Posts Tagged With: French fries

Fun Festivals – Poutine

Looking for something to do after your significant other combusted? Then make your way to the Poutine Festival in Drummondville, Quebec.* Poutine, perhaps Quebec’s most famous dish, consists of French fries, beef gravy, and cheese curds or mozzarella. Listen to wonderful music while tasting caloric culinary greatness. Heart specialists are standing by.

This year’s festivities occurred from September 2 to 4. So, you missed it unless, of course, you have a time machine. If history is anything to go by, next year’s excitement will take place anytime from July to September. Keep checking, because 2021’s event only allowed 1,500 festivalgoers per day.

The highlight of the event is seeing which poutinier food truck will win the coveted Gold Fork for making the festival’s best poutine. See if you agree with the judges by sampling as many poutiniers as you can. It’ll be an experience you’ll long remember.

Reflect for a moment that this festival honors poutine. Ah, poutine. Tasty.

The festival is also called la Festival de la Poutine for those who only speak French.

* = Well, 1 hour 15 minutes from the city.

Again, there will many exciting musical groups to hear. I don’t recognize any of them, but I’m not up on my acts from Quebec. The winner of the 2020 Francouvertes attended this latest festival. What is a Francouverte? I don’t know. My imperfect French tells me it means “Green French Thing” or maybe “Open French.” Google translate(tm) is no help at all. It translates “francouverte” as “francocouverte.” However, winning the Francovertes is probably a good thing.

Go there next year and find out what a francouverte is. Please, let me know. And eat lots of poutine. It’s really, really good.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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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My Favorite Restaurants – In-N- Out

I’ve heard that the three things Southern Californians love to talk about are:

1) Rain

2) In-N-Out

3) Rain

This restaurant/to-go place is that good.

I said before that the best restaurants often are family run where the family members love to make food. Although In-N-Out has become far too big to have all its restaurants staff by family members, it is still family owned.

The workers at In-N-Out are the most dedicated and competent of any fast-food restaurant that I have ever seen. Perhaps it’s because it pays its employees so well. It has been the highest paying burger eatery since 2013. Store managers earn $160,000. The desire to work at an In-N-Out stays so high, that you realistically only have a chance of being hired if you’re recommended by a current employee. But employees stay on longer than other burger joints. You almost have to inherit a position from an employee who leaves.

In-N-Out runs it’s to-go orders better than any other fast-food restaurant. Whenever there’s any line of cars behind the takeout window, In-N-Out sends employees out to individual cars to take orders. So, their to-go line moves fast.

There food is fresh. I know this. I’ve seen the restaurant make its own French fries. In-N-outs have a machine that cuts potatoes into fresh, individual fries. Those fries go immediately into a deep fryer where they are cooked to a wonderful crispness. I believe the chain extends this commitment to freshness to all of their ingredients.

And I haven’t even gotten to the rest of their menu. Their hamburgers are the best in the county and so are their milkshakes.

Their prices are so reasonable. They rival or are below those the national burger chains.

In short, In-N-Out is the best place for burgers. And fries. And shakes

Oh, ask for their “Animal Style” sauce packets. They’re tasty.

I’m hungry.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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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My Favorite Restaurants – Mother’s, New Orleans

New Orleans is chock full of superb dining establishments. However, my favorite one, the one I always go to whenever I have the good fortune to visit the Crescent City is Mother’s Restaurant.

Mother’s claims it serves the “World’s Best Baked Ham.”  I have to agree. However, I am a sucker for dipped, hot sandwiches. I nearly always go for their Ferdi Special.

As you can see from the picture on the right, the place displays a modest decor, while the many photos on the brick are of celebrities who made a point to going to Mother’s.

The omnipresent long line outside to get into the restaurant, shows the enduring popularity of this historic eatery.  Be sure to pick out your dining choices as you make way in the line to the counter; there are lots of people behind waiting to get in.

As I mentioned above, my favorite dish at Mother’s is the Famous Ferdi Special. It’s a po’ boy with ham and roast beef. Be sure to ask for it with “debris.” Debris is the bits of roast beef that fall into the gravy while carving. This po’ boy is so good that ordering any of their other fine dishes feels like having an affair on the Ferdi Special. But what an affair, it would be. I recommend trying the World’s Best Baked Ham Dinner, the Ham Po’ Boy, the Gulf Shrimp Po’ Boy, Red Beans and Rice with ham, and Shrimp Creole.

Google Maps(tm) describes Mother’s Restaurant as “Greasy spoon with Southern comfort food.” And how! I’m getting rather hungry writing this blog. So let me leave after listing their tasty sides: cabbage, turnip greens, red beans & rice, Jake’s green beans with tomatoes, grits, cheese grits, potato salad, and French fries.

I want to go back to Mother’s Restaurant. You should go too.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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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Lomo Saltado

Peruvian Entree

LOMO SALTADO

INGREDIENTS

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

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
wok or large pan.

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

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

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

TIDBITS

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

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Chispi Mayai (French Fry Omelette)

Tanzanian Entree

CHIPSI MAYAI
(French Fry Omelette)

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon fresh coriander*
1 small onion*
3 eggs
⅛ teaspoon pepper*
¼ teaspoon salt*
½ cup vegetable oil (½ tablespoon later)
2 pounds potatoes

SPECIAL UTENSIL

no-stick pan or spray pan or no-stick spray before adding egg mixture.
x-ray vision

* = These ingredients are all optional. You have an unparalleled opportunity to create you own unique chipsi mayai. Go for it. Go for gold.

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Dice coriander and onion. Add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat with whisk or fork until well blended. Add coriander, onion, pepper, and salt. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended.

Cut potatoes into French fries. Add ½ cup vegetable oil to pan. Heat oil at high heat until a tiny piece of French fry in the oil starts to dance. Carefully add French fries. (Hot oil is nasty when it splatters.) Fry French fries for 10 minutes until they start to brown. Stir occasionally. Remove fries. Drain oil from pan. Add fries and ½ tablespoon oil to a second, unused pan.

Ladle coriander/onion/egg mixture evenly over fries. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium heat or until bottom side is golden brown. (X-ray vision is helpful here.) Spray plate with no-stick spray. Then place plate over pan. Hold plate on pan while flipping pan upside down. The half-cooked omelette will now be upside down. Slide omelette back into pan to cook the other side. Cook for another 3 minutes or until this side too is golden brown.

Goes well with kachumbari (an East African salad), ketchup, tomato sauce, or chili sauce.

TIDBITS

1) You wake up at 3 a.m. to whispering in the kitchen. You sit up in bed. As you do so, the bed frame creaks. The little voices fall quiet. Silence, there is silence. You lie down or perhaps lay down; this is a miserable verb to conjugate. Nervous little laughter emanates from the kitchen. Then more whispering. This time it’s a little more rapid. Does it have a nasty tone? Yes, yes, it does.

2) Post traumatic stress from watching all Friday 13th(TM) makes your heart race. You get out of bed, oh so carefully. Don’t make any noise. Tiptoe to the closet. Get that baseball bat. Go the kitchen. Turn on the light.

3) Dozens of russet potatoes shriek. Their eyes are on you. It’s uncanny how they don’t blink. Is it because of an evolutionary dead end or because they’re tough?

4) They’re wearing potato panty house over themselves. Oh my gosh, your potatoes are going bad. You raise the baseball bat.

5) A potato rolls with amazing speed and strikes your shin. Ow. Another spud rolls on top of that. And then another and another until one has shoved itself into your mouth. You can’t breathe. You drop your bat.

6) In your panic, your stagger to the kitchen-utensil drawer. Your hand flails as you grab for anything to fight off your rogue, murderous tubers.

7) As contrived luck would have it, you latch onto a potato peeler.

8) The potatoes gasp in horror, drop off you and roll to a corner. You julienne the whimpering spuds one by one into majestic, harmless French fries.

9) What to do with all those fries? Why, make this entree, Chipsi Mayai.

10) Indeed, culinary historians believe Chipsi Mayai came about, in Tanzania, because of repeated potato uprisings.

11) Indeed, it is for this very reason that it is illegal to have more than two pounds of potatoes in Tanzanian homes.

12) Don’t try to cheat and say you have two pounds of taters when you actually have three. The phrase “The Tanzanian Potato Police” is a byword for terror.

13) Look at the potatoes below. Are they about to go bad? Don’t take chances. Cook them now.

Chef Paul

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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My Favorites for the next round in Soccer’s World Cup

France over Germany. I’m a direct descendant of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. I’m ready if they ever come to their senses and restore me to my rightful throne. On the other hand, they did kill some of my Hugenot ancestors in their religious wars some centuries ago. I bicycled through France while in grad school and had a great time, except for that one French driver who ran me off the road and sent me to the hospital. France has invaded Germany many more than times than vice versa over the centuries. However, Germany has done the last three invading. I took French in school and at my peak, I could go toe to toe with any French eight year old. While I like German food very much, I love French food much more and have so many more French recipes. And my gosh, how could I not root for the country that invented the chocolate eclair?

Brazil over Columbia. Brazil speaks Portuguese. Portuguese names are cool. Is there any name cooler than Vasco di Gama? (Quite possibly spelled correctly.) I liked the variety of Brazilian cuisine over Columbian. Brazil has had brutal dictatorships, while Columbia has been in the thrall of drug cartels. It’s gotten better in both countries. In grad school at Wisconsin, I sometimes worked registering students. One semester the whole process got horribly messed up. Students who registered at the end found no classes open that they liked. Some were nearly in tears, afraid they couldn’t register for any class at all and would have paid tuition for nothing. Fortunately, there was a poster behind me that read, “Why not Portuguese?” Apparently the Portuguese department had openings in their classes for the tired, huddled masses of freshmen yearning for credits so they could graduate in four years.  I hope that helped the beleaguered students.

Belgium over Argentina. While much better now, Argentina once had a brutal dictatorship while Belgium has remained pretty much harmless. Years ago, I bicycled through Belgium without incident. Yay. Who could not love the Argentinian barbecue, but for goodness sake, Belgium gifted humanity with the French fry. And who does not feel warm and fuzzy about the Belgian waffle? Belgium did beat America, boo!, and if the Belgians had invented only the French fry, I’d be saying, “Viva, Argentina!” But the Belgian waffle brought me back to backing Belgium. Close call, though.

Netherlands over Costa Rica. I don’t know anything about Costa Rican cuisine, sorry. However, the Dutch have the most amazing spicy mustard they put on their French fries. And my gosh, the Dutch know how to cook their French fries just right! Their mini pancakes with confectionery sugar is one of the world’s best desserts. You can get great Indonesian food anywhere in the Netherlands. Sure, that’s because the Dutch invaded Indonesia in the 1600s, which was bad. But the Dutch left Indonesia in 1948 taking home a love for Indonesian food, one of the world’s greatest cuisine. I lived in the Netherlands for three years while a teenager and loved it. The people there are very nice. They keep everything clean except for a strange blind spot about dog poop everywhere on the side walks.

– Sports reporter, Paul De Lancey

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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Corned Beef Hash and Hornswoggling

American Breakfast

CORNED BEEF HASH

INGREDIENTSCornedBeefHash-

3 medium brown potatoes
1 pound corned beef
1 onion
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup beef broth or broth from cooking corned beef

PREPARATION

Bake potatoes, keep skins on, at 400 degrees for 40 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Remove potatoes. While potatoes cool, dice corned beef and mince onion. Put onion and butter in large skillet. Sauté onion at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until it softens. Stir frequently.

Cut potatoes into 1/2″ cubes. Add potato, corned beef, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and broth to skillet. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes or until potato turns golden brown. Stir occasionally. Add broth and cook for another 3 minutes. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) Reporters once ridiculed Vice President Dan Quayle for misspelling potato. Thank goodness for him he didn’t need to write the word “heteroskedasticity.” Indeed how many reporters can spell that word? Can you spell “heteroskedasticity?” Okay, without looking at this tidbit? Of course, if you weren’t looking at this, you wouldn’t be challenged to spell “hetero…” Oh never mind.

2) Potatoes are used to make French fries at baseball games. However, corned beef hash is not served at any baseball stadium, not even at the single A level. Caviar-and-filet mignon hash might be served at ball parks located in the ritziest of neighborhoods, but I’ve never heard of it.

3) By the way, the word “hornswoggle,” meaning to “bamboozle,” comes from baseball as this excerpt from the novel The Fur West states,

“I loved baseball, too. Timmy played it and so did many of my other friends, Jeb, Bobby, Pete, and Josh, although I didn’t cotton to a sneaky Irish kid named Sean Hornswoggle. The redhead would hit the ball and run directly to second base if he thought he could get away with it. We soon took to calling any cheating “hornswoggling.”

– 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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Potato Ham Soup

American Soup

POTATO HAM SOUP

INGREDIENTSPotatoHamSoup-

6 Russet potatoes
1 pound ham
1 onion
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream

PREPARATION

Cut potatoes and ham into 1/2″ cubes. Dice onion. Put potato, ham, and onion into large pot. Add just enough water to pot to cover potato, ham, and onion. Add mustard, paprika, pepper, and salt. Cook on high heat until water boils. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to warm. Add butter, milk, and sour cream. Cook for 2 minutes or until soup is heated through. Stir frequently.

TIDBITS

1) Dom DeLuise starred in a movie called Silence of the Hams. It parodied the movie Silence of the Lambs. Silence of the Hams did not do well at the box office. So I’ll discuss potatoes instead..

2) The Inca Indians of Peru were the first known cultivators of potatoes. They harvested the first spud somewhere between 8,000 BC and 5,000 BC. That’s quite a wide range of years. It’s the same thing as saying your federal-income-tax check will be in the mail sometime from now until the year 5014. See how well the folks at the IRS accept that statement.

3) In 1536, the Spanish conquered the Incan Empire for its potatoes and gold. There are thousands of varieties of potato. There is only type of gold. Gold is an element. The potato is not; it is a tuber. Sure there are such things as white gold but that comes from mixing gold from something, well um, whitish. But just think of the dozens of herbs and spices that can be added to potatoes. Moreover, the mighty tuber is truly tasty, gold not so much. Potatoes beat gold by a technical knockout.

4) Many people believe the first real French fries were actually made in Belgium. If Belgium had thought of patenting French fries, it could have ruled the world and become fabulously wealthy. However, it’s doubtful Belgium’s powerful and envious neighbors: Germany, Britain, and France would have let tiny Belgium continue with this monopoly. It’s certain a long and bloody European war would have erupted. Thank good Belgians shared the recipe. The Great Global French Fry Peace broke out, marred only the interruptions of World War I and World War II. Yay, spuds.

– 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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La Mitraillette (Belgian Sandwich)

Belgian Entree

LA MITRAILLETTE

INGREDIENTSLaMitraillette-

1 yellow onion
1 tablespoon butter (2 more tablespoons later)
2 pounds ground beef
5 Yukon gold potatoes or medium potatoes (if you wish to make your own French fries)
1 cup French fries (if you don’t wish to make your own French fries)
2 baguettes
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mayonnaise

PREPARATION OF FRENCH FRIES (or used already made French Fries)

Cut potatoes into strips 1/4″ to 1/2″ wide. Soak potato strips in cold water for 30 minutes. Drain. Pat strips dry. Put oil in deep fryer. Heat oil to 340 degrees. Put potato strips in fryer. Fry strips at 340 degrees for 5-to-10 minutes or until they become crisp and turn golden brown. You will most likely need to cook in batches. Remove fries. Put fries on paper towels to remove grease. If you are using already-made fries, put fries in pan and fry on medium heat for 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Stir occasionally.

PREPARATION OF SANDWICH

Dice onion. Put onion and 1 tablespoon butter in frying pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Stir frequently. Remove onion. Make 8 small beef patties. Fry patties on medium high-heat for 5 minutes or until meat is no longer pink. Flip patties occasionally.

While beef is cooking, cut baguettes in two along their width. Cut open demi-baguettes. Spread 2 tablespoons butter on the inside of the baguette pieces. Toast the baguettes pieces butter side down in frying pan on medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Assemble sandwiches with bottom halves of baguettes, onion, ground beef, French fries, ketchup, mustard, and top halves of baguettes .
TIDBITS

1) “La mitraillette” means “the machine gun” in French. Machine Gun Kelly was a famous gangster. Gene Kelly was a renowned dancer. Gene Krupa was a great band leader from the Big Band Era.

2) E.R.A. stands for Earned Run Average and equals (earned runs/innings pitched) * 9. Yay!

3) You should make sure your ground beef turns brown in this recipe. The ground is beneath your feet. Most people and tyrannosaurus rexes have two feet. And so it goes.

– 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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Beef Chili Cheese Fries

American Entree

BEEF CHILI CHEESE FRIES

INGREDIENTSBeefChiliCF-

1 yellow onion
5 cloves garlic
6 Roma tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
2 cups beef broth
1 pound pre-cooked french fries (This is a great way to get rid of those french fries that come with all those hamburger meals.)
1 pound Four Mexican Cheeses (Yes, a pound)
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 teaspoon parsley

PREPARATION

Mince onion and garlic. Dice tomatoes. Add onion, garlic, and oil to skillet. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until onions soften. Stir frequently. Add beef, cayenne, chili powder, cumin, and oregano. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes or until beef is no longer pink. Stir occasionally.

Add Roma tomato, dice tomato, beef broth, French fries, cheese, and sour cream to skillet. Cook on medium-high heat to 10 minutes. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Garnish with parsley and serve.

TIDBITS

1) The first known French fries were made in Belgium around 1680. Yay, Belgium. These first fries were a substitute for fried fish. Who knew?

2) Thomas Jefferson served French fries in the White House during his Presidency of 1801-1809. Oh, he also penned the Declaration of Independence and was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The many Louisianans who eat French fries of the Fourth of July are grateful.

3) The Rolling Stones sang about French fries in their 1964 song “Under the Boardwalk.” The Rolling Stones are British. Britain went to war with Germany in 1914 to preserve Belgian neutrality and Belgian French fries. Harsh words were said by all and the conflict went global. We are still living with the culinary consequences of the War To End All Wars.

– 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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