Posts Tagged With: entree

Ifisashi From Zambia

Posted on January 2, 2015 by pauldelancey

Zambian Entree

IFISASHI

INGREDIENTSifisashi-

1 pound unsalted peanuts
1 onion
2 tomatoes
½ pound collard greens
½ pound spinach
1 small sweet potato
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1¾ cups water
¾ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

Makes 6 bowls. Takes about 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Chop peanuts into fourths. Dice onion and tomatoes. Dice or shred collards greens and spinach. Peel and dice sweet potato.

Add onion and peanut oil to Dutch oven. Sauté onion on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add water. Bring water to boil on high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to medium. Add peanuts, tomato, and salt. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add collard greens, spinach, and sweet potato. Cook for about 15 minutes or until liquid thickens to a thick buttery sauce.

Ifisashi often is paired with nshima or cornmeal dumpling. Don’t panic over the nshima, ifisashi also goes well over rice.

TIDBITS

1) The sound of people snoring is often described as, “Zzzz..” Because of their pleasant climate, nighttime temperatures, and comfy beds, Zambia and Zimbabwe are the best places for pleasant, refreshing zzzs.

3) Indeed, The International Sleeping Association (IFA) awarded its highest honor possible to these two nations, the Order of The Z which gives the lucky land the right to rename themselves with a word starting with a z. Well done, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

4) Sad to say, in 1997 sleeping conditions in once restful Zaire deteriorated to the point that the IFA took away Zaire’s “Z.” This sad land now calls itself The Democratic Republic of the Congo.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kedjenou (chicken stew from Ivory Coast)

Posted on December 28, 2014 by pauldelancey

Ivory Coast

KEDJENOU
(chicken stew)

INGREDIENTSKedjenou-

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 eggplant
3 tomatoes
2 jalapeño or other hot peppers
3 garlic cloves
2 onions
3 tablespoons peanut oil
¾ cup chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon thyme

Takes about 2 hours
makes 8 bowls

SPECIAL UTENSILS

large oven proof pot or casserole dish with tight fitting lid
tin foil, if lid does not fit tightly

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Peel and cut eggplant into ½” cubes. Seed and dice tomatoes. Dice chile peppers, garlic cloves, and onions.

Combine all ingredients into large, oven-proof pot. Stir. Cover pot with lid. If the lid doesn’t make a tight seal, cover pot with tin foil and then the lid. DO NOT remove lid while baking. Bake at 325 degrees for 90 minutes. Use oven mitt to shake pot every 10 minutes to prevent chicken and other ingredients from sticking to the bottom and sides.

After the 90 minutes of baking has passed, check to see if ingredients are tender. If not, replace foil and lid, bake for another 30 minutes, and check once more for doneness. Again, use oven mitt to shake pot every ten minutes. Goes well with rice or attiéké, made from grated, fermented cassava. Attiéké can be found in African food markets.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe call for skinless chicken breasts.

2) It would have been exciting if one of the ingredients were shinless chickens.

3) I don’t know if chickens have proper shins.

4) Or even improper shins.

5) You need to wear shin guards if you play soccer.

6) This advice holds if you are human or a chicken.

7) Have you ever beheld a chicken playing soccer without shin guards?

8) No, I don’t think so.

9) Ivorians, people from the Ivory Coast, love to play soccer and often play in the World Cup.

10) They also love chicken.

11) So we can conclude they love to see chicken play soccer.

12) Of course, chickens can play soccer. Their tiny size enables them to dribble the ball easily through the legs of any defender.

13) And my gosh, chickens sure can head the ball into the net. Their brain is so tiny that concussions really can’t damage their intellect. And the best chickens can fly for up to  200 feet. They can indeed get to any ball in the air. One flick of the hen’s head and there’s another goal for poultry.

14) Ivorian chicken soccer is of the highest level.

15) Ivorian chickens would play in the World Cup except for the fact that the men’s national soccer team is still somewhat better than the poultry squad and a nation may only enter one team in the tournament.

16) Greenland’s human soccer team garners few victories and never qualifies for any international tournaments. The land’s chickens hatch from the shell with moves that would have put Pele to shave. One would think that the Greenlandic chickens might have a good chance for soccer fame.

17) Unfortunately, it’s a tough life for any chick yearning for soccer glory. Actually, it’s a short life. Greenland’s arctic freezes one chicken after another. Sure, they could survive playing indoor soccer, but as of press time, no Greenlandic municipality has budgeted for an indoor poultry soccer arena.

18) This isn’t so much of a concern for human soccer players, but Greenlandic chickens are terrified of being eaten by polar bears on their way from the coop to the indoor soccer arena.

19) An obvious solution would be to send Greenland’s soccer chickens to a country without a top-level human team, Albania for example. However, the process of navigating the bureaucratic mazes to get poultry visas to Albania has stopped everyone so far. We can only dream.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shuco, The Guatemalan Hot Dog

Posted on December 21, 2014 by pauldelancey

Guatemalan Entree

SHUCO
(Hot Dog)

INGREDIENTSShuco-

1 yellow onion
⅛ head cabbage
2 chorizo sausages
4 foot-long hot dogs (or as long as you can get)
2 loganizas (white sausage, linguica)
¼ pound thinly sliced bacon
¼ pound thinly sliced ham
¼ pound thinly sliced salami
½ cup guacamole
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup mustard
1 teaspoon hot sauce (optional)
4 foot-long hot dog buns or 4 baguettes or 8 regular hot dog buns*

* = You may need to cut the sausages to fit the regular hot dog buns.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric grill

PREPARATION

Dice onion. Shred cabbage. Slice chorizos, hot dogs, and loganizas in half lengthwise. Put cabbage with enough water to cover and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until cabbage is tender.

Grill bacon, chorizo, hot dog, and loganiza halves on medium heat or at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes or until they look done. (Start grilling chorizo sausages and loganizas with casing side down. Flip them carefully.) Turn as often as necessary to avoid burning meat. Grill ham and salami for 1 minute. Flip meat slices after 30 seconds. Toast buns on grill or in toaster..

Place a chorizo, hot dog, and loganiza half on each bun bottom. Top with bacon and ham and salami slices. Sprinkle each bottom bun with equal amounts of onion and boiled cabbage. Spoon an equal amount of guacamole, mayonnaise, mustard and hot sauce over each top bun. Assemble top and bottom buns to make a delicious feat.

TIDBITS

1) This is the first tidbit.

2) As I recall, shuco means “dirty.”

3) All cooks, in addition to being hotties, are extremely organized and neat. So, calling this dish dirty is unfair. Perhaps some ancient royalty dropped his shuco on the ground and it got dirty. Indeed, some culinary historians think the king, being an oaf, ate the dirty shuco. Three of his nearest courtiers laughed at him. He had them beheaded. The fourth nearest courtier–We know his name. It’s Xatal.–started to laugh. Being a quick thinker, he changed and pretended to clear his throat.

4 The time limit for ancient Mayan royal secrets is 1,500 years. That limit lapsed exactly at the time I typed “pretended” in the previous tidbit. So, I know now the king’s name was Bongo. King Bongo played the bongos. Count Bassie originally toyed with playing bongos but didn’t wish to play second fiddle to Good King Bongo.

5 Some culinary historians take issue with the title Good King, pointing to the frequent executions he ordered.

6) Anyway, Xatal, who has been waiting patiently since tidbit 3 to play his part in culinary history, cleared his throat and said, “Good King Bongo is a medical genius as well as a brilliant musician. There is iron in dirt. Iron makes you strong. Let us all follow his illustrious lead and become strong by eating dirty hot dogs. Hey let’s call them shucos in honor of his son, Prince Shuco.”

7) The ancient Mayans threw their shucos on the ground, ate them, and grew strong. And these strong men formed strong armies and these strong armies conquered lands as far as the eye could see. King Bongo had really good eyesight and liked to stand atop his tall pyramids, so they conquered lots of really far away lands.

8) King Bongo’s eyesight was so keen that many culinary baseball historians think he could have been a better hitter than even the great Ted Williams if his highness had only been born in the 1920s. It’s frightening to think how many World Series the Boston Red Sox could have won in the 40s and 50s if they had had both Ted Williams and King Bongo in their lineup.

9) But the ancient Mayans, although being cracker-jack astronomers, never developed the time machines. Their princes grew up to be kings, not ball players. They’d bash in skulls in battle, not bash balls over the fence.

10) This happy state of Mayan conquest lasted for centuries for their warriors were strong from the iron in the dirt of their dirty hot dogs. In 1540, the Mayan Empire suffered a dirt shortage. Their warriors became weak. In 1541, the Spanish conquistadors attacked. The Spanish were strong from the iron they got from eating sautéed liver. The issue was never in doubt.

11) Vitamins and supplements became widely available to the populations of the world during the twentieth century. Countries that had had no access to Guatemalan suchos or were too disgusted by sautéed liver to eat it were suddenly able to get enough iron to raise armies of strong men. This is why we had two world wars in the last century.

12) Today’s Guatemalan shuco contains nothing but fine ingredients and is one of the ten best hot dogs of the world. Be strong!

– 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, food, history, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brined Turkey Breast

Posted on December 8, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

BRINED TURKEY BREAST

INGREDIENTS -BRINEBrinedTurkey-

1 gallon ice-cold water
2 bay leaves
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon rosemary
1½ cups coarse salt
½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon thyme
8 pound thawed turkey breast (For love of God, Montressor, the turkey must be thawed)

INGREDIENTS – COOKING TURKEY

4 tablespoons butter
2 cups chicken broth
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

really big pot 8+ gallons or turkey bag
spice grinder
large oven-safe pan or casserole dish
wire rack.
meat thermometer

Serves 12
Takes 15-to-24 hours

PREPARATION – THAWING TURKEY

If not already done, thaw turkey breast. Keep turkey in packaging and add it to a large pot. Cover turkey with cold water. Let turkey sit in cold water for 30 minutes per pound. In this recipe, that would be 4 hours. Pour out water.

PREPARATION – BRINE

Crumble bay leaves. Mince garlic cloves. Grind peppercorns. Remove packaging from turkey and rinse in cold water. Add 1 gallon ice-cold water and all brine ingredients except turkey to pot. Stir until salt and sugar dissolves. Add turkey. Add ice-cold water as needed to cover turkey, Cover pot or close turkey bag and refrigerate for at least 12 hours but not more than 24

PREPARATION – COOKING TURKEY

Remove turkey from brine and pat dry. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put turkey in large pan Melt butter. Brush melted butter onto turkey. Sprinkle pepper and salt onto turkey. Place wire rack in pan. Put turkey on rack. Put meat thermometer in thickest part of turkey. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees. Bake for 2-to-3 hours or until meat thermometer reads 165 degrees. Baste with ½ cup of chicken broth after every 30 minutes of baking at 325 degrees.

TIDBITS

1) Wild turkeys hide in trees at night. Just like human ninjas.

2) Wild turkeys can fly. That’s better than human ninjas.

3) All turkeys have periscopic vision. This means they can twist their heads around to see everything.
Can human ninjas do that? I think not.

4) Female turkeys do not gobble. This stealthiness makes them the perfect silent warriors.

5) Our founding father, Benjamin Franklin, wanted to make the turkey our national bird.

6) Why? Culinary historians suspect that turkey ninjas fought on the colonists’ side during the American Revolution.

7) How do they know this? The British soldiers were far better trained than the American militia. The British king had many more soldiers under his autocratic command than did our fractious Continental Congress. King George’s army possessed a lot more cannon and could boast of the biggest and best navy in the world.

8) America could only have won if it had ninja turkeys swooping down, dealing quick, silent death out of the pitch-black night. Historians think American units coordinated ambushes by using bird calls. Culinary historians know better. These were turkey calls, made by fierce turkey warriors.

9) Britain finally countered with the King’s Bear Battalion in 1782. These bears could climb up any tree and were paid in honey. America’s ninja turkeys wouldn’t have stood a chance against the bears’ great strength and massive, sharp claws.

10) Fortunately for America, Britain’s will to continue the war had already been shattered by the decisive battle of Yorktown during the previous year.

11) America disbanded its turkey ninjas in 1806. This is why it didn’t win the War of 1812.

12) America might be using turkey ninjas in covert operations. Why can say? Washington remains mute on the subject.

– 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, food, history, humor, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iraqi Potato Beef Casserole (kibbe batata)

Posted on December 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

Iraqi Entree

POTATO BEEF CASSEROLE
(kibbe batata)

INGREDIENTSKibbeBatata-

6 medium brown potatoes
½ teaspoon turmeric

2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound ground beef or lamb
3 tablespoons parsley
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

no-stick spray
2½ tablespoons butter
½ tablespoon cinnamon

SPECIAL UTENSIL

9″ x 13″ casserole dish
Serves 117 square inches

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into eight pieces. Put potato pieces into large pot. Add enough water to cover potato bits. Bring water to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Drain potatoes. Mash potatoes with potato masher. Add turmeric to pot. Use whisk to blend mashed potatoes and turmeric together.

While potato is cooking, mince garlic cloves and onion. Put garlic, onion, and vegetable oil in pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes. Stir frequently. Add ground beef, parsley, pepper, and salt. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until beef is no longer pink.

Spray casserole dish with no stick spray. Cut butter into tiny cubes. Add ½ of mashed potatoes to casserole dish. Smooth mashed potatoes with spoon or spatula. Add ground-beef mix. Smooth ground beef. Add remaining ½ of mashed potatoes to casserole dish. Smooth mashed potatoes. Sprinkle tiny butter cubes and cinnamon over top layer of mashed potatoes.

Bake casserole at 350 degrees for 30-to-40 minutes or until top of casserole turns golden brown. Cut casseroles into squares, diamonds, or rectangles and serve to lovers of good food and friends of geometric shapes everywhere.

TIDBITS

1) This entree is Iraqi.

2) Iraqi food is great, however Iraqi is poor word for making anagrams.

3) You can use the word Iraqi to form the anagram “Qi air.”

4) Qi is a word that is only used in ScrabbleTM games. I don’t know what it means. I don’t play Scrabble anymore.

5) There is a persistent suspicion among culinary wordsmiths that wars and all types of fighting in that country occur to justify the use of the words Iraq, Iraqi, and Iraqis in Scrabble.

6) But what if Iraq were to split into separate countries?

7) Iraq and Iraqi would be taken out of the Scrabble dictionary.

8) And what if you had the tiles IRAQISW in your possession, and you could use the “q” for a triple-letter score and the entire word could be doubled?

9) And what if you were playing the leaders of the superpowers for world domination, the game was about to end because one of the leaders wanted to eat a lutefisk sandwich at the table, and the points from I1R1A1Q10I1S1 are enough to give you the game?

10) Well, you’d lose because Iraq wouldn’t exist anymore in Scrabble. You’d have to go back to your spouse in your tiny apartment who’d ask you where you’d been.

11) You’d say, “Honey, I’ve been playing the nations’ leader Scrabble for world domination.”

12) You’d be told, “Like I haven’t heard that one before. Did you get the milk like I asked you?”

13) A dark mood would envelop you. You’d head to KwikiMart thinking, “If I were the world’s dictator, I could send someone else out to get milk.”

14) On the way home, you’d realize that if Iraq were to split into three nations, the country of Kurdistan would come into existence.

15) What if you had the tiles K5U1R1D2I1S1T1S1 and you could place them in front of AN already on the board for triple K and triple word?

16) Why you’d win the game for sure! You’d be the Earth’s El Supremo. You’d have a milk fetcher on your permanent staff. Chocolate malteds anytime you want! World domination is great!

17) Did you keep the phone numbers of the world’s leaders? Great. Be sure to get those honey-mustard potato chips that Madame President likes.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Morog Polao (Bangladeshi chicken pilaf)

Posted on November 30, 2014 by pauldelancey

Bangladeshi Entree

MOROG POLAO
(Chicken pilaf)

INGREDIENTSMorogPolao-

4 chicken breasts
1 medium onion
1 ounce cashew nuts
4 large garlic cloves
1½ ounces ginger root
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon cardamom
¾ teaspoon chili
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup milk
¼ cup plain yogurt

2 cups basmati rice
3½ cups water
2 bay leaves
1¾ cups water
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup ghee or butter
1 gram saffron (.035 ounce. Tiny but mighty, you bet.) or ½ teaspoon safflower

SPECIAL UTENSILS

spice grinder
sonic obliterator (essential for all sensitive chefs)

Takes about 3 hours. Serves 4.

PREPARATION

Cut each chicken breast in half. Dice onion. Put the following ingredients one at a time in spice grinder and grind until you get four different pastes: cashew nuts, garlic cloves, ginger root, and poppy seeds.

Add chicken, onion, ginger paste, cashew paste, garlic paste, poppy-seed paste, cardamom, chili, coriander, mace, nutmeg, salt, turmeric, lemon juice, milk, and yogurt to large mixing bowl. Mix by hand until chicken pieces are well coated with spices. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

While chicken marinates, add rice and 3½ cups water to large bowl. Let rice set in water for 30 minutes, then drain water. Add bay leaves, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove bay leaves and cinnamon stick with tongs. This is the spicy water.

Add marinated chicken and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté chicken on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken starts to brown. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat. Add ghee, saffron, and drained rice to second pan. Sauté rice for about 5 minutes or until rice starts to splutter. Stir constantly.

Add chicken, sautéed rice, and spicy water to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Serve to adoring quests. Sonically obliterate the unappreciative; it just means more for those who like this entree. And besides, you don’t need negativity.

TIDBITS

1) The similarities between Bangladesh and Tennessee are astounding and many.

2) Morog Polao, this Bangladeshi entree, has four vowels, o, in it.

3) Tennessee has four vowels in it as well, e in this case.

4) Morog Polao is served at Bangladeshi weddings.

5) Food is also served at Tennessean festivals, including deep-fried ice cream and deep-fried Caesar’s salad.

6) Julius Caesar never made it to either Bangladesh or Tennessee.

7) Bangladesh is an anagram for bagel hands. Tennesseans eat bagels with their hands.

8) Tennessee is an anagram for seen teens.

9) Teenagers have been seen in Bangladesh and in Tennessee.

4) Uh oh!. We’ve already seen 4). I hope this is just a typo, not an indication that we are going back in time. In which case, my twelve-minute eggs will never get ready. I mean they’ve been cooking for eight minutes now and pretty soon they’ll be three-minute eggs because we’re going back in time. My gosh!

10) Ah! 10). We are not going back in time. It was just a typo.

11) Typos occur in both Bangladesh and Tennessee. If all these similarities can occur in two widely separated spots in the world, who’s to say involuntary time travel can’t happen? Watch your eggs.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nigerien Peanut Chicken Stew

Posted on November 13, 2014 by pauldelancey

Nigerien Entree

PEANUT CHICKEN STEW

INGREDIENTSPeanutChickenStew-

3 chicken breasts
1 small eggplant*
1 leek
1 medium onion
3 potatoes
4 tomatoes
4½ tablespoons peanut butter
2½ tablespoons peanut oil
1 cup chicken broth
1 pili pili pepper (or Thai chile, Fresno chile, bird’s eye pepper, or ½ teaspoon cayenne)
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

* = Not everyone loves eggplant. Don’t worry though if you hate eggplant. You don’t have to put it in the recipe and you needn’t worry about being unauthentic for excluding it. Most of the time cooks use whatever vegetables are at hand. If a guest queries you about the missing eggplant–and how many people do you know have knowledge of Nigerien cuisine?–simply say, “Sorry, this recipe comes from a region of Niger where they simply don’t have eggplant.” If the guest still complains, zap him with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.

PREPARATION

Cut chicken breasts into 1″ cubes. Cut eggplant into ½”-thick slices. Dice leek. and onion. Cut potatoes into 1″ cubes. Remove seeds from chile pepper. Dice chile pepper.

Peel skins from tomatoes. A good way to do this is by boiling the tomatoes. Add water to pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. While water is coming to boil, make a cut all the way around each of the tomatoes. Put tomatoes in boiling water for 20 seconds. Remove tomatoes and place them in a bowl of ice water. The skins should come off easily. Now dice tomatoes.

Add chicken cubes, leek, onion, and peanut oil in large pot. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken cubes and leek and onion soften. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low Add chicken broth, eggplant, peanut butter, potato, tomato, chile pepper, pepper, and salt. Cover and simmer for 40 minutes or until potato cubes are soft. Peanut chicken stew goes well with white rice.

TIDBITS

1) Niger’s women give birth to 7.37 children. That’s an average, of course. Still, it makes you think. Nigerien women eat eggplant. They have lots of kids. Presumably, one could practice birth control by not eating any eggplant.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Peanut Squash Stew from Chad

Posted on November 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

Chadian Entree

PEANUT SQUASH STEW

INGREDIENTSPeanutSquash-

2½ pounds summer squash (zucchini, patty pan, or crookneck)
2½ tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups roasted peanuts
1 teaspoon brown sugar

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

Makes 12 bowls.

PREPARATION

Peel and cut squash into 1″ cubes. Add squash and peanut oil to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until squash is tender. Stir frequently. Add salt, roasted peanuts, and sugar. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1). Chad is a person.

2) Chad is a country.

3) Wouldn’t it be neat to have a country named about yourself? Consider naming your next child Belgium.

4) Chad is bad when it hangs from a ballot. Some people think that hanging chads changed the 2000 American presidential election. If candidate Al Gore had won that election instead of George Bush, American history, and indeed world history would have been different.

5) How different? Different enough so that tidbit 4) wouldn’t have been written differently.

8) There’s a famous Isaac Asimov story where a man goes back in time to shoot a dinosaur. He strays off the marked path and steps on a butterfly. He returns to his own time to find that the presidential election was changed, just like in tidbit 4).

9) A lot of people spoke out against hanging chads, including many, many Chads.

10) It’s good to see people getting involved in the political process. Now is the time for all good Sarahs to come to the aid of their country.

– 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, food, history, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Filipino Chicken Adobo

Posted on October 16, 2014 by pauldelancey

Filipino Entree

CHICKEN ADOBO

INGREDIENTSChickenAdobo-

6 garlic cloves
2 pounds chicken breasts
6 tablespoons soy sauce
3 bay leaves
½ cup vinegar
1¾ cups water
½ tablespoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL – OPTIONAL

herb infuser (quite similar to tea infuser)

PREPARATION

Mince garlic. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add garlic, chicken, and soy sauce to mixing bowl. Turn chicken cubes until well coated with garlic and soy sauce. Marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours.

Add chicken cubes and its marinade and the rest of the ingredients to pot. (If you have an herb infuser, put peppercorns in it. Attach peppercorn laden herb infuser to pot.) Bring to boil using medium heat.  Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until sauce thickens to desired consistency.

TIDBITS

1) There are 11 million Filipinos living outside the Philippines. These expatriates missed it when the Philippines hosted the world’s largest, mass public breast-feeding event in. Filipinos are still buzzing about that. That’s why they text more than all Americans and Europeans combined.

2) Life is not all breast feeding in the Philippines. The island nation has a dark side. It invented karaoke.

3) Interrogators from at least one nation have played the Barney the Dinosaur theme song to break the resistance of captured soldiers. However, no country has subjected its prisoners to Barney the Dinosaur karoake. There is only so much you can make good people to do, even in war.

5) Indeed, famished and weary travelers the world over are always admonished to leave their guns in their cars when entering establishments advertising themselves as “karaoke bars and grills.”

6) The yo-yo was invented in the Philippines as a weapon. As of the upcoming July, yo-yos will be banned in all karaoke bars.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Costa Rican Pork Casado

Posted on October 7, 2014 by pauldelancey

Costa Rican Entree

PORK CASADO

INGREDIENTSCasado-

8 tablespoons orange juice
4 tablespoons orange zest
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin

¼ head cabbage
1 small carrot
1 small tomato
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup basmati or white rice
1 onion (1 additional onion later)
2 red bell peppers
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (5 additional tablespoons later)

2 plantains
5 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion
4 pork loins

1 15-ounce can black beans

PREPARATION MARINADE

Coat pork loins throughly in orange juice, orange zest, garlic salt, chili powder, and cumin.. Let marinate for 30 minutes. Keep marinade.

PREPARATION – SALAD

Shred cabbage. Dice carrot and tomato. Add cabbage, carrot, tomato, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with fork.

PREPARATION – RICE

Add rice to pot. Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, mince 1 onion and red bell peppers. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Keep rice and onion/bell pepper mix warm.

PREPARATION – PLANTAINS

Peel plantains. Slice plantains in half lengthwise. Add 5 tablespoons vegetable oil and plantain to pan. Sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until plantains become tender and turn golden brown. Drain and keep warm.

PREPARATION – PORK

Cut onion into four slices. Grill onion and pork loins on barbecue grill at high or 450 degrees. Grill onions for 10 minutes or until they start to char. Turn them over once. Grill pork for 20 minutes or until it is cooked through (white inside) or starts to brown. Turn over every 5 minutes. Brush with marinade each time.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Put beans in pot. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until sauce begins to bubble. Add pork to plate with grilled onion slice on top. Add rice to side and top with onion/red pepper mix. Add 2 plantains to the side. (Lots of sides, aren’t there?) Add cabbage to a remaining spot on plate and top with carrot and tomato.

(snarky comment. ☜ Weeks later: I was interrupted by a melee in the house, plate tectonics, or something, so I typed “snarky comment” as a place filler. Clearly, I had hoped to come back in a jiffy with a brilliant thought intact. However, my brilliance was as fleeting as the perfect ripeness of an avocado. So let this be a cautionary tale to everyone; write down your thoughts if you suspect a bout of plate tectonics coming on.)

Enjoy!

TIDBITS

1) This recipe is made with orange zest. As far as I know there are no movies titles with the word zest in them.

3) But there is a classic movie called “Lust for Life” starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn. It’s about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

4) Van Gogh was an artist. So am I. I had a vase displayed in the Gemente Museum in the The Hague, Netherlands.

5) I am much more into cooking now. The upcoming movie about my life is likely to be called, “Lust for Zest.”

6) Any dish I create gets eaten.

7) You are not allowed to eat paintings in art museums, particularly so at the Louvre in Paris.

8) Not even if you bring the correct spices and wine. However, you can eat popcorn at the movies. As of press time, however, few movie theaters serve gourmet dinners and fine wine. It’s a hard world out there.

– 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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