The proportion of the slices equaled the ratios of the Ottoman Empire that were in Europe, Asia, and Africa! He called his startling idea the “pizza-pie chart,” shortened afterward to “pie chart.”

2) You might think his idea would have sparked little interest among Britain’s scientific community. But no, that’s all the island nation’s greatest minds could talk about. They’d gone pie-chart mad.

4) So much so that the British scientists abandoned all research on the not as sexy topic of time travel. That’s too bad for King George III’s redcoats. For if Britain had had time travel, they could have gone forward to the 20th century and bought back machine guns, howitzers, jet fighters, and all sorts of bombers. It’s difficult to see how the French army of the early 19th century could have stood up to all of that, even with the element of surprise.

5) But the pie-chart mania precluded the development of all modern weaponry. The Napoleonic Wars dragged on for fourteen more bloody years. The British public blamed the pie chart. Whereas, pie charts were once found on every street in London, by 1816 they were all gone.

7) Pie charts came back during the Crimean War when Nurse Florence Nightingale taught the idea to her bandaged patients. It was her way of helping them pass the time. Pie charts died out when the war ended and Britain closed all its pie-chart hospitals in Crimea.

8) Pie charts remained unloved when World War II rolled around. With no pie charts to distract them, British boffins created one dazzling breakthrough after another, such as radar and the Spitfire. Enabled by this technology, the British defeated the Nazi War machine. Now, of course, we have both spiffy weapons and pie charts, but only because today’s scientists have learned to specialize.

– 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

Saag Aloo

Posted on February 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

Indian Entree

SAAG ALOO

INGREDIENTS

½ tablespoon black or brown mustard seeds or combination
3 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
2 green chiles
1 inch ginger root
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
1 tomato
1½ pounds potatoes
10 ounces spinach
½ teaspoon coriander
½ tablespoon garam masala
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup water

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Seed and mince green chiles. Mince ginger and onion. Dice garlic cloves and tomato. Peel and cut potatoes into ½” cubes. Add ghee, potato, chile, ginger, onion, and garlic cloves to large pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and garlic soften. Stir frequently. Add mustard seeds to second pan. Reduce heat to medium and toast for 2 minutes or until they splutter and pop. Stir frequently.

Add toasted mustard seeds, coriander, garam masala, pepper, salt, and water to pan with potato cubes. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Add tomato. Reduce heat to low-medium and cook for 5 minutes or until liquid evaporates. Add spinach evenly over potato cubes. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes or until potato cubes are tender. Stir gently and just enough to prevent burning.

TIDBITS

1) Look at these two still-life representations The one on the left was painted by Vincent van Gogh. Ponder on his distressing lack of accuracy. The one on the right, shown also above, was taken by me. Regale in its crisp definition. Which one would you rather own, I ask you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Teriyaki Salmon

Posted on January 31, 2021 by pauldelancey

Japanese Entree

TERIYAKI SALMON

INGREDIENTS

½ cup mirin or (½ cup white wine and 3 tablespoons sugar)
¼ cup sake or dry white wine
⅔ cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons corn starch
2 teaspoons ginger
2 tablespoons brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
4 6-ounce salmon fillets
1 green onion
½ tablespoon sesame seeds
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

large, resealable plastic bag
outdoor grill

Serves 4. Takes 3 hours 25 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add mirin, sake, soy sauce, corn starch, ginger, brown sugar, and white sugar to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. until sugar dissolves. Stir constantly. Remove and let cool to room temperature. Add marinade and salmon fillets to large, resealable plastic bag. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.

30 minutes before marinating is done, dice green onion. Add sesame seeds to pan. Toast sesame seeds at medium heat for 5 minutes or until they start to brown. Remove from heat. Add marinade to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes or until marinade thickens to a glaze. Stir frequently. Transfer to a bowl.

Spray grill with no-stick spray. Heat grill to low-medium. Brush salmon with glaze. Add salmon fillets to grill. Grill for 10 minutes for every 1″ of fillet thickness or until the thickest part starts to flake when tested with a fork. Turn once. Baste salmon with glaze every 2 minutes. Garnish with green onion and sesame seeds.

TIDBITS

1) Look at the above picture. The piece on the right looks like a triangle. So, in 570 B.C., when the geometry whiz, Pythagoras, was about to feast on a right-angled shaped piece of salmon teriyaki, inspiration naturally struck. “Whoa ho, the sum of the square of the two-sides equals the square of the hypotenuse.” None of this would have happened if he had been eating a hard-boiled egg.

– 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

Currywurst

Posted on January 31, 2021 by pauldelancey

German Entree

CURRYWURST

INGREDIENTS

1 large onion
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil (1 more tablespoon later)
1½ tablespoons curry powder
½ teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon salt
1 pound tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 pound bratwurst, knockwurst, or kielbasa
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Serves 3. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince onion. Add onion and 1½ tablespoons vegetable oil to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add curry powder, chili powder, paprika, and salt. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 1 minute. Stir frequently. Add tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir enough to prevent sauce from burning.

While sauce simmers, slice bratwurst into ½” slices. Add bratwurst and 1 tablespoon vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium heat for 10 minutes. Flip and stir bratwurst slices until they are all browned on both sides. Pour sauce over bratwurst slices and serve. Goes well with French fries.

TIDBITS

1) The city state of Ur was founded nearly 6,000 years when social media required flint chisels and stone. Archeologists–woo, spelled it right the first time, have found previous few examples of trolling in wall-platform comments’ sections, probably because they took several days to upload. Even then, the ripostes limited themselves to the likes of “Sez you.” and “So’s, your mother.”

2) So, Urs?, Urps?, Curs?,citizens of Ur generally expressed themselves in the culinary arts. German sausages were quite popular, thousands of years before the creation of the modern Germany. So far, culinary historians, always a fractious bunch, haven’t arrived at a consensus explaining this.

3) However, we know that Ramses II, pharaoh of Ancient Egypt–an inventor of the first condom, it still bears his name, loved Nile sausages. He hated the imports from Ur. “Ugh,” he said, “Those Curs, their sausage is the worst.” It was then only a hop, skip, and jump to the calling the foreign sausage, “Curry Wurst.” Currywurst, however, experienced a renaissance with the advent of refrigeration and air travel between Ur and Berlin. It’s now quite popular in the German capital.

– 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

Fluffernutter Sandwich

Posted on May 26, 2020 by pauldelancey

American Entree

FLUFFERNUTTER SANDWICH

INGREDIENTS

2 slices white bread
1 glop* marshmallow fluff**
1 glop creamy peanut butter

* = A precise scientific term meaning the amount of peanut butter, or fluff, that you want to spread with a knife.
** = See preceding recipe for marshmallow fluff. Or buy it at stores if you live in Massachusetts or its neighboring states. It can also found online.

Serves 1. Takes 3 minutes.

PREPARATION

Spread peanut butter on one bread slice. Spread marshmallow fluff on other. Put bread slices together.

TIDBITS

1) It takes a little skill to cut a fluffernutter sandwich in two. If you slice too slowly or press down with a dull knife, you will most likely squoosh the marshmallow fluff out of the sandwich.

2) “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” – Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

3) Isaac Newton invented the fig newton.

4) On July 18, 1673, Isaac tried to cut a fig newton in half with a dull knife. The slow impact of his knife pushed two halves apart. Figgy stuff came out of the newton pieces. “Wow,” he said, “this gives me an idea. With a big enough knife, perhaps 100 yards long and a large enough fig newton, perhaps 50 yards by 50 yards, I could propel my mansion to the moon.” Space travel looked to be a few years away.

5) But no, just a few minutes after having this brainstorm, his comely maid, Sarah Bellum, sashayed by wearing a tight-fitting dress. Sir Isaac’s blood flowed away from his brain and space travel would be forgotten for three centuries.

6) Then in 1958, Pedro Erickson, head chef at NASA’s two-MichelinTM star restaurant served fluffernutter sandwiches to the engineers. He cut a sandwich in half. The two sandwich halves moved ever so slightly apart while marshmallow fluff oozed out the cut. “Aha,” cried Peter Pepper, “we can use solid-state fuel to propel our rockets. If not with marshmallow fluff, then with something else.” And with that explosive idea, NASA’s mission to space would really take off.

– 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 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.