Posts Tagged With: entree

Egg Foo Young

Posted on August 1, 2012 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

EGG FOO YOUNG

INGREDIENTS 

VEGGIE-CHICKEN MIX

1 small chicken breast
1 medium white onion
2 stalks green onions
1 stalk celery
1 garlic clove
1 cup bean sprouts
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch (2 tablespoons more later)
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce (1/4 cup more later)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper

2 tablespoons peanut oil
8 eggs (2 at a time)

no-stick spray

SAUCE

1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons cornstarch

PREPARATION

Dice chicken breast, white onion, green onion, celery, and garlic clove. Put sesame oil in frying pan or skillet. Add onion, green onion, celery, clove, and sprouts. Heat on medium for about 5 minutes or until veggies are tender. Stir frequently.

Add chicken breast, 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch, 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, salt, and white pepper. Cook for about 3 minutes on medium or until chicken bits have all changed color. Remove veggie-chicken mixture from frying pan and set aside.

Beat eggs. (This should be easy as your grasp of mixed-martial arts exceeds that of the genial egg.) Spray pan with no-stick spray. Heat peanut oil on medium. Add 2 eggs and cook on medium until eggs begin to set. Flip over egg patty. (You might want to use two spatulas. I wonder if any chefs use crossed spatulas as their coats of arms.) Or could use a spatula to cut the big patty into four manageable patties each time you add a layer of eggs.

Add about 1/3 of the veggie-chicken mix to the top of the patty. Add 2 more eggs and cook on medium until eggs on top begin to set. Flip over the whole patty. You should now have 2 layers of eggs and one mix. Repeat this step 2 more times until you have 4 layers of eggs and 3 of the mix. Watch the egg layer each time you flip the whole patty. Be careful that they don’t burn. Lower the heat, if at any time, the egg layer browns.

Remove the patty, or patties, from the pan and set on serving plate.

SAUCE

Put1/4 cup soy sauce, dry sherry, and water in frying pan. Bring to boil then immediately turn off heat. Add 2 tablespoons cornstarch and mix until sauce thickens. The sauce add flavor, texture, and enhances the appearance of this entree.

(This is especially true if you went the “one big patty” route and it fell apart during cooking. Refrain from cussing in Swahili. Simply cover the broken patty completely with sauce. Nobody will ever know there’s a break in the patty after you’ve divided the patty into two, three, or four pieces.)

Just smile and serve.

TIDBITS

1) Untying knots becomes easier when you sprinkle it with cornstarch.

2) While Alexander the Great was busy conquering the Persian empire he came across a two ropes tied together at Gordian. A prophet told him if could separate the ropes he would win many victories. People pooh poohed the idea that anyone could untie the intricate knot, but Alexander simply slashed the knot into two with one mighty sweep of his sword. To this day, the Gordian knot is a metaphor for not having cornstarch on ones person.

3) Alexander did indeed conquer quite a few exotic lands, even unto India. But he never quite reached China.

4) So, the Great one never got to taste egg foo young.

5) Did China have egg foo young in the time of Alexander the Great, some 2,300 years ago? Would he have like it?

6) We just don’t know. There just weren’t any many alternative military cuisinal historians around.

7)Is “cuisinal” even a word?

4) See above for 4).

– 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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Stir Fry Chicken

Posted on July 30, 2012 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

CHICKEN STIR FRY

INGREDIENTS

2 chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic
1 yellow bell pepper
2 teaspoons peanut oil
2 teaspoons sesame oil

3 tablespoons honey
2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ginger
6 ounces bean sprouts
2 large carrots
2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 cup rice
2 cup water

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1/2-inch cubes or dice with food processor. (Chicken cubes make poor ear plugs.) Scrape off skin from carrots with knife and remove tops and bottoms. Dice garlic, bell pepper, and carrots.

Put chicken, garlic, bell pepper, sesame oil, and peanut oil in large no-stick frying pan or wok. Cook on medium heat until chicken is lightly browned. Stir occasionally.

Add honey, soy sauce, white pepper, ginger, sprouts, and carrots. Cook on medium heat until all is hot. Stir occasionally. Add cornstarch. Stir in cooked rice (cooked according to instructions on bag) and serve.

Simple and tasty.

TIDBITS

1) Rice is much more popular in Asia than in the United States.

2) However, Sam Rice, of the 1924 Washington Senators, was very popular in Washington, D.C. It is doubtful many in Asia had ever heard of him.

3) 1924 was the only year the Senators won the World Series.

4) In the 1960s, some losers of the World Series later toured and played in Japan.

5) Japanese samurais of the 10th to 16th centuries were famous for their swordsmanship.

6) So naturally, samurai trading cards were all the rage in Australia in 1965. There was even a well-watched t.v. show called Shintaro.

7) I had an outfit just like Shintaro and a genuine toy sword, too.

8) Where did they go?

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

Sandwich Cubano

Posted on July 27, 2012 by pauldelancey

Cuban Entree

SANDWICH CUBANO

INGREDIENTS

4 French rolls (Cuban bread if you can find it.)
1 pound sliced ham (sweet cured ham if possible)
1 pound sliced roast pork (see note*)
1/2 pound sliced Swiss cheese (baby Swiss if possible)
Dill Sandwich StackersTM Pickles
Yellow mustard
No mayonnaise (This is a Cuban no no.)
Butter

SPECIALTY ITEM

Sandwich maker or press.

PREPARATION

The order of preparation is quite important to aficianados of this dish. I present the following as the way I learned it. Spread butter over inside of bread half. Put on a light coating of mustard next. Top this with two pickle slices, 1/4 pound of roasted pork, 1/4 pound of sliced ham, and 2 ounces of Swiss cheese. Coat the inside of the other half of the French roll with butter and mustard. Assemble the sandwich.

Spray the sandwich maker with no-stick cooking spray. Put your sandwich in the sandwich maker. Cut into two or four pieces if necessary. Cook for about three minutes.

Your sandwich maker might cook faster or slower. (Stick around and stay alert for smoke smells or that billowing cloud issuing from the sandwich maker because you thought you could read another chapter of War and Peace.)

This tastes fantastic and is quite filling. It’s just the thing to eat.

* = Sad to say, many areas of the country do not sell sliced roast pork. You now have three choices: 1) Sneak into Cuba and smuggle out sliced roast pork, 2) marry a Cuban and have your spouse’s family airmail the delicacy in a sealed pouch, or 3) go to the supermarket and buy a package of sliced smoked pork chops. Remember, ask not what your cuisine can do for you, rather ask what you may do for your cuisine.

TIDBITS

1) Tidbit 1) did not survive editing.

2) Apparently the Cuban word for “sandwich” is “sandwich.” Who knew?

3) My older son made this sandwich and took it to school for a 4th grade project on Florida. He received 4 out of 4 on it. That’s my boy.

4) The United States and the Soviet Union almost had a nuclear war over missiles in Cuba. Thank goodness they didn’t. We would have lost the recipe for this tasty sandwich.

5) If you really don’t like to be told what to do and don’t want me to dictate that the order of putting the ingredients in the sandwich, then try this. Reverse the order and serve the sandwich upside down. Your guest will see the ingredients in the usual order and you will have been the rebel you’ve always wanted to be. It’s a win-win situation.

– 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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Creamy-Zucchini Pita From Forthcoming Cookbook

Posted on July 25, 2012 by pauldelancey

Greek Entree

CREAMY-ZUCCHINI PITA

INGREDIENTS

1 huge zucchini
3 teaspoons olive oil
3 medium garlic cloves
1 teaspoon Vegetable MagicTM spice
1/2 teaspoon oregano
3 tablespoons plain nonfat yogurt
2 pita loaves
PREPARATION

Peel off the zucchini’s skin. It won’t feel a thing. Mince the zucchini in a food processor. Mince the garlic cloves as well.

Mix the zucchini, garlic, vegetable spice, and oregano. Heat the oil in a skillet at 350 degrees. Saute the zucchini mix. Cook for 7 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently, or until the zucchini is tender and green.

Put zucchini mix in a large bowl. Add in yogurt and stir. Break two pita loaves into two halves. Warm the pita halves. Put about 1/4 of the mix into each pita half.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe calls for one huge zucchini because a neighbor gave my wife a huge zucchini. (Oh behave! The neighbor was female and a “huge zucchini” is not a euphemism.) This sort of thing happens in California. In Wisconsin, I got tomatoes. Or we went out for a beer.

2) Synonyms for “creamy” are “curdled,” “coagulated,” and “grumous.” But I doubt many people would try “Coagulated Zucchini Pita.”

3) Cook at 350 degrees whenever you are not told the cooking temperature.

4) Yogurt is prepared by the fermentation of milk with added bacteria.

5) I once ordered milk in an Andorran village café. The waitress immediately came back with a big container of sugar. Uh oh. She later returned with a glass of the sourest milk that ever assaulted my taste buds. Lemons had nothing on this beverage. A half cup of sugar didn’t even help. I am a sadder but wiser man for this experience.

– 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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Pigs In A Blanket

Posted on July 19, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Entree

PIGS IN A BUTTERMILK BLANKET

INGREDIENTS

1 16 ounce package jumbo buttermilk biscuit dough
1 cup grated four cheeses
8 turkey franks

PREPARATION

Defrost franks. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate the dough into eight pieces. Elongate each dough piece with a rolling pin dusted with flour (Male chefs, this will not work on you.) or simply roll a frozen turkey frank along the dough if any are remaining.

(You don’t have to use turkey franks instead of beef franks or buttermilk biscuits in this dish. In keeping with this cookbook’s theme of “Cooking with what’s handy,” I used, well, what was handy. Similarly, a 10 ounce package of dough will mean thinner blankets for your pigs.)

Sprinkle grated cheese evenly among the eight dough pieces. Put a frank near one end of a dough piece and wrap the dough around the frank. Put this work of art on cookie sheet with the dough overlap on the bottom. Otherwise, the dough will bake apart and you will have “Pigs in a Buttermilk Boat.”

Bake in oven until biscuits are golden brown or about 10 to 15 minutes. This is a bad time to hibernate; monitor your Pigs in a Buttermilk Blanket to make they don’t burn or cook unevenly. It’s discouraging to have part of a baked dish be burnt on one side and doughy on the other. You might need to rotate the Pigs at least once. Heat escapes each time you open the oven, so in these cases you might need to cook the dish a minute longer.

Remember, vigilance when baking.

TIDBITS

1) This tidbit was eliminated during editing.

2) April 24th is National Pigs in a Blanket Day.

3) This dish is also known somewhere as “Weiner Winks.”

4) The British make Pigs in a Blanket by wrapping up small sausages in bacon.

5) Footballs were originally made from pigs’ bladders. This sounded so gross, people took to calling them pigskins. These early footballs could very well have been the inspiration for air pumps.

6) But footballs made from cows’ bladders would have been huge, while ones coming from chickens would have been tiny. Would Payton Manning have thrown all those touchdowns if he had been tossing chicken bladders downfield?

– 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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Turkey Burgers

Posted on July 15, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Entrée-Basic

TURKEY BURGERS

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey meat
1 onion
1/4 green bell peppers
2 green onion stalks
2 tablespoons garlic salt
1/2 tablespoons cumin
8 potato hamburger buns – top and bottom
1/4 head of lettuce, washed
1 cup of grated four-cheese blend
1 ketchup bottle
water
extra virgin olive oil

SPECIALTY UTENSILS

Sonic obliterator
Four-slice toaster

TOASTING THE BUNS

You really need a four-slice toaster. You simply cannot feed turkey burgers to a hungry horde with a two-hole toaster. Don=t do four bun halves, two whole buns, and rest on your laurels.

(You say you need more immediate motivation? Pretend the members of your brood have become ravenous cannibals ready to sink their razor sharp canines into your haunches unless they get their turkey burgers.) Keep on toasting.

(And DON’T, DON’T, microwave anything while toasting. You’ll trip your circuit breaker and you’ll have to dash outside and flip the circuits. This is one reason against cooking in the nude. The other being that grease splatters.)

PREPARING THE ONION

Remove the skin. It adds nothing to the taste, is papery, and gets stuck between your teeth. (How can you concentrate on your boss’s story about mango harvesting in Tahiti when you have onion skin between your first and second molars annoying the heck out of you? Remove the skin, now.)

Also cut off the root part at the bottom. It’s edible ,I suppose, but hardly tasty. If the onion has a big, green sprout in the middle, it’s because you bought it when Nixon was in office and is no longer edible.

PREPARING THE GREEN BELL PEPPERS

It really helps if you have a prepared green bell pepper left over from last night’s culinary extravaganza, made from the chapter on stuffed green peppers, for example.

If not, cut the top off the green bell pepper and discard, or at least discard the stem. Scoop out the innards of the pepper seeds and those four vertical, soft whitish columns and throw them away.

Chop up the pepper and put it in a pan. Coat the pieces with olive oil. Use extra-virgin olive oil. (That’s the most virgin you can get, unless you went through school studying economics.)

Cook the green bell pepper. This process is called sauteeing.

(See, you’re picking up the vocabulary. Mais oui. C’est magnifique, n’est ce pas? Ho, ho, ho.)

CHOPPING UP THE VEGGIES

You really must get yourself a food processor, big or small, one with two little whirling blades. This little gizmo will make chopping up or mincing the veggies so much faster than cutting them up with a knife. If your knife is blunt, this task takes forever. And a sharp knife is just too tempting for a spouse sulking over your latest big purchase.

Get a food processor. Mince the green onions. Mince the onions. Onions are big. (Don’t let that intimidate you. You’re bigger than they and have opposable thumbs.) Be sure to cut it up into at least four sections before putting it into the processor. Chop up the bell peppers.

SPICING

The above list of spices assumes you like the same amount of spices as I do. So experiment. Once you become adept at cooking, you=ll be able to smell the correct amount of spice to add as you mix.

 PREPARING THE BURGER

Get a big bowl. Put the ingredients you’ve prepared so far. Mix. Mix with your hands until everything is thoroughly mixed. Your hands will get extremely messy.

(Midway through the mixing is, of course, the time someone will knock on your front door to ask you if you want your trees trimmed, even if you don’t have any. In the meantime you have dropped turkey meat all over that hard-to-justify-buying Persian carpet and of course, on the front doorknob. 

This is the time to say, “Excuse me, I’ll just be a moment.” Go back to the kitchen table, pick up the sonic obliterator, and annihilate the would-be tree trimmer. Wipe up and pick up all bits of turkey meat on the way back to the kitchen. Cleanliness is a virtue.)

THE TURKEY-BURGER PATTIES

Make four patties and put them in your pan. The patties should not be much bigger than your spatula or they might fall apart when turned over.

Turn the heat to high to get things going and gradually turn it down to medium or medium high. The higher you set the temperature, the more closely you’ll need to watch the patties and turn them over.

Turkey meat turns white when cooked. The outside turns white  before the inside does. So how do you know when it’s done? It’s perfectly acceptable for a chef, particularly one that’s starting out, to cut a small piece near the edge and look at it and taste it. If the inside of the piece is white, then it is done. Remember, if no one saw you taste the burger, then it didn’t happen.

(By the way, it is a matter between you and your God about what to do if you should drop an entire patty on the floor. Consider the cleanliness of your floor and the likability of your guests in making your decision.)

You must flip the burgers repeatedly with your spatula. If you do not do so, the water will rise to the top of the burger and evaporate, making the burger too dry to eat. Flipping puts the water that has almost escaped on the bottom of the burger again.

 Consider occasionally sprinkling water on top of the patty and pouring a thin layer of water into the pan. This adds moisture to the burger and a moist burger is a yummy burger.

ASSEMBLING THE TURKEY BURGER

Put the bottom bun–it’s flat–on the plate. Put the cooked patty on the bun and the lettuce atop the patty. (There are some heretics who put the lettuce on first, but they are being hunted down without mercy.) Sprinkle the cheese on next. If you are adventurous, pour on some ketchup. Place the top bun–it’s dome shaped–on next.

You are now a culinary hero to your guests.

TIDBITS

1) A Hamburger is someone from Hamburg, Germany. The term a hamburger derives from this city. A Berliner is someone from Berlin. Berliner is also the name of a jelly doughnut. Some people think when President Kennedy said in that famous Cold War speech, Ich bin ein Berliner, he was actually saying, “I am a jelly doughnut.”

2) The first official listing of a hamburger on a menu occurred at Delmonico’s in New York in 1826.

3) Cheeseburger In Paradise is a great song.

4) A turkey is not someone from Turkey. It is a bowling term.

5) The turkey was one of the first animals in North America to be domesticated.

6) Turkeys were called turkeys in the 1500s by English merchants because they thought turkeys came from India and that Turkey owned India. Bozos.

– 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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Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Posted on July 14, 2012 by pauldelancey

Jamaican Entree

JERK CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

4 chicken breasts or about 3 pounds
1 cup green onions
1 white onion
3 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons jerk spice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
6 tablespoons vegetable oil

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into squares 1-inch wide. Dice green onions, onion, and garlic. Put chicken in mixing bowl. Add green onions, white onion, garlic, jerk spice, cinnamon, thyme, and allspice. Coat the chicken squares thoroughly with the spices. Add soy sauce and water. Mix again. (If your hands aren’t completely messy, you haven’t been mixing enough. Oh. Oh.)

Cover mixing bowl and refrigerate for 3 hours. (Three hours? You mean after all this work I can’t eat it for three hours? Dear reader, I feel your culinary pain. Still, this dish is worth waiting for. However, for those who have ravenous, important, career-changing guests arriving in just one hour, next time read the recipes through before attempting them, for goodness sakes.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put chicken into one or two baking dishes. Coat chicken with cooking oil. Bake for about 50 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) Water covers about 71% of the Earth’s surface.

2) Chicken breasts do not.

3) However, there is a rough equivalence of water and chicken breasts on the surface of the Moon.

4) More and more scientists are suspecting water exists below Mars’ surface.

5) They are, however, strangely silent about the possibility of chicken breasts as well.

6) Or even drumsticks.

7) The old line, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” was developed on Earth and according to current knowledge was never even told when astronauts roamed the Moon.

8) But the joke continues to be told on Earth even though NASA’s manned-lunar program is over.

9) Hah!

– 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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Chimole Recipe

Posted on July 8, 2012 by pauldelancey

Belizean Entree

CHIMOLE

INGREDIENTS

1 small pumpkin squash, or nearest orangish squash you can find
1 large white potato
1 medium white onion
1 chayote
4 large, ripe red tomatoes
4 garlic cloves
3 medium whole cloves
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 tablespoons red recado
1 tablespoon black recado
2 vegetable bouillon cubes1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon allspice
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 tablespoon red pepper
6 cups water2 chicken breasts
8 hard-boiled eggs
8 or more flour tortillas

UTENSIL

spice or coffee grinder

PREPARATION

Peel pumpkin, onion, and white potato. Dice squash, potato, onion, chayote, and tomatoes. Mince garlic cloves. (Just in off the internet news. Five people stole 9.5 tons of garlic. They were caught by the Hungarian border police who noticed a strong garlic smell coming from the five cars.)Put whole cloves and black peppercorns in spice grinder. Grind until you get a powdery substance. Crumble red recado, black recado, and bouillon cubes into soup pot. Add salt, allspice, oregano, cumin and red pepper. Pour in water and heat on medium for about 40 minutes or until all veggies are soft.

While the vegetables and spice are cooking, chop up chicken breasts into 1/2-inch cubes. Also, boil eggs for about 12 minutes and let them cool. Add chicken cubes to soup pot.

Ladle soup into bowls. Peel eggs and slice each three times. Put an equal number of egg slices on top of the soup in each bowl. Serve with at least two flour tortillas and one plate per person. The tortillas may be used for dipping or for making burritos from the soup.

TIDBITS

1) January is National Soup Month. What does this mean? I don’t know. Have you ever celebrated National Soup Month? Me neither.

2) Soup is an anagram for opus. Opus means an artistic work such as an opera.

3) Soup is also an anagram for puos. Puos is the plural form of puo.

4) Soup lovers in America eat about ten millions bowls of soup a year.

5) Soup haters consume considerably fewer.

6) Nebraskan bar owners may not sell beer unless they are cooking soup. That and possessing a liquor license.

7) Andy Warhol ate tomato soup every day for lunch for over twenty years. He became a famous pop artist. However, hundreds of millions of people have devoured rivers of tomato soup without achieving the slightest bit of fame. So, who can say?

– 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

Blackened Turkey Dog Recipe – From Cookbook

Posted on July 2, 2012 by pauldelancey

Cajun Entree

BLACKENED TURKEY DOGS

INGREDIENTS

6 turkey hot dogs
6 hot dog buns
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon thyme
No-stick cooking spray

PREPARATION

Preheat skillet to 350 degrees. Completely defrost turkey dogs. Mix paprika, salt, cayenne, poultry spice, cumin, and thyme on large plate. Coat all sides of the turkey dogs with spray.

Place the turkey dogs on plate and roll them until they are coated with spices. Place turkey dogs in skillet and cook for 8 to 12 minutes making a quarter turn every 1 to 2 minutes, or until spices blacken.

Toast buns. (Why do hot dogs and hot-dog buns come in different amounts? Why has no president done anything about it?) Put turkey dogs in buns. If you like Cajun cooking, you should need no condiments, such as ketchup. But as the French say, “Chaque à son gout.”

TIDBITS

1) I have never seen blackened hot dogs anywhere. This dish is a product of my feverish imagination. It’s good, though.

2) In 1755 and 1758, the British exiled French Canadians from Acadia. Many moved to Louisiana where they became known as Cajuns.

3) Cajun food is spicy. Canadian food is not. Nor is Eskimo cuisine. Eskimos do not have hot sauce.

4) I mostly grew up in Arcadia, California.

5) Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana. French Guiana is in South America. Why is this land not independent? Do the people love French cooking?

6) Cayenne is mostly grown in Mexico, Asia, Africa, New Mexico, and Louisiana. But apparently not much in a land that has a capital named Cayenne.

7) National Hot Dog Day is July 18.

8) Babe Ruth is believed to have consumed twelve hot dogs and drank eight sodas between games of a double header.

9) Americans eat about 150 million hot dogs on the Fourth of July.

10) Humphrey Bogart was a big fan of hot dogs. Coincidentally, he won an Oscar for his performance in The African Queen.

11) Mustard is the favorite hot-dog topping among adult Americans. Kids, however, prefer ketchup.

12) Maybe this recipe will change that.

– 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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Greek Dolmathes

Posted on July 1, 2012 by pauldelancey

Greek Entree

DOLMATHES
(stuffed grape leaves)

INGREDIENTSDolmath-

100 grape leaves
4 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 medium onions
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey
3/4 cups uncooked rice
1 teaspoon parsley
1/2 tablespoon Prudhomme’s Poultry MagicTM spice
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon Mediterranean rice seasoning
1 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

SPECIAL HELP

Your kids, relatives, neighbors, and anyone else who comes within your gravitational field.

PREPARATION

Pick 100 grape leaves. Remove stems. This is a great task for the kids. If you don’t have grapes growing on the side of the hill in your front yard, they can be found at the Greek section of your supermarket.

Dice onion. Saute onion in butter until tender and golden. Pour mix into big bowl. Let it cool for at least five minutes. Your fingers will thank you. Add turkey, rice, parsley, poultry spice, coriander, pepper, rice seasoning, water, tomato sauce, and lemon juice. Whew. Mix thoroughly.

(Memorize the following phrases to sound like a great chef: heat over to 350 degrees, cook to golden brown, use a big pot, mix thoroughly, and stir occasionally.)

Put all the grape leaves in a big pot. (See? Sounds culinary, doesn’t it?) Cover the leaves with water. Cook on medium-high heat until all the leaves turn from a bright green to an olive green. This is called blanching.

Pour out all the water. (Try pouring it on that pan you used to fry eggs. That hot water will loosen the egg bits from the pan right quick.)

Put the leaves on a big plate. Take a leaf and put it on a board, or another plate, with the smooth, shiny side face down. Put about a teaspoon of your meat/rice/spice mix in the middle of the leaf. Fold the bottom of the leaf until it just covers the mix. Fold both sides in so they completely cover the mix. Roll up the leaf like a burrito or spring roll, making sure to keep the sides folded in. This step takes the longest.

Put a few leaves on the bottom of the pot. Put the first rolled up leaves, dolmathes, up against the sides of the pot. Put the next leaves against those leaves and so on. You need the dolmathes jammed together so they don’t unravel. Add layers as necessary.

Add water to pot until all dolmathes are covered. Place a lid that is slightly smaller than the pot on top of the dolmathes to further keep them from unraveling. Cook on low heat for 45 minutes.

You can speed up the process by cooking the rice while mixing the meat and spices together. In this case, reduce the cooking of the dolmathes to 30 minutes.

Don’t throw away the liquid that remains in the pot after you serve the dolmathes. It makes an excellent broth.

TIDBITS

1) Dolmathe is a great ScrabbleTM word.

2) I first made this dish years ago for my wife’s birthday. We are still married.

3) My family and I first ate dolmathes at a wonderful Greek restaurant in Portland, Oregon.

4) I went to graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin. The two Greek restaurants nearest to the school were across the street from each other.

5) The three stages of mathematics are: 1) numbers, 2) lower-case English letters, and 3) Greek letters. If there is a fourth stage, I don’t want to know it. My head would explode.

6) Socrates almost died in battle. If he had, all Western philosophical thought would have been completely altered. Cliff Notes would have put out one fewer booklet.

– 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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