Posts Tagged With: ketchup

Blackened Turkey Dogs

Cajun Entree

BLACKENED TURKEY DOGS

INGREDIENTS

6 turkey hot dogs
6 hot dog buns
½ teaspoon paprika
⅛ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon thyme
No-stick cooking spray

PREPARATION

Preheat skillet to 350 degrees. 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 deliberately 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 once consumed twelve hot dogs and drunk eight sodas between games of a doubleheader.

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, 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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Japanese Rice Omelette

Japanese Entree

RICE OMELETTE
(Omurice)

INGREDIENTS – FRIED RICE

3 ounces boneless chicken
1 small onion
1½ tablespoons butter (1½ tablespoons more later)
1½ cups cooked rice (warm)
¼ cup ketchup
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – OMELETTE

4 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1½ tablespoons butter
1 ketchup bottle for squirting

SPECIAL UTENSILS

no-stick pan
paper towels

Serves 2. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – FRIED RICE

Slice chicken into ½” cubes. Mince onion. Add 1½ tablespoons butter and onion to regular pan. Sauté onion at medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Add chicken. Sauté for 2 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Add rice, ketchup, pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 2 minutes or until rice is hot and coated with ketchup. Remove and cover to keep warm.

PREPARATION – OMELETTE

Add eggs and milk to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk. Add 1½ tablespoons butter to no-stick pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add ½ of the blended eggs. Tilt pan so that egg mixture covers the surface. Cook egg mixture using medium heat for 1 minute or until egg starts to set on the bottom, but is still runny on top. Sprinkle ½ of the fried rice onto the setting egg mixture, leaving 2″ of egg uncovered on the left and right sides. Use spatula to fold uncovered sides over the rice as far as they can go.

Tilt pan to the right so that the right side of the omelette gets curved slightly by the pan. Then tilt the pan to the left for the same result. Put serving plate on top of pan. While holding plate, turn pan upside down so that the egg side of the omelette is on the top. Cover with paper towel to remove oil and to gently shape omelette into the shape of an American football. Remove towel and artistically drizzle omelette with ketchup. Repeat for the second omelette.

TIDBITS

1) The above picture of Omurice looks a lot like a triangular sail. This is no accident. Look at the Viking ship shown in the picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

2) Now, add a happy face to the triangular sail.

 

 

 

 

 

3) Let’s put those two pictures together.

 

 

 

 

4) Whoa! The pictures are nearly identical.. The Vikings did get the idea for their sail from the Japanese rice omelette. These pictures prove the Erik the Happy saga is true beyond all questioning.

5) In the Happy saga, Erik and his crew of oarsmen set off from Sweden to raid Northumbria. But, he refused to ask for directions and ended up in Japan. While there, Erik dined on a rice omelette. His synapses fired and he made the sail you see above. Voyaging back to Sweden with a sail was a snap.

6) Erik the Happy told Ragnar Lothbrok how easy sailing can now be, Just two months later, in the summer of 792. Ragnar built a long boat and added a triangular sail. He sailed to Northumbria and sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne. Much bloodshed and looting ensued. The age of the Vikings had begun. 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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What Would You Do For Ketchup?

 

Thank goodness, there are no big, open fields near me. This blog was inspired by the great Anna Rose.

 

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.

Categories: What would you do | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

My Favorite Newspaper Headlines

Alas the art of fantastic newspaper headlines is disappearing into the mists of history. At one time, you could count on looking at The National Enquirer(tm) while waiting to check out your groceries. No longer. But I still remember how the following headlines made me chuckle:

6) “Tap the Amazing Healing Power of Ketchup”

(Who needs a pill?)

5) “Woman Steals Three-Headed Baby”

(Two-headed baby abductions are so common they’re no longer news.)

4) “News Reporter Eaten Alive by 80-ft. Dinosaur”

(I have a sneaking admiration for the correct usage of the hyphen between “80” and “ft.”)

3) “Archaeologists  Discover Skeleton of Satan. Find of the Century”

(Discovering that the Prince of Darkness existed and the Goodness reigns unopposed is only the find of the century. Geez, the millennium at least)

2) “Learn Ten New Ways to Talk to the Dead”

(I never knew the ten old ways. I’m so embarrassed.)

1) “L.A. Quake Opens Gates of Hell”

(There goes the neighborhood.)

– 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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Sailor’s Beef (sjömansbiff)

Swedish Entree

SAILOR’S BEEF
(sjömansbiff)

INGREDIENTSSailorsBeef-

1¼ pounds round steak (½” thick or 8 slices)
2 yellow onions
1½ pounds brown potatoes
1½ tablespoons butter (1½ tablespoons more later)
½ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf
1 cup beef broth
12 ounces dark beer
1 teaspoon parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

kitchen mallet
casserole dish

makes 8 bowls

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Pound steak slices until they are ¼” thick. Cut onions into thin slices. Peel and cut potatoes into THICK slices. Add 1½ tablespoons butter and onion slices to large pan. Sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Remove onions and set aside. Add 1½ tablespoons butter and steak slices to large pan. Sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until steak slices brown on both sides.

Add an initial layer of potato slices to casserole dish. Add steak slice. Add a layer of onion slices, then a layer of potato slices. Add some pepper and salt. Repeat steak/onion/potato sequence until all steak slices are used. (Note: there should be an equal amount of potatoes, onion, pepper, and salt above each steak slice. The topmost layer should be potatoes.) Add bay leaf. Pour beef broth and beer over top layer. Sprinkle parsley on top.

Cover and bake in oven at 375 degrees for about 1 hour or until meat is tender.

TIDBITS

1) There’s a museum in Stockholm, Sweden that houses a ship, the Vassa, that sunk in the 1600s. The shp didn’t get very far, sinking in the town’s harbor on its maiden voyage.

2) There is not, however, a muesli museum. I love how muesli museum is so alliterative.

3) But there is a Mooseum in Alabama. It’s Alabama’s only children’s museum to extol the cattle industry. And it’s interactive. Are there more children’s interactive cattle museums?

6) Swedes interact with cattle by eating hamburgers. Ketchup goes well with burgers . Swedes consume more ketchup per capita than any other nation.

7) Ystad, Sweden hosts the Cow Bingo festival. A cow gets led to a 9-by-9 field of squares. You bet on one of the 81 squares. If the cow poops on your square, you win. Watch out Las Vegas!

8) Sweden had a thirty-day February in 1712. Any cow born on February 30, 1712 would never have had another birthday.

9) Cows aren’t the only important critters in Sweden. Heck no! For years, the medieval town of Hurdenburg let a specially selected louse pick its mayor. If the louse crawled into your bread and stayed there, you were the town’s new leader.

10) Town chroniclers are frustatingly mute on how the Hurdenburgers picked the louse that would anoint their mayor. Maybe they had a better political system than our current one.

11) But maybe not. Maybe the louse-selecting system could have been corrupted. After all, any man wishing to be mayor could have stuffed his beard with all sorts of louse delicacies. That certainly given the candidate an advantage over his rivals.

12) Also, the system is inherently unfair to those civic-minded individuals who can’t grow a beard.

13) Today we vote to select our mayors, senators, and president.

14) Voting is not without its faults. It’s long, expensive, and prone to deceiving partisans ads on T.V..

15) The louse, however, cannot be influenced money, no matter how many millions you have.

16) The louse picks the mayor, etc., within minutes, a vast improvement over our apparently never-ending electioneering.

16) But way back when, Sweden’s Queen Christina, had a miniature cannon made, which fired tiny cannonballs at fleas. Resentful at this royal treatment to its insect brethren, lice everywhere immediately forever gave up all political participation.

17) Lice still like to crawl into people’s beards. Old habits die hard.

18) Drinking coffee is a fun habit. Swedes drink more of the caffeinated beverage than any other people.

18) If you ever go to Sweden for its ketchup and coffee, don’t forget to sample the country’s surströmming, fermented herring. The first day for selling this dish is the third Thursday in August. So mark your calendars and start planning that vacation.

– 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

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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Russian Dressing

American Appetizer

RUSSIAN DRESSING

INGREDIENTSRussianDressing-

1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until well blended. May be stored in air-tight jars for up to two weeks. Woo hoo! This is so easy. You’ll lots of time after this to do crossword puzzles or plot worldwide domination, whichever you prefer.

TIDBITS

1) Lake Baikal is in Russia. Its depth reaches from the surface to the bottom and contains around 20% of the world’s unfrozen fresh water. You could make a lot of ice from the water in Lake Baikal. That ice could chill a lot of mugs filled with blessed, soothing root beer.

2) The Russians have always known this. This is why America and Russia faced off for decades in the Cold War. The United States in particular, worried then that the Soviets would restrict the supply of ice cubes. Indeed, Brezhnev in 1968, severely curtailed the export of ice from Lake Baikal.

5) It is no coincidence that riots broke out in one American city after another that year. Crime spiked. Did things suddenly worsen from 1967? No, but without ice from Lake Baikal, Americans could not properly ice their root beers. Problems that people shrugged off easily with the aid of ice-cold root beers, suddenly became insurmountable, maddening even.

8) The United States wasn’t the only country to face disintegration in 1968. Russia invaded Czechoslovakia to put an end to the ice riots that ravaged the country. Millions perished in China’s cultural revolution. We now know Mao launched this horrific plan to hide the even more hideous fact from his countrymen; there weren’t enough ice cubes in the country to cool all the root beer.

9) But President Johnson knew the Russia’s Achilles heel. He threatened to ban exports of root beer to Russia. The root-beerless Soviets backed down and ice flowed, not quite the right verb, to all corners of the world. Tensions between nations diminished considerably and people hugged each other everywhere. The New York Mets even won the World Series next year. And bluebirds sang.

– 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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More Mostly Highway Culinary Mishaps

Molasses spill in ocean off Honolulu, Hawaii. http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/10/us/hawaii-molasses-spill/

In 2006 truck carrying frozen Steak-umms flipped on Eisenhower Blvd. in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Massive Lego Spill closes West Virginia highway,  

Bee spill in Georgia covers road with honey;  closes highway.

Ketchup spill closes freeway in Reno, Nevada.

Soup spill closes freeway ramp in Racine, Wisconsin.

Tomato spill near Campbell’s soup factory causes road to be covered in tomato-slurry.

 

– 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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Zapiekanka, Polish Sandwich

Polish Entree

ZAPIEKANKA

INGREDIENTSZapiekanka-

1 baguette
1/3 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 pound sliced ham or deli-meat of choice
1 cup grated cheese of choice
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mayonnaise
no-stick spray

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut baguette in half and slice each half open. Cut onion and red bell pepper into thin slices. Add onion, bell pepper, turmeric, pepper, and butter to frying pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion is soft.

Add onion/bell pepper mixture, ham to baguette pieces. Top pieces with grated cheese. Spray baking tray with no-stick spray. Put tray in oven. Bake at 325 degrees for 5 minutes or until bread is crispy and cheese is melted. Remove tray from oven. Squirt, or spread, ketchup and mayonnaise over each piece.

TIDBITS

1) In 1857, native Indian soldiers, sepoys, in the British army believed the new gunpowder cartridges were greased with cow fat and pig fat. This grease insulted the religious beliefs of the Hindu and Muslim soldiers who had to bite the cartridges before using them. This mistake in greasing by the British sparked a major native rebellion.

2) The rebellion resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, embittered the Indians toward the British, and greatly widened the rift between Hindus and Muslims. This gulf persisted resulting in the bloody religious riots of 1947 and three wars between India and Pakistan. Today, these two countries have nuclear weapons pointed at each other.

3) If only Britain had greased its cartridges with olive oil. Today, we also have vegetable oil. A fragile peace prevails over the world.

– 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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