Posts Tagged With: entree

Mayan Tacos and How to Beat a Drunk-Driving Ticket

Posted on April 12, 2014 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

MAYAN TACOS

INGREDIENTSMayanTaco-

3 chicken breasts
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cups achiote sauce
12 4-1/2″ wide corn tortillas

PREPARATION

Shred chicken breasts. Add chicken breasts and vegetable oil. Sauté chicken on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Stir frequently. Warm all tortillas in microwave for 30 seconds or in another skillet on low-medium heat for about 10 seconds or until warm. Add chicken equally to tortillas. Top with achiote sauce.

TIDBITS

1) Tacos is an anagram for tacos. The phrase “Mayan tacos can be found on the Mayan Coast” will help you remember this fact.

2) You may never forget the anagram and the phrase shown in tidbit 1). Indeed, you may find yourself pulled over by a traffic cop for weaving. You were only weaving because you were tired from attending a late-night lecture on the effects of heteroskedasticity on the confidence intervals of coefficients using three stage iterative least squares analysis.

3) But the traffic cop doesn’t know that. He knocks on your window. You roll it down. He says, “You know how fast you were going?” You say, “Sorry, officer, I was in a hurry to get home.” He grunts. “You were weaving out there. Been drinking much?” You shake your head. You want to say no but you blurt out, “Mayan tacos can be found on the Mayan Coast.”

4) The officer yells, “All right, get out of the car.” You get out. He handcuffs you. So convinced by your outburst of your drunkeness, he doesn’t bother to test your breath. He leads you to his patrol car. Sweat dots your forehead. “But honestly officer, I’m not drunk. I really am dead tired from trying to wrap my brain around a lecture on the effects of heteroskedasticity on the confidence intervals of coefficients using three stage iterative least squares analysis.”

5) To back up your claim, you launch into the lecture. The traffic cop’s eyes glaze over. A tsunami of tiredness crashes onto his soul. His will to live evaporates. He realizes he’ll have to listen to you spout the intricacies of empirical economies all the way back to the police station. He lets you go. You will both suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder the rest of your lives.

– 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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Saudi Al Kabsa – chicken and rice

Posted on April 8, 2014 by pauldelancey

Saudi Entree

AL KABSA
(Chicken and rice)

INGREDIENTSAlKabsa-

3 pounds chicken breasts (or other parts)
2 carrots
5 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
3 Roma tomatoes
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup tomato puree
2 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups chicken stock
2 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons kabsa spice mix (See Kabsa Spice Mix recipe if you can’t find the mix.)
2 cups basmati rice (Do not precook.)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup slivered almonds

Serves 6

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop chicken into 12 pieces. Grate or dice carrots. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Dice Roma tomatoes. Add garlic, onion, and butter to Dutch oven. Sauté garlic and onion on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken, tomato puree, and chopped tomatoes, Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add water, chicken stock, carrot, cloves, nutmeg, salt and kabsa spice mix. Bring to boil using high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Remove chicken and bake for 25-to-30 minutes at 350 degrees or until it starts to brown.

Bring to boil. Stir in rice. Simmer for 30 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. Stir occasionally. Add raisins. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Place rice on plate and top with 2 chicken pieces. Garnish with an equal amount of almonds.
TIDBITS

1) The Temple of Eve is supposedly located in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Cool.

2) Saudi Arabia is one of the driest countries in the world.

3) British humor is one of the driest in the world.

4) These tidbits are getting shorter, aren’t they?

5) Yes, they are. You can measure them.

6) Soon nothingness.

7)

8) And rebirth.

9) And so new, longer, vibrant tidbits come into being.

10) I feel like writing a haiku to tidbits.

11) Tidbits, o, tidbits.
Life was so sad when you were gone.
I’m glad you are back

12) Haikus are composed of three lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively. They can evoke complex imagery within this restrictive space or they can display the elegant simplicity of the following effort:

Word, word, word, word, word
Word, word, word, word, word, word, word
Word, word, word, word, word

13) Speaking of using words to communicate information; all shops in Saudi Arabia are forbidden on Valentine’s day from selling anything red or with hearts on it. You may not wear anything red.

14) Movie theaters and beer are banned in Saudi Arabia. You must drive to Bahrain for these things, which depending on where you live could be anywhere from twenty minutes to twenty hours away. That movie had better be good.

15) And what if the beer you had made you sleepy and you fell asleep during the movie? That movie that took you twenty hours to get to? And twenty hours to get back?

16) If had to drive forty total hours for a beer, I would get the best, most expensive beer I could buy and really, really, really savor it.

17) And I would get gourmet popcorn for the movie. A giant tub of it.

– 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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Bubble and Squeak

Posted on April 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

British Entree

BUBBLE AND SQUEAK

INGREDIENTSBubble&Squeak-

4 potatoes
2 tablespoons butter (2 more teaspoons later)
½ head cabbage
2 celery stalks
1 onion
2 tablespoons butter
4 ounces bacon
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

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. Add 2 tablespoons butter to pot with potato pieces. Mash potatoes with potato masher.

While potatoes simmer, thinly slice cabbage. Put cabbage with enough water to cover and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until cabbage is tender. Dice celery, and onion. Add onion, celery, and 2 tablespoons butter to large skillet. Sauté onion and celery for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add bacon to frying pan. Fry bacon on medium-high heat or until bacon starts to turn crispy. Remove bacon and press with paper towels to remove grease. Cut bacon into 1″ squares.

Add mashed potato, cabbage, bacon, celery, onion, pepper, and salt to large skillet. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until bottom (The mixture in the skillet, not your bottom. Goodness.) turns golden brown. Turn mixture over and cook for another 5 minutes or until it browns again on the bottom.

TIDBITS

1) This traditional British dish is named after the bubbling and squeaking sounds it makes while being cooked. The earliest known recipe comes from Maria Rundell, who made it in 1806. No, I do not know what she did in 1805. Still, knowing this fact will give you an advantage over the other contests in JeopardyTM when the Bubble and Squeak category comes up.

2) Bubble and squeak is also Cockney rhyming slang for Greek. Just like fashion and fad is Cockney for iPad. Similarly, Pow and socko for taco, Sang froid and calm for A-bomb, symphonies and coda for soda, large rat and busy bee for reality TV, Jeb and Jethro for cilantro, grovel and beg for nutmeg, mite and midge for fridge, bondsman and post bail for junk mail, and, of course, tasty and new for chicken cordon bleu.

– 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, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Finnish Dilled Beef Stew

Posted on March 28, 2014 by pauldelancey

Finnish Entree

DILLED BEEF STEW
(Tilliliha)

INGREDIENTSDilledBeef-

3 pounds boneless chuck roast
1 onion
3 tablespoons butter
3 ½ cups beef broth
1 teaspoon allspice
½ tablespoon coarsely ground pepper
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons flour
2 ½ teaspoons sugar
2 ½ teaspoons red wine vinegar
½ cup cream
4 teaspoons dill

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

Serves 6 (How big are your bowls?) Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut chuck roast into 1″ cubes. Mince onion. Put roast and butter into Dutch oven. Sauté for 5-to-10 minutes on medium-high heat or until chuck-roast cubes turn brown. Stir occasionally. Add beef broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low. Add onion, allspice, pepper, bay leaf, and salt. Cover and simmer on low heat for 90 minutes. Skim off foam as it occurs. Remove meat from Dutch oven and set aside.

Add flour, sugar, and red wine vinegar to broth and increase heat to medium. Stir continually until sauce thickens. Add cream and dill. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) Ronkainen, a legendary Finnish robber of the 1700s, had would-be gang members carry a heavy woman over an obstacle course to prove their strength. The annual wife-carrying championships in Sonkajaarvi, Finland derive from this test. Wife carrying is not an Olympic sport. However, synchronized swimming is.

2) Finns excel at non-traditional sports as well. Be sure to make your way to Savonlinna, Finland during August for its prestigious Cell Phone Throwing Championship. Participants throw the cell phones over their shoulders and are judged by distance and techniques. Cell-phone-throwing mania is going global having caught in the rest of Europe and in the United States. This would be one Olympic event I would watch. Contact the proper agency for rules of competition. Despite the obvious tie in, I don’t believe Nokia is an official sponsor.

3) Air guitar enthusiasts won’t want to miss the Air Guitar season. Prestigious events are held in Germany along with Japan’s own elimination tournament. However, the crème de la crème of air guitardom is the World Final, held in Oulu, Finland in late August. Don’t forget to pack your air guitar or you’ll be forced to buy one at the local Ouluan shops and you’ll know what high prices you’ll see there.

4) The Mosquito Swatting Championship is held each year in Finland. Contestants try to swat the most mosquitoes in 5 minutes. Over thirty is a good number. I don’t know when the event takes place, but I imagine it is in the mosquito season. Visitors who attract mosquitoes like flies, hee hee, will be asked to sit in the back rows as the mosquitoes biting them diminish the number of mosquitoes available to the contestants.

5) Finland hosts the Ant Nest Sitting Competition. Athletes–whom am I kidding?–sit on an ant hill for as long as they can stand the ant bites. Okay, this one is weird.

6) Relax while competing! Enter the Finnish Sauna World Championship Simply stay the longest inside Finnish sauna in a temperature 110 degrees centigrade, 240 degrees fahrenheit. Held in August in Heinola, Finland, this contest makes a natural companion to tourists taking in the Air Guitar final.

7) Love soccer? Love mud? Head on over to Hyrynsalmi., Finland where over 200 teams from all over the world vie to win the Swamp Soccer World Cup. It’s held during Finland’s mud season.

8) If the idea of bodies writhing in mud gets you hot and bothered, be sure to take in the Kutemajarvi Sex Festival and Matchmaking Festival held in the towns Kangasniemi and Kurikka, Finland. If you are interested, please visit the Rakkausfestivalli’s website where a knowledge of the Finnish language helps a lot.

9) Speaking of speaking Finnish, consider attending the Finnish Dialect Speaking Championship held in early July in Kuopio, Finland. Past winners have usually demonstrated a strong command of this Nordic language.

10) Can’t speak Finnish, but still love to make yourself heard? Alapitka, Finland, puts on the renowned Cattle Calling Championship. Techniques of the champions are closely guarded secrets.

11) Lost at the Cattle Calling Championship? Want to take out your frustration from months of wasted practice? Redeem yourself by entering Milk Stool Throwing contests held all over rural Finland in early summer.

12) But above all else behave yourself while visiting Finland. Finnish prisoners are only allowed to use the sauna once a week. Scared straight, you bet.

– 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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Almond Pork Stir Fry

Posted on March 27, 2014 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

ALMOND PORK STIR FRY

INGREDIENTSAlmondChicken-

1 pound pork loins
½ red onion
2 scallions
½ cup blanched, silvered almonds
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 ½ tablespoons chicken stock
1 tablespoon sherry
1 teaspoon sugar
1 pound bean sprouts
1 teaspoon Chinese five spices
1/2 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

PREPARATION

Cut pork into ½” cubes. Dice red onion and scallions. Rinse bean sprouts. Add almond, red onion, scallion, and soy sauce to wok or pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently.

Add pork, chicken stock, sherry, sugar, bean sprouts, Chinese five spices, and ginger to pan. Cook for 5 minutes on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until pork is no longer pink inside. (X-ray vision would be useful here. If you aren’t a super hero, it’s okay to slice open a pork cube and look.)

TIDBITS

1) In 1764, Spain worried about Russian encroachment on the west coast of America planted almond trees along El Camino Real (The Royal Road) from San Diego to San Francisco.

2) These trees did not significantly deter the Russian military which was generally equipped with ships, horses, cannon, and muskets.

3) The Spanish then tried planting all manner of cacti in Arizona. This failed as well. The Russians weren’t interested in Arizona and the cacti proved remarkably vulnerable to flanking maneuvers.

4) In 1769, the governor of California, Don Antonio Pico de Gallo, came up with the happy idea of building missions along El Camino and staffing them with priests and soldiers. The Russians saw that the price of conquering the Golden State would be too high and left.

5) President Clinton ate almonds at both his inaugurations. Some say he did this to send a message to the Russians, but it is more likely he just like to eat them.

6) Eat the almonds, not the Russians, for goodness sake.

– 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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Danish Meatballs in Curry (boller i karry)

Posted on March 23, 2014 by pauldelancey

Danish Entree

MEATBALLS IN CURRY
(boller i karry)

INGREDIENTS – MEATBALLSMeatballsCurry-

4 garlic cloves
2 small onions
½ pound ground beef
½ pound ground pork
1 cup bread crumbs
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups beef stock

INGREDIENTS – CURRY SAUCE

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 leek
1 medium onion
4 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup cream
1 teaspoon chives
1 teaspoon parsley

Serves 6, particularly if everyone eats 1/6th of this.

PREPARATION – MEATBALLS

Mince garlic cloves and 2 small onions. Mix ground beef, ground pork, bread crumbs, garlic, onion, egg, pepper, and salt with hands in mixing bowl. Make 1″ meatballs.

Add beef stock to large pot. Bring beef stock to boil on high heat. Carefully add meatballs to pot. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until meatballs begin to float. Remove meatballs from pot and set aside. Save the beef broth in pot.

PREPARATION – CURRY SAUCE

While meatballs simmer, dice leek, and medium onion. Add butter, curry powder, leek, and diced medium onion. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until diced medium onion softens. Stir frequently. Add flour. Mix well with spoon. Gradually mix in 2 1/2 cups of broth taken from pot or until sauce thickens. Add cream and meatballs. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Sprinkle chives and parsley on top. This dish goes well over rice.

TIDBITS

1) The meatball is really a smaller version of meatloaf. Some people have meatballs as a topping for their pizzas.

2) Wouldn’t a meatloaf pizza be exciting? Imagine getting a 16″ pizza topped with three 9″ by 6″ meatloaves. It would feed an army.

3) The Roman Empire is known for its all conquering armies. It’s less known for its culinary achievements. That’s a shame as Rome is the birthplace of the meatball. Rome rocks.

4) Okay, ancient Rome didn’t rock for everyone, the slaves, for example, come to mind as do the people of the many conquered nations.

5) One might wonder how the Roman Empire kept all its conquered peoples from continually revolting. After all, the legions marched everywhere and took longer than waiting in lines at Disneyland to get from their barracks to disaffected regions.

6) The answer is in the massive stockpiles of meatballs kept at all the crossroads of the Empire. As long as the Roman authorities could rush meatballs to its conquered peoples, no riot ever grew so large the slowly arriving legionnaires couldn’t handle it.

7) Rome almost fell to barbarians, in the third century A.D., when they lost the province of Dacia with its rich cattle lands. Fewer cattle, fewer meatballs. Fewer meatballs, more riots. More riots not stopped with meatballs, more revolts. And that meant legions got withdrawn from the frontiers to put the revolts. Barbarians poured across the sparsely defended border.

8) It really appeared as Rome was going to fall. Fortunately the cattlemen of Dacia organized cattle drives to still safe provinces such as Cisalpine Gaul and Thracia. “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.” Meatball production bounced back within a few decades and the Empire recovered.

9) In 405, however, the health sage, Atticus Bananicus, convinced the legionnaires to go vegetarian. As a result, many of Rome’s cattlemen switched to raising free-range chickens.

10) But in 406, Bananicus was seen by legionnaires eating a meatball pizza. The dormant meatball tastes of the Roman soldiers came out of hibernation. All at once, every soldier demanded meatballs. But there were no longer enough meatballs for the army and the peoples of Rome. The army garnered all the meatballs, leaving none for the restive populace. Unquenchable revolts erupted everywhere. The entire Roman army abandoned the frontier, getting decimated putting down the ferocious uprisings.

12) Alaric and the Visigoths–that sounds like a 60s rock band doesn’t it?–sacked Rome in 410 A.D.. The Roman Empire never rebounded from this disaster and soon collapsed. Always keep meatballs in your refrigerator. It’s frightening to contemplate what would happen if our supermarkets ran out of that peace-ensuring food.

13) Food connoisseurs are invited to read book II of Marcus Gavius Apicus’ “De re coquinaria libri decem (Cuisine in Ten Books)” to see the world’s first recipe for meatballs. And feel at peace.

– 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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Chicken in Pineapple Boat

Posted on March 14, 2014 by pauldelancey

Tahitian Entree

CHICKEN IN PINEAPPLE BOAT
(Takia Ni Toa Painaviu)

INGREDIENTSChicken pineapple-

2 large pineapples
3 chicken breasts
½ small onion
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken stock
3/4 cup coconut milk
½ teaspoon parsley
2 tablespoons cream
1/3 cup dry white wine
½ tablespoon slivered almonds (optional)
add pineapple leaves as decoration

PREPARATION

Cut pineapples in half lengthwise. Carve out inside of pineapple. Cut carved out pineapple flesh into 1″ cubes, throwing out pulpy parts.. Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Mince onion.

Add onion and butter to large frying pan. Sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to medium. Add chicken and fry for about 5 MINUTES or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Do not brown chicken. Stir occasionally.

Reduce heat to low. Add flour and chicken stock to pan. Cook for minutes or until sauce thickens Add pineapple cubes, wine, and cream. Cook for 5 minutes on low heat. Stir occasionally Remove chicken/sauce from heat.. Ladle chicken/pineapple/sauce into pineapple halves. Sprinkle with parsley and almonds.

TIDBITS

1) The letter “B” does not exist in the Tahitian language. Tahitians would have a tough time ordering burgers at the Bob’s Big Boy restaurants in America. On the other hand, Tahiti has no poisonous snakes or insects.

2) Tahiti is way cool, Bread is more important than getting mail. Bakeries deliver fresh loaves twice a day to bread boxes outside residents homes. Maiil must be picked up at the post office.

3) Oh my goodness, I just found that the Tahitian alphabet now as only 13 letters, 13 fewer than the English one. And when I did the first tidbit, it apparently had 25. Where did those 13 – 1 = 12 additional letters disappear to and in two tidbits. I’m stopping the tidbits right now before the Tahitians lose any more letters. Goodness.

– 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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Sausage and Pepperoni Pizza

Posted on March 12, 2014 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

SAUSAGE AND PEPPERONI PIZZA

INGREDIENTSSausagePeppPizza-

1 pizza crust
2 cups pasta sauce (see recipe)
8 ounces sausage meat
4 ounces sliced pepperoni
1⅔ cups mozzarella cheese

SPECIAL UTENSIL

16″ pizza pan

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put pizza crust on pizza pan. Spread pasta sauce over entire crust. Make ½” sausage balls. Put sausage balls and pepperoni slice evenly over sauce. Bake pizza in oven at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese turns golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Pizza has a long and rich history. So does the game of rock, paper, scissors.

2) The game started as rock, rock, rock in Vivaldi Gorge in the year 3,200,010 BC.. The game was played with real rocks and always ended in a tie. Caveman Ogg never lost. He even considered going pro, but stopped from a lack of corporate sponsors.

3) Ten years later Ogg accused Lucy from Olduvai Gorge of cheating. The enraged Ogg used the rock to brain his foe. Ogg fictionalized the account of his bloody deed on his cave’s walls. This was the start of the literary crime genre. So some good came out of it.

4) Lucy’s kin attacked Ogg’s family, driving them far away. In 1949 Drs. Leakey started looking for human bones in Vivaldi Gorge. Ten years later, they switched to Olduvai Gorge and found the bones of Lucy next to a tablet inscribed with the cryptic code of W-0, L-0, T-1,723. Oh, a baseball was found as well, but that’s almost certainly an artifact.

5) In 1845, Alexander Cartwright formalized the rules of baseball. Baseball with its clear victor took America and much of the world by storm. Dr. Simon Iota did change the game of rock, rock, rock to rock, paper, scissors, paper in 1867. But the new rules came too late. Baseball would reign supreme. Rock, paper, scissors is hardly played and is never shown on T.V., except maybe on ESPN4 at 4 a.m. on Tuesdays.

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

Chicken Pot Pie

Posted on March 6, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

CHICKEN POT PIE

INGREDIENTS – FILLINGChickenPotPie-

3 chicken breasts
3 medium carrots
2 stalks celery
1 onion
1 white potato
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup flour (6 more cups later)
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon marjoram
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt (3/4 more teaspoons later)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup milk (1 tablespoon more later)

INGREDIENTS – PASTRY

6 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter (softened)
1 pint water

1 tablespoon milk
1 egg

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Dutch oven
6 meat-pie pans (5″ diameter is best)

PREPARATION – FILLING

Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Dice carrots, celery, onion, and potato. Add onion and butter to Dutch oven. Sauté onion on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add 1/3 cup flour, celery seed, marjoram, pepper, salt, and thyme. Stir until well blended. Add broth and 1 cup milk. Bring to boil on high heat. Stir frequently. Add chicken, carrot, celery, and potato. Reduce heat to lower and simmer for 40 minutes or until carrots are soft. Stir occasionally. Remove.

PREPARATION – PASTRY

While filling is simmering, add 6 cups flour, salt, and butter to a second mixing bowl. Blend ingredients with whisk. Add water. Remove dough and knead on surface dusted with flour.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Let dough sit for 20 minutes. Divide dough into 12 balls. Use rolling pin on dough balls–A large can of soup will do. A stick of dynamite is way too risky–to make 6 circles with 8″ inch diameters. Flatten the remaining dough balls to make 6″ wide circles.

PREPARATION – PIE

Line each pie pan with an 8″ dough circle. Add filling to each pan. Moisten rims of pies with 1 tablespoon milk. (This helps to tops stick with the bottom pastry.) Place a 6″ dough circle on top of each pie. Trim away the excess puff pastry. Press edges of puff pastry onto rims of bottom pastry with fork. Beat egg with whisk or fork. Glaze tops evenly with egg.

Put pies in over. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-to-20 minutes or until golden brown. Spread ketchup over each pie. Have a nice cooling refreshment and enjoy. Press gang the least appreciative guest into cleaning up.

TIDBITS

1) H. G. Wells wrote the culinary-sci fi novel, The Thyme Machine, in 1903. It fared poorly, selling only three copies. Two of those copies were used to keep open windows during London’s August heat weaves. Some historians believe the third copy was placed under the short leg of an otherwise unstable table at a pub called The Copper Penny. The pub’s owner allowed customers to read The Thyme Machine with the understanding they replaced it before leaving the establishment.

2) The distraught novelist chucked his writing career and went to culinary school. He thrived there. He became a spice-using genius. In 1905, he opened up an upscale restaurant in one of London’s ritzy districts. It specialized in French cuisine and was called, Food of the Gods.

3) The wealthy soon flocked to the Food of the Gods. Everyone had to taste its scrumptious entrees, its divine desserts. It became so renowned that giant lines formed outside the restaurant’s doors. In 1907, Chef H.G. instituted a reservations only policy. This left thousands of aristocratic food lovers out in the culinary cold, to subsist on fish and chips. Just getting a reservation provided immense social prestige. In 1911, Charles Witherham garned a baronetcy from George V when he gave his time to the British monarch.

4) Tragedy struck in June, 1914, when the German nobleman, Hans von Frikadellen, stole the French ambassador’s 8 o’clock reservation at The Food of the Gods. The ambassador said German food was one boring pork dish after another. Frikadellen said the French didn’t know how to spice. Things went downhill after that and by July the two nations were at war.

5) Lots of nations joined in the kerfuffle. Millions perished during World War I . Naturally, H.G. Wells felt bad about that and invented a time machine and went back to 1895 long before his havoc creating restaurant opened.

6) Wells renounced cooking and went back to writing. He excised all culinary references in The Thyme Machine which became the more tighter, page-turning masterpiece, The Time Machine. The world would still go to war in 1914, but it wouldn’t be his fault.

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

Macaroni and Cheese

Posted on March 1, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

MACARONI AND CHEESE

INGREDIENTSMacaroni&Cheese-

1 pound elbow macaroni
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
4 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 ounces shredded cheddar cheese
8 ounces shredded American cheese

SPECIAL UTENSIL

3-quart casserole dish

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Cook macaroni according to directions on package. While macaroni is cooking, melt butter in pan using medium heat. Add flour, milk, pepper, and salt.. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until mixture thickens and bubbles. Stir frequently to keep milk from burning. Remove pan from heat.

Transfer mixture to casserole dish. Add cheddar cheese, American cheese, and elbow macaroni. Stir. Put casserole dish in oven. Bake uncovered at 360 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

This dish is simple and wonderful. You will feel at peace with the universe. You won’t even mind calling your insurance company after dining on this.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe uses elbow macaroni. Americans use their elbows to eat macaroni and cheese. This dish also has American cheese, the primary ingredient in nacho cheese sauce.

3) A big virtue of American cheese is its low melting point. Be careful, though, of making nacho cheese sauce atop Mount Everest. The boiling point of American cheese is much lower there than at sea level. So it’s not that hard to let your American cheese start boiling if you’re not paying attention; say if you’re taking a group photo to celebrate your success in climbing the world’s tallest mountain.

4) Then when someone takes the lid off the pot, everyone gets splattered with molten nacho cheese sauce. People yell out in pain. The loud noise causes an avalanche. People panic. People jump in crevasses. The Nepalese army gets called in. It takes them hours to retrieve everyone. The Nepalese government protests to your government. The world inches closer to war. Cooler heads eventually prevail, but it is a near thing. So, always employ culinary caution wherever you go.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic 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.

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