Posts Tagged With: hamburger

Peruvian Hamburger

Posted on March 13, 2023 by pauldelancey

Peruvian Entree

PERUVIAN HAMBURGER

INGREDIENTS – AJI AMARILLO SAUCE

1 tablespoon butter
2 stalks green onion
1 tablespoon aji amarillo pepper
1 tablespoon peanut oil (1 tablespoon more in PATTY)
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon lime juice
¼ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice

INGREDIENTS – PATTY

3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons yellow onion
1 aji panca pepper
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons parsley flakes
1½ pounds ground beef

6 lettuce leaves
6 hamburger buns

PREPARATION OF AJI AMARILLO SAUCE

Dice green onion. Melt butter in medium saucepan. Add green onion, aji amarillo pepper, and peanut oil. Sauté at medium-high heat for about 2 minutes or until all ingredients are well blended. Stir constantly.

Put above sautéed mixture in mixing bowl. Add mayonnaise, sour cream, ketchup, lime juice, sea salt, black pepper, and meat spice. Whisk together.

PREPARATION OF PATTY

Mince garlic cloves, yellow onion, and aji panca pepper. (Keep your aji panca pepper in TupperwareTM. Moths love aji peppers. Who knew they were such gourmands?) Melt butter in pan. Add garlic, yellow onion, aji panca pepper, and peanut oil. Sauté at medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes or until yellow onion softens. Stir constantly.

Combine above sautéed aji-panca-pepper mixture in mixing bowl with ground beef, and parsley flakes. Makes 6 patties.

Fry the patties until no pink color remains. Toast 6 buns. Coat the buns with the aji amarillo sauce. Add a lettuce leaf and patty and assemble the hamburger.

This is great. It is also spicy. Beverages such as milk go well with spicy foods. The milk coats the pain receptors in your mouth.

(This is important information if, for example, you’re in a restaurant in St. Louis with friends of yours from the Department of Economics from the University of Wisconsin and you’re dared to eat a truly spicy pepper.)

TIDBITS

1) Peru has a hamburger chain called Bembos.

2) If I ever get to Peru, I’m going to eat there. After that, I’m going to visit the ancient Incan ruins at Machu Picchu. Did you know there’s a McDonald’s there?

3) Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors conquered the Incans of Peru in the 1520s.

4) Ancient Peru gave Europe and America the potato. Western Civilization gave Peru the hamburger.

5) Together these two great foods make up that wondrous meal burger and fries.

6) Without Peru and the Incans we could never say, “Would you like fries with that?”

7) So in a way, the Spanish arrival in Peru was a good thing.

8) At least on a culinary level.

 

– 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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Mozzarella Hamburger

Posted on February 22, 2023 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

MOZZARELLA HAMBURGER

INGREDIENTS

SAUTE
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
¼ teaspoon sea salt

BURGER MIX
1½ pounds ground beef
2 eggs
1½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ tablespoon basil
½ teaspoon oregano
no-stick cooking spray

8 hamburger buns or 16 slices of bread
8 slices of mozzarella
8 leaves of lettuce

PREPARATION

Dice garlic cloves and onion. Melt butter in frying pan. Add olive and peanut oils. Put thyme, black pepper, meat sauce, and sea salt in pan. Sauté these ingredients on medium heat for about 5 to 10 minutes or until onion is soft. Set aside.

(You can dice garlic, but there are no garlic dice.)

Combine ground beef, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, basil, and oregano in mixing bowl. Add sautéed ingredients. Mix again.

Form 8 patties. Put them in frying pan coated with no-stick spray. Fry patties on medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, flipping them over with care and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more. Put mozzarella slices on top of each patty. Fry for 1 more minute. Heat patties more if they are not yet cooked to your satisfaction.

Toast 8 buns. Assemble buns, patties, and lettuce.

TIDBITS

1) Marco Polo traveled in China from 1275 to 1292. He brought back pasta to Italy, which was eagerly eaten by the peasantry but not by the nobility. (Goodness! That last sentence wasn’t clear, was it? I meant to convey the peasants ate pasta. They did not eat Italy.)

2) Marco Polo did not bring back hamburgers as the Great Khan of China was apparently too busy trying to subjugate the world to develop this wondrous culinary treat.

3) Cosimo de’ Medici gained power in Florence. His great financial and political skills brought prosperity to Florence, but, alas, no hamburgers.

4) Lorenzo de’ Medici took sole power in Florence. His rule brought Florence to its height of prestige. The arts flourished. Michelangelo produced magnificent works of art. No one produced a hamburger.

5) Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492. Did the original Americans possess the knowledge of the hamburger? (See Tidbit 7.)

6) In 1494, Naples, angered by Florentine politics, called in the French king Charles VIII to fight Piero de’ Medici and the Florentines. Hundreds of thousands of Italians presumably hoped Charles VIII would bring the hamburger to Italy.

7) The French, already showing antipathy to American cooking, discovered only two years before, not only refused to bring the hamburger to Italy, but suppressed all knowledge of it coming from the New World.

8) In 1495, Milan, Venice, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, and Aragon seething over the suppression of the hamburger formed an alliance to drive the French out of Italy.

9) From 1495 to 1866, various Italian states and the Spanish, French, and Austrians waged nearly constant war up and down the Italian peninsula. This naturally delayed the development of the Italian hamburger. In fact, this blessed culinary treat would occur in the relatively tranquil America of 1826.

 

– 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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Smoked Burgers

Posted on February 21, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Entree

SMOKED BURGERS

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds ground beef
2 teaspoons seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, etc.)
4 hamburger buns
optional toppings (cheese, lettuce, sliced onions, ketchup, etc.)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

smoker
electric thermometer
wood chips (hickory or mesquite)

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes for rare to 2 hours for well done. This time includes preheating the smoker. Times vary with smokers.

PREPARATION

Preheat smoker to 230 degrees. Add wood chips to smoker. While smoker heats, add ground beef and seasonings to mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Form beef into 4 patties. Patties should be about 1″ thick. Make an small indentation in middle of patties. (This helps keep the juices in the patties.)

Place burgers directly on smoker racks. Cook until internal temperature of burgers reaches your desired level of doneness. (Rare = 120 degrees, medium = 140 degrees, well done = 160 degrees.) There is so need to flip patties. Toast buns. Assemble bottom buns, smoked patties, toppings, and top buns.

TIDBITS

1) There are many ways to determine direction. The most obvious one is the compass. It however, don’t work well if you’re near one of the Earth’s magnetic poles. They also become completely useless when you forget to bring one. Then you and your friend, Bart, find yourself completely lost at the northern magnetic pole. Bart finally realizes he had a compass with him all the time. But now his compass doesn’t work because, well you’re at a magnetic pole.

2) Bart pipes up, “Say, moss grows on the north side of trees. That’s how we’ll find our direction.” Not quite, moss mostly grows on the north side. And there are no trees at the North Magnetic Pole. You resolve there and then to never again hike the Everglades with Bart.

3) If only you had had lettuce, onion, tomato, and a smoked hamburger patty. The veggies will always point to the southwest and the patty to the northeast. Now you know.

 

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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Son of a Bun Cheeseburger

Posted on July 29, 2017 by pauldelancey

American Entree

SON OF A BUN CHEESEBURGER

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

½ cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons ketchup
1½ tablespoons yellow mustard
4 teaspoons sweet pickle relish
2¼ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
¾ teaspoon white wine vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar

INGREDIENTS – REST

1 onion
1 tomato
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1¼ pounds ground beef (80% is best)
8 slices American cheese
8 hamburger buns
1 cup shredded iceberg lettuce

Makes 8 cheeseburgers. Takes 1 hour.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
outdoor grill

PREPARATION- SAUCE

Add all sauce ingredients to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Chill in refrigerator until ready.

PREPARATION – REST

Dice onion. Use mandoline or knife to cut tomato into slices ¼” thick. Add onion and oil to pan. Sauté onion at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Remove from heat. Divide beef into 8 balls. Press down on balls until they become patties ¼” thick.

Grill patties at medium heat for 7 minutes. Flip patties over. Grill for 4 minutes. Top each patty with 1 slice American cheese. Grill for 2 minutes more. Remove patties from heat. Divide special sauce equally among all 16 bun halves. Spread sauce evenly over bun haves. Add cheese-covered patties to bun bottoms. Top patties with sautéd onions. Sprinkle iceberg lettuce evenly over onions. Place 1 tomato slice over each cheeseburger. Place top bun on each cheeseburger.

TIDBITS

1) I had some difficulty naming this dish. So I had a contest where my FacebookTM friends got to name this burger.

2) Mike Allsopp, a retired policeman from Florida, came up with the winning entry. Thanks Mike!

3) So Mike has helped his community by arresting bad guys and in general by keeping the peace.

4) Mr. Allsopp also won a BoeingTM 747 for his clever suggestion.

5) Though there are doubts that he ever received his prize.

6) For although I know the name of the city where he lives, I don’t know his specific address.

7) And pilots for commercial jets really want to know that sort of thing.

8) Moreover, Mike has a short driveway.

9) How short? Oh I don’t know, maybe 30 feet long.

10) How long a runway does a 747 require to land?

11) The answer seems to be about 10,000 feet.

12) So most likely. the jet landing at Mike’s house would hurtle past the 30 foot driveway and into his garage where it’d completely demolish a Honda FitTm as if it weren’t even there.

13) Which might not be the case. Mike might have a HummerTM limo for partying around town.

14) Sad to say, though, the Hummer limo wouldn’t stand up the rampaging 747 either.

15) Most likely the 747 wouldn’t halt stop until it tore down several fences and pancaked house after house after house.

16) The plane, would also certainly destroy any garden gnomes in the neighborhood. So some would come out of it.

17) But upon sober reflection, I would have to say, all in all, Mike’s neighbors would be rather peeved at him. Miffed even.

18) Especially those neighbors whose garden gnomes got crushed.

19) And I’m entertaining doubts that the pilots’ union would even countenance such a difficult landing. So, it’s quite possible the plane meant for Mike never even took off. ☹

20) So Mike if you’re ever in my neighborhood, come on over and I’ll grill you some Son of a Bun Cheeseburgers.

– 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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Cuban Hamburger (Frita Cubana)

Posted on April 16, 2017 by pauldelancey

Cuban Entree

CUBAN HAMBURGER
(Frita Cubana)

INGREDIENTS

4 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
¾ teaspoon cumin
½ tablespoon Spanish paprika or paprika
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons ketchup
¼ chorizo (no casings)
1 pound ground beef
¾ pound ground pork
½ cup bread crumbs
2 tablespoons olive oil
1½ pounds shoestring potatoes (And cooking oil as well if deep frying or pan frying.)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
12 hamburger rolls

Serves 8. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves and onion. Add garlic, onion, and olive to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and garlic soften. Add sautéed onions and garlic, cumin, paprika, pepper, salt, ketchup, chorizo, ground beef, ground pork, and bread crumbs. Mix with hands until well blend. Shape meat mix into 12 patties.

Cook shoestring potatoes according to directions on package. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan and as many meat patties that will fit. Cover. Sauté meat patties at medium-high heat for 5 minutes on each side or until meat is cooked to your desired level of doneness. You might need to cook the patties in batches. Top patties with Worcestershire sauce. Warm or lightly toast buns. Add patties to bun bottoms. Top patties with shoestring potatoes. Place bun tops on shoestring potatoes.

TIDBITS

1) The most common geometric shapes drawn by the cavemen was the triangle. So, it’s no surprise cavemen engineers chiseled stone into triangular wheels. This shape proved to be quite useless for transportation. The PorscheTM line of high performance cars would have to wait. But then the Cubanhamburgerpithicus tribe invented the Cuban hamburger. Little prehistoric diners thrilled hunter-gatherers with this avant-garde culinary creation. Soon, an engineer, Ogg Edsel Yugo, had himself a Cuban hamburger. It was tasty. It was round. It inspired him to make a wheel, to make a car. Edsel Yugo’s car flopped. Humanity would wait several millennia for Porsches. Bummer.

– 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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Air Koryo Hamburger (World’s Worst Hamburger)

Posted on August 29, 2016 by pauldelancey

North Korean Entree

AIR KORYO-TM HAMBURGER
(World’s worst burger)

INGREDIENTSAirKoryoBurger-

1 pound ground whitish mystery meat that’s been lurking in the fridge for months OR mixed ground pork and turkey
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 teaspoons yellow mustard
4 leaves wilted lettuce
4 thin bits wilted onion
4 thick yellow buns

Makes 4 burgers. Takes 15 minutes and 30-to-60 minutes to cool down completely.

PREPARATION

Add ground mystery meat, salt, and sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Make four patties. Add patties to pan. Cook patties on low-to-medium heat for 2-to-4 minutes on each side or until no pink remains and the outside is still white. Do not brown in any way.

Remove patties from pan. While patties lose all warmth, 30 minutes should do it, spread mustard on each bun half. Do not under any circumstance toast or heat buns. Add onion slice, or fragment, to each bun bottom. Add patty to each bun top. Then put wilted lettuce leaf* on top on each patty. Ideally, the lettuce leaf should totally obscure the meat patty. Assemble burger.

To make it tasty, cook as above except: use beef, half the amount of salt, omit the sugar, use fresh lettuce and onion, use ketchup, and toast buns. Serve hot.

* = Don’t worry if you find only fresh lettuce at your supermarket. Simply put lettuce on patty while it’s being fried on its second side. Let lettuce cool down along with patty. Voilà, wilted lettuce.

TIDBITS

1) Air Koryo has been rated the world’s worst airline in the world for the last five years. Amazingly, there are people who are so eager to fly it that destinations don’t even matter. Flying Air Koryo is like stepping into a time warp. The airline uses propeller planes that haven’t seen service anywhere else for decades. Particularly valued seats are next to the noisy engines or where the plane shakes the most. Some people return year after year to fly Air Koryo’s unique aircraft. Enthusiasts, you bet.

2) Air Koryo’s “burger” comes with a paper bag having the ominous words, “For your refuses.”

3) North Korea clearly is a threat to the world. Almost as much as lutefisk vendors.

– 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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Moravian Christmas Cookies

Posted on March 31, 2016 by pauldelancey

Czech Dessert

MORAVIAN CHRISTMAS COOKIES

INGREDIENTSMoravianCookies-

1 teaspoon baking soda
1½ tablespoons warm water
1 cup brown sugar
1¼ cups molasses
½ cup shortening or lard
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon nutmeg

2 tablespoons flour
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

cookie cutter
4 or so cookie sheets (You might have to bake in batches.)

Makes 36 cookies. Takes 2 hours 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add baking soda and warm water to pot. Stir with fork until baking soda dissolves. Add brown sugar, molasses, and shortening. Cook at low-medium heat until all is melted. Stir frequently. Remove from heat..

Add baking soda/brown sugar/molasses mixture to large mixing bowl. Add 1 cup of flour. Knead by hand. Repeat until all 4 cups of flour have been added. Add cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger, mace, and nutmeg. Knead once until dough is stiff and smooth. Cover and place in cool spot for 1½ hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use up to 2 tablespoons flour to dust flat surface. Roll dough out until it is ⅛” thick. Cut dough with cookie cutter or with knife. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 5-to-10 minutes or until cookies harden around the edges or a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) Molasses flows slowly. Hence the saying, “As slow as molasses.”

2) Slowness is relative of course. Plate tectonics, the shifting of the Earth’s plates, is even slower than molasses. Much slower. Yet no one ever says, “As slow as plate tectonics.”

3) Even so, plate tectonics is much faster than the lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

4) This title usually gets shortened to DMV. The department even has a long name.

5) Many people assume that the glacial pace at the DMV is a result of ever increasing swarms of people wanting to get driving permits, driver’s licenses, and to change their names.

6) Name changing arises when recently married women take their husband’s last name.

7) People who have committed murders often change their last name to avoid detection by the police.

8) Black widows, women who marry men and murder them shortly afterward for their money, are especially avid name changers.

9) Law enforcement knows this. Which is why the DMV includes in the section under name changes the following question, “Do you marry and murder for money?”

10) This tactic worked for a while. Then would be money murderers realized they could avoid detection by simply answering, “No.”

11) So these black widows and other killers compound their crime of murder with the one of lying.

12) Soon they feel nothing about jaywalking or looking up the answers at the back of a book of crossword puzzles.

13) The downward moral spiral continues. Pretty soon the tortured soul looks at the hamburger on his plate, his second one when another guest hasn’t even had her first. He wonders how such an off-the-cuff action as murder could have such an impact on his life.

14) This is a critical moment in the murderer’s life. Confess, oh my goodness, confess. Confess and break the downward ethical spiral. Confess that you took that second hamburger. Offer it back to that hamburgerless sweetheart looking down at her empty plate.

15) Your act of self abnegation will bring a smile to her face. The fact of getting of a yummy burger will swamp her body with joy-filling endorphins. She’ll regard you as a knight in shining armor.

16) Soon the two of you will be chatting up a storm and before you know it, you are engaged to be married.

17) Now is the time when you must hold firm. Do not kill her for her money. This is your soul mate. Murder someone else. Do the murder with you new spouse. The couple that slays together, stays together.

– 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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Tuna Melt

Posted on June 11, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

TUNA MELT

INGREDIENTSTunaMelt-

2 5-ounce cans albacore tuna
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup diced celery
2, tablespoons minced yellow, brown, or red onon
1 teaspoon dill weed
1/8,teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese
1 medium, ripe avocado (optional)
2 hamburger buns on 4 bread slices

PREPARATION

Drain water from tuna cans. Preheat broiler to 375 degrees. Toast bread for 2 minutes. While bread toasts, become a whirlwind and add tuna, mayonnaise, celery, onion, dill weed, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk.

Top the bread slices equally with tuna/mayonnaise mix. Put slices in broiler and broil at 375 for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove tuna/mayonnaise/bread slices from broiler and top equally with shredded cheese. Return slices to broiler and broil at 375 degrees for about 2 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven. Carefully combine two slices together. (You might wish to use a spatula.)

TIDBITS

1) “December 7, 1941–a date which will live in infamy…” – President Roosevelt on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

2) “December 23, 1941, a date which will live in culinary glory…” – me, today. For this is the date of the first recorded sighting of the word, “cheeseburger.” This wondrous event happened at a small restaurant in Burbank, California.

3) The first six months of the war in the Pacific went poorly for America. Some culinary historians speculate that the invention of the cheeseburger was the only thing that prevented defeatism spreading throughout America.

4) Moreover, the humble cheeseburger provided American soldiers, marines, and sailors the energy to keep up the good fight when their Japanese counterparts flagged from a want of calories. Now, Japan and America are friends, because we both eat cheeseburgers. May I suggest a Japanese cheeseburger with wasabi ketchup?

– 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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Key-Lime Pie

Posted on December 25, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

KEY LIME PIE

INGREDIENTSKeyLimePie-

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup key lime juice
4 egg yolks
1 8″ graham-cracker crust.
1 can whipped cream

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric blender

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Add condensed milk, key lime juice, and egg yolks to mixing bowl. Blend with electric blender set to “whip” or “cream” until well blended. Pour mixture into graham-cracker crust. Bake pie in oven at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the pie’s center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours.  Note, key lime pies made with real key lime juice are not green. Add whipped cream if desired. Or even lots and lots of whipped cream.

TIDBITS

1) Contrary to what I would have wished the Key Lime did not come from Key West nor even Key Largo. I researched this by going to Key West and by watching the 1948 movie, Key Largo. Key Largo starred Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Edward G. Robinson. None of these actors ate even a single Key Lime during the entire movie. After the movie? No one knows.

2) Key Limes were first grown in Southern Asia. Historians will tell you that Key Limes made their way to Spain, presumably by hitchhiking as these fruits don’t have legs. Actually, I doubt the whole hitchhiking theory as Key Limes do not have thumbs. You can tell they don’t just by looking at the tiny yellowish-green thingies.

3) Ship crews liked the take Key Limes as the fruit was high in vitamin C and prevented scurvy. Christopher Columbus took Key Limes on his voyages of discovery to the Americas. Indeed, culinary historians praise Spain for the bringing health-enhancing Key Lime to the New World.

4) Do other historians laud the European discoverers? Not so much, pointing to endless wars of conquest by the Spanish conquistadors, Old World diseases that decimated indigenous populations, and wholesale enslavement of the local tribes. Indeed, Europe didn’t balance things with the natives until they brought the hamburger to America in the 19th century. Kinda like a do-over.

– 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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Chivito, Uruguayan Sandwich

Posted on December 17, 2013 by pauldelancey

Uruguayan Entree

CHIVITO

INGREDIENTSChivito-

2 5 ounce steaks (London-broil, rib-eye)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 slices bacon
1 onion
4 hard rolls (Portuguese, Kaiser, Italian)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
4 or 8 eggs
4 slices ham
4 slices Provolone cheese
4 leaves lettuce
1 tomato

PREPARATION

Fry bacon on medium-high heat until crispy. Remove bacon. Slice onion into thin rings. Sauté onion slices in bacon fat on medium-high heat for 4 minutes or until onion is tender. Remove onion slices and put on plate with towel to remove grease.

While onion is sautéing, trim steak and ham slices until they fit the size of the hard roll. Sprinkle each steak pieces with pepper and salt. Put the steak in pan. Sauté steak in bacon grease on medium heat for 2 minutes on each side or until it reaches your desired level of doneness. Remove steak. Add ham pieces to pan. Sauté ham in bacon grease on medium heat for 2 minutes on each side.

Toast top and bottom halves of hard rolls. While rolls are toasting, slice tomato. Fry eggs in bacon grease at medium heat for 5 minutes or until they reach your desired level of doneness. Spread mayonnaise on both halves of each rolls. On the bottom halves, place a half slice of steak, then a ham slice, Provolone slice, fried egg, bacon slice, lettuce slice, tomato slices, and onion slice, and finally the top halves of the rolls.

Because of the fried eggs, this chivito recipe is “a caballo,” or “on the horse.” Serve with a lot of napkins.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe really should be made with Portuguese rolls. First, that is the roll they use in Uruguay. Second, this roll can really handle the juices of the wonderful meats inside better than say, an overmatched hamburger roll which would explode in seconds.

2) Portugal claimed Brazil in 1494. The Americas have been safe for juicy sandwiches ever since.

3) This is a huge sandwich. It combines a BLT with a Philly cheese steak and a ham sandwich.

4) Dagwood Bumstead of the comic strip, “Blondie,” ate gigantic sandwiches. Some of them appeared to be two or three feet high. The comic strip first appeared in 1930 and has been translated into 35 languages. Dagwood and his wife, Blondie, starred in movies from 1938 to 1950. Here is a movie clip showing the ever-late Dagwood rushing off to work.

5) Oh crudness, unless you got the e-book version or are reading this as a blog, pushing “movie clip” with your finger will be an exercise in frustration. Wouldn’t it be way cool if I knew how to make one of those little squares with the little black squares? You know the one where you scan it with your hand-held device and a website about the product pops up?

6) If I were savvy enough to do this, I could rule the world.

7) Here are a few things that would happen if I ruled Earth:

A) People would no longer be able to block aisles with their shopping carts.

B) Since the NSA knows everything about us, it will fill out our tax forms.

C) Bacon for everyone. Chocolate for everybody.

D) Bluegrass and Dixieland bands will perform continually at all airport security lines.

E) People will be given time machines so that they will not have to do laundry. Simply go back in time to a moment where your clothes are clean.

F) Car keys will come with a homing beacon so you will always be able to find them.

G) People must give their order at the fast-food counter within ten seconds of getting there. If they have more than fifteen minutes to decide what to get and still need to look at the menu when it comes their time to order, they will go to jail for a week.

H) People will be given clickers for pointless red lights at intersections. If you are waiting for a red light to change when there are absolutely no other cars around for a hundred yards, simply click the clicker and the light will change to green.

I) Ice-cube makers on refrigerators will always work. Always.

J) Bus drivers who pull away while you are banging on the door will spontaneously combust.

K) Airlines will give you a partial rebate when they land more than fifteen minutes late.

– 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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