Posts Tagged With: Lutherans

Stovetop Popcorn

Posted on July 8, 2021 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

STOVETOP POPCORN

 

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons coconut, avocado, olive, peanut, or vegetable oil
½ cup popcorn kernels

1 tablespoon melted butter or to taste
½ teaspoon salt or to taste

Serves 4 Takes 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add oil to pot. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Put 3 kernels in pot. Cover with lid. Wait until you hear them all pop. Add popcorn kernels as evenly as you can. Cover pot. Remove pan from heat for 30 seconds. This brings all the kernels to the same temperature so that they will pop at about the same time.

Return pot to stove. Shake the pot gently once popping begins to ensure even heating. Remove pot from heat when the interval between popping reaches 3 seconds. Remove from heat. Wait for 15 seconds. (This prevents kernels popping up to your face.) Remove lid and pour popcorn into large serving bowl. Sprinkle popcorn with salt. Drizzle popcorn evenly with melted butter. Gently stir popcorn to ensure butter on all kernels.

TIDBITS

1) Mr. La Fong lived in Paducah, Kentucky in the early 20th century. He sold socks and loved stovetop popcorn. One Saturday he forgot to put the lid atop the pan with the popcorn. The absent minded Carl became the first human to really watch corn kernels pop. To his amazement nearly all of the popping occurred within a few seconds. During that flurry of activity, little kernels burst open to become much bigger popcorn. The thin layer of kernels on the pan erupted into a mountain of popcorn. Then popcorn flew out of the pan of the pan, rocketing to all corners of the kitchen.

2) Now, of course, La Fong possessed the rudimentary knowledge of Einstein’s equations necessary to any successful 20th century Kentuckian sock merchant. “Whoa ho,” said the worthy sock seller, “the universe itself must have started the very same way as this popcorn.” He wrote feverishly through the night to put down his The Big Popcorn Popping Theory of the Universe. He went to bed, exhausted yet proud. Unfortunately, his dog, Rex, ate his manuscript during the night. Later scientists would receive acclaim with the only slightly different Big Bang Theory. However, the eating of his theory, while unarguably bad for the Sock Man of Paducah, did give rise to the “Dog ate my homework excuse” which school kids have used ever since. So, some good came of it.

 

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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Bariis Iskukaris – Spicy Rice and Meat From Somalia

Posted on March 22, 2021 by pauldelancey

Somali Entree

BARIIS ISKUKARIS
(Spicy Rice and Meat)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup basmati rice
½” ginger root
2 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 large tomato
3 cardamom seeds
3 cloves
¾ pound lamb, beef, goat, or chicken
2½ tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
1 cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon vegetable seasoning
1½ cups water
½ teaspoon saffron threads

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, grate ginger root. Mince garlic cloves and onion. Dice tomato. Grind cardamom seeds and cloves into powder. Cut meat into ½” cubes. Add ghee, garlic, onion, cardamom, cinnamon stick, and cloves to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently.

Add meat cubes, coriander, cumin, ginger, salt, and vegetable seasoning. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes or until meat browns. Stir frequently. Add tomato. Cover and cook at medium heat for 10 minutes or until a sauce is obtained. Stir occasionally.

Add 1½ cups water. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until meat is tender and most of the water has been absorbed. Stir occasionally. Add saffron. Cover, and simmer at low heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove cinnamon stick. Add rice to plate. Ladle spicy meat mix onto rice.

TIDBITS

1) Food left on a burner can burn within minutes or at the most, within a day. Bears take two weeks to three months to hibernate. It’s a certainty that any food bears left on the stove at the start of their Big Sleep will have turned into ashes by the time they stirred. There’s no evolutionary future for a species that habitually burns its food. That’s why we descended from apes.

– 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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Chicharrones

Posted on March 10, 2021 by pauldelancey

Mexican Appetizer

CHICHARRONES

INGREDIENTS

2 pounds pork skin*
1 cup lard
½ teaspoon salt

* = The best source is a Mexican supermarket. It can be quite difficult to find online.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric skillet

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut pork skin into 3″ squares. Add lard to electric skillet. Heat lard at 375 degrees until a tiny bit of pork skin will start to dance in the oil. Use spatula to carefully add pork-skin squares to electric skillet. Be careful, adding the squares might cause the hot oil to splatter. (May I suggest wearing an apron, standing an arm-length from the skillet and holding the skillet lid in the other hand when adding the squares?)

Fry the pork squares at 375 degrees for 35 minutes or until the pork skin starts to pop and then turn golden brown. Stir frequently to the squares from sticking to the bottom of the skillet and burning. Remove deep-fried pork squares, chicharrones, and let cool on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt. Chicharrones may be eaten as is or broken into smaller pieces.

TIDBITS

1) Ronaldo Gonzalez used to operate a Mexican supermarket. One of his items was chicharrones. This clever Ronaldo did anagrams in his spare time. He soon discovered that chicarrones is an anagram for Ron’s Chic Hare.

2) He asked his wife, Desdemona, a talented seamstress to design a stylish outfit for his hare, Harry. Here is her design. I’m sure you’ll agree that the outfit is très chic.

3) Indeed, D&R Designers, in just two years has leaped from selling a hundred hare outfits to dominating the global rabbit clothing scene. Runway shows for bunny models appear to be their next business step. Tryouts will be held soon.

– 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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Hummus

Posted on February 19, 2021 by pauldelancey

Jordanian Appetizer

HUMMUS

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds canned chickpeas
½ cup tahini
3 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL

food processor

Makes 3 cups. Takes 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Drain water from canned chick peas and reserve. Add all ingredients except reserved water to food processor. Blend until smooth. Add reserved water and blend again until you get a medium-thick paste.

TIDBITS

1) Hummus is an anagram for Mumu HS.

2) Mumu High School is home of the Fighting Mumus.

3) Michael Jordan, the basketball legend, was never a Fighting Mumu. His high school was Laney in North Carolina.

4) Mr. Jordan did not make his school’s varsity basketball team in his sophomore year.

5) I’m sure he could have made varsity basketball his very first year at Mumu High.

6) MJ’s relegation to junior varsity rankled deeply. He channeled his anger into a ferocious desire to be the best. No basketball player has ever possessed a great desired to succeed than he.

7) However, he could have made the lackluster Fighting Mumus without a minute of practice. He would have had no need to tap his astounding drive. Even worse, could he have braved crowds tittering at him and his teams dressed head to toe in mumus? He might have abandoned basketball altogether. Basketball fans everywhere can be grateful for his momentary setback at Laney High.

– 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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Greenlandic Cake

Posted on June 30, 2019 by pauldelancey

Greenlandic Appetizer

GREENLANDIC CAKE

INGREDIENTS – CAKE

7 tablespoons butter
1 cup lukewarm milk
2¼ teaspoons (1 packet) yeast
⅔ cup raisins
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
4 cups flour
no-stick spray
2 tablespoons cold coffee
1½ tablespoons sugar, pearl or confectioner’s

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker (optional)
bread pan

Serves 8. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION – CAKE

Add butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add milk. Stir gently until well blended. Add in yeast, stirring gently as you do so. Mix gently until yeast dissolves. Add raisins, salt, and sugar. Mix until well blended. Add flour. Knead with bread maker or by hand for 10 minutes or until you get a smooth dough.

Place dough on flat surface, cover with towel, and let stand for 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 390 degrees 15 minutes before dough has finished standing. Spray bread ban with no-stick spray. Add dough to bread pan. Spread coffee on top with brush. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 390 degrees for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

TIDBITS

1) The fierce Vikings of old loved cakes, particularly this cake. They got a might testy, particularly when they didn’t get their favorite dessert. Indeed, the Vikings were apt to loot whole cities when in such a mood. What towns did the berserk Norsemen target? Why, the ones with lots and lots of flour and milk, of course, there being no wheat fields or cowherds in icy, cold Greenland.

2) Why didn’t the Vikings simply move to mainland Europe where there were wheat and cows in abundance? Why not set up cake bakeries there? Because all the great Viking cake makers would only live in Greenland. Something about being able to always step out into cold Arctic air after a long day working beside hot ovens. So you can see, if air-conditioned kitchen had been available in the ninth century, there were have been no Fury of the Norsemen. Something to chew on.

– 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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Choripán

Posted on June 24, 2019 by pauldelancey

Argentinian Entree

CHORIPÁN
(Sausage Sandwich)

INGREDIENTS

1 small red or green chile
4 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
½ tablespoon oregano
½ teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon minced red onion
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
⅓ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons water
½ cup olive oil (2 more tablespoons later)
3 Argentinian chorizo sausages or Italian sausages*
¾ cup fresh parsley or ¼ cup dried parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1 crispy baguette
2 tablespoons olive oil

* = Italian sausages are more like Argentinian chorizo sausages than Mexican chorizos.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

outdoor or indoor grill

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Seed chile. Mince chile and garlic cloves. Add garlic, chile, bay leaf, oregano, pepper, red onion, red pepper flakes, red wine vinegar, and water to mixing bowl. Blend together with fork or whisk. Slowly add in ½ cup olive oil, blending as you do so. Mince parsley. Gradually add in parsley and salt, blending as you do so. Let sit for 30 minutes. This is the chimichurri sauce.

Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Grill sausages for 12 minutes on medium-high heat or until the sausage skins, or casings, are becoming crispy and starting to split open. Turn every 2 minutes to ensure even grilling. Remove sausages from grill and place on a plate. Cut sausages lengthwise ⅔ of the way through. Place sausages back on grill, cut-side down. Grill on medium-high heat for 6 minutes or until cut-side starts to char. Remove sausages to plate. Cover.

Cut baguette into 4 pieces Cut baguette pieces open along their length. Place cut-sides down on grill. Grill for 3 minutes or until cut-sides starts to char. Remove baguette pieces to plate. Drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil equally on open baguette pieces. Add 1 sausage to each baguette piece. Spoon chimichurri sauce equally over sausages. Close baguette pieces.

TIDBITS

1) Choripan is an anagram for Chopin, R.A.

2) R.A. is an abbreviation for Resident Assistant. A resident assistant is someone lives in the college dorms and makes sure the students living there don’t get out of control.

3) RAs get their tuition waived in exchange for this duty. This fact alone makes the RA position a highly desirable one, especially for poor students.

4) And so it was for Frédéric Chopin, who while not quite a poor as a church mouse, was still poorer than a manor mouse. In fact, many culinary historians put Chopin as being a poor as an ale house mouse, although this remains a contentious issue. Indeed, if you want to cause a riot a chefs’ convention just shout “Chopin.”

5) Anyway, Chopin The Mouse, left Poland for Argentina in 1830. Political historians believe he emigrated to avoid the Polish Revolution of 1830 against the Russians.

6) However, culinary historians insist that he immigrated to Argentina to get a free RA scholarship from Argentina National University. Dormitory historians believe the same. There your have it, two out of three historian types agree on this.

7) The Mouse’s life had been drifting along slowly and erratically because the author of these tidbits gets sidetracked so frequently.

8) Ahem, Chopin studied music in college, after a brief and disastrous fling with differential calculus.

9) The Mouse wrote many exciting etudes. Etude Seven, proved especially popular with Argentina’s gamblers. This is why so many fans of chance yell, “C’mon, seven.” Go to a casino; you’ll see I’m right.

10) Chopin made oodles of money selling his first eleven etudes to the local music halls.

11) Then he lost it all playing dice, coming out with a roll of twelve. Etude 12, “Craps,” remains to this day Chopin’s most melancholy work. And it’s likely to stay that way, him being dead and all.

12) But Number 12, earned him enough money to open his own little restaurant in the tenderloin district of Buenos Aires. “Screw it,” said The Mouse , “the real money is in sausage sandwiches.” He named it “Ra” after his college days.

13) The critics loved his restaurant. “Ra is Chopping Ra, the Pharoah of all restaurants.” The name soon shortened to Chopin’ Ra and finally, to Chopin Ra. This and many other rave reviews naturally drew in the rough-and-tumble anagramists of Buenos Aires who renamed it “Choripan,” after the King of Argentina.

14) His fortune made, The Mouse turned once again to music and wrote a tremendous number of etudes and polonaises. These made him so famous that we’ve forgotten his culinary achievements. Now you know.

– 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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Pabellón Criollo

Posted on July 27, 2018 by pauldelancey

Venezuelan Entree

PABELLÓN CRIOLLO

INGREDIENTS – PULLED MEAT

3 garlic cloves (2 more cloves later)
1 medium onion
1 tomato
2 pounds flank steak
1 bay leaf
¼ teaspoon cumin (¼ teaspoon more later)
1 teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper (¼ teaspoon more later)
3 quarts water (or enough to cover ingredients)

INGREDIENTS – BLACK BEANS

2 garlic cloves
1 small onion
¼ cup olive oil or oil (¼ cup more later)
1 green bell pepper
1 15-ounce-can black beans
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – RICE & PLANTAINS

1⅓ cups rice
2 plantains or bananas
½ cup olive oil or oil

SPECIAL UTENSILS

3-quart pot
4 plates with 3 sections. These are mighty hard to find if you’re looking for them at the last moment.
sonic obliterator

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 50 minutes.

PREPARATION – PULLED MEAT

Dice 3 garlic cloves, medium onion, and tomato. Add diced garlic, onion, tomato, flank steak, bay leaf, ¼ teaspoon cumin, oregano, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and enough water to cover ingredients. Bring to boil using high heat. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 2 hours 30 minutes or until meat is tender to the fork. Remove and discard bay leaf. Remove meat and place on plate. Pull flank seat apart with forks. Save stock for future soups.

PREPARATION – BLACK BEANS

While flank steak simmers, mince 2 garlic cloves and small onion. Seed and dice green bell pepper. Add garlic, onion, green bell pepper, and ¼ cup olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add black beans, ¼ teaspoon cumin, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

PREPARATION – RICE & PLANTAINS

About 30 minutes before flank steak should be ready to be pulled apart, cook rice according to instructions on package. Peel plantains. Cut plantains into slices 1″ wide diagonally along the length of the plantain. Add plantain and ½ cup oil to pan. Sauté slices for 3 minutes on each at medium heat or until plantain softens and browns.

PREPARATION – FINAL STEP

This step is much easier if you have a plate that is divided into 3 sections. Carefully add enough pulled flank steak to make a pie wedge that takes up ⅓ of the plate. Carefully add enough beans next to the flank steak to make a pie wedge taking up ⅓ of the plate. Carefully add (Yes, you are doing things carefully here.) enough rice to take up the remaining ⅓ of the plate. Add ¼ of the plantain slices to the outside of the rice pie-wedge.

Zap, with your sonic obliterator, any guests who fail to appreciate just how much heart and soul went into the preparation of this dish.

TIDBITS

1) This dish, pabellón criollo, is enormously popular, among Venezuelans. So much so, that Venezuelans will bring the ingredients for this dish wherever they travel or migrate.

2) And boy, they sure have migrated. On May 1, 16,870 BC priests revealed to the proto-Venezuelans that their gods would be having a millennium-long jamboree in a land beyond the Great Mother Sea. Of course, everyone knows the best time to petition gods is when they’ve been drinking, eating pulled beef, and dancing and singing up a storm.

3) So, all the proto-Venezuelans took to their rafts and floated and paddled their way down the east coast of South America, suffered ice storms in the Straights of Magellan, endured fresh-water deprivation, and got eaten by gigantic sharks and whales.

4) All of which sucked, especially when compared to jamboreeing with the gods. So once there, the proto-Venezuelans stayed and planted rice. This is how rice came to India, Vietnam, China, and Japan.

5) The proto-Venezuelans were pretty happy. Then the gods’ beer ran out. The deities became surly and hurled thunderbolts and really hard bread rolls at the humans.

6) Life sucked again. Enough to brave the perils of an ocean voyage back home. This is how peoples from Asia settled the Americas, not by the headline hunters who crossed the land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

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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Deep Fried Mars Bars

Posted on June 1, 2018 by pauldelancey

British Dessert

DEEP FRIED MARS-TM BARS

INGREDIENTS

1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup water
¼ cup seltzer water
¼ teaspoon baking powder
5 chilled Mars bars (worldwide version) or Milky WayTM (American version)
4 cups vegetable oil or enough to cover Mars bar in deep fryer

SPECIAL UTENSILS

deep fryer Two aliens on a flying saucer
tongs

Serves 5. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add flour, salt, water, seltzer water, and baking powder to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Pour batter into tall glass. Add oil to deep fryer. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Use tongs to dip Mars bar into tall glass. Remove and let excess batter drip off. Use tongs to place coated Mars bar in deep fryer. Fry for 2 minutes or until bars turn golden brown and become crisp. Remove from oil with tongs. Place deep-fried bar on paper towel and pat dry. Repeat for remaining bars.

TIDBITS

1) MarsTM was first produced by Forrest Mars in 1932. It’s sparked religious interest ever since.

2) Mars is the Roman god of war. Technically, the deity could have sued Mr. Mars for copyright infringement, but didn’t. Many culinary theologians have argued that a living god of war would certainly challenged Forrest Mar’s logo appropriation. Therefore, Mars doesn’t exist. Once we accept Mars non-existence, belief in all the other Roman gods dissolves. And indeed, the number of people worshiping Roman gods after 1932 has been pretty darn close to zero.

3) The American Mars bar ceased production in 2002, came back, stopped production in 2011, and finally came back online 2017. Its composition and size has varied over the decades. Culinary theologians hypothesize that these observable events led to widespread believe in reincarnation.

4) Currently, the Muslim community of Australia is debating halal certification for Mars bars.

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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SPAM Fried Rice

Posted on October 8, 2017 by pauldelancey

Guamanian Entree

SPAM(TM) FRIED RICE

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
2 garlic cloves
1 small onion
1 12-ounce can SPAM
2 tablespoons oil
3 eggs
¼ cup soy sauce

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. Mince garlic cloves and onion. Cut SPAM into ½” cubes. Add garlic cloves, onion, and oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Remove garlic and onion and set aside. Keep any oil. Add eggs to pan. Scramble eggs at medium heat for 2 minutes or until eggs are done to your liking. Remove scrambled eggs and slice any large bits into ¼” wide strips.

Add SPAM cubes to pan. Cook at high heat for 3 minutes or until SPAM starts to brown. Stir occasionally. Add garlic, onion, and eggs back to pan. Add rice and soy sauce. Cook at medium heat for 2 minutes or until all is warm and the rice is brown.

TIDBITS

1) Guamanian is the adjective for something from Guam. Ché Guevarra–If this is spelled correctly, it is purely by chance–was a revolutionary.

2) A Guavanian is someone from Guava. Well no, it isn’t. Guava is a bush. The guava bush’s fruit is a guava. No, people live in or around a guava bush. Thus, there are no Guavanians. Indeed, there is no guavanian anything. The adjective for guava is guava.

3) Indeed, this has been the case since prehistoric times. Exactly sometime ago, Cro Magnons switched from herding mastodons and sabertooth tigers to herding the rather more stationary and easygoing guava bush.

4) Che Chevarra–How the heck do you spell his name?–loved sedentary guavas. You can tell he was direct descendant of Cro Magnons. However, Ché didn’t know how to spell guavas. So, if he couldn’t spell guavas, you can’t really expect people to spell his last name correctly. It’s kinda like spelling Benadryl(TM) Cumberbund’s name correctly, who by the way also descends from Cro Magnons.

Chef Paulcookbookhunks

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with 180 wonderful recipes is available on amazon.com. My newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, is also available on amazon.com

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Burmese Fried Fish Cakes

Posted on September 30, 2017 by pauldelancey

Burmese Entree

FRIED FISH CAKES

INGREDIENTS

1 pound filleted flounder, cod, or other whitefish
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon red chile flakes
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon fish sauce
½ cup peanut oil or vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSIL

food processor

Makes 8 fish cakes. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add flounder, garlic cloves, ginger, red chile flakes, salt, and turmeric to food processor. Process the ingredients until you get a well-blended paste. Dip your fingers in fish sauce. Take 1 teaspoon of paste in your hands and smoosh it flat until you get a patty 3″ across. Repeat until you use all the paste. Keep dipping your fingers in fish sauce to keep them moist.

Add oil to large pan or wok. Heat oil in pan using medium-high heat. Oil is hot enough when a tiny bit of paste in the oil starts to dance. Carefully use spatula to add fish patties to oil. Don’t let patties touch each other. You might need to cook in batches. Deep fry for 3 minutes or until bottom of patties turns golden brown. Flip patties over and deep fry for 3 minutes or under the new bottoms are golden brown as well. Remove and drain on paper towels. Repeat until all patties have been deep fried.

TIDBITS

1) The original birthday cake was deep fried on November 7, 1769 was made of cod, not flour. It was made for Captain James Cook’s 41st birthday. It was made, as far as I can tell from the same ingredients used in this recipe. Cook was in the second year of his first voyage of discovery and circumnavigation. His officers loved him. The crew loved him. Seals and tuna swam by the boat just to be near him. Captain Cook was that kind of guy. So his birthday had to be celebrated. But there was no flour for the traditional birthday bread roll. So the cook whipped up this dish and shaped it like a roll, well sorta. He stuck 41 candles in it to symbolize his age and the stars they sailed under. The idea caught on like wildfire and everybody had fish cakes for their birthday.

2) Alas, on February 14, 1779, Captain Cook was killed in a skirmish in Hawaii. Fish birthday cakes rapidly fell out of favor. Bakers kept the cake shape, but switched back to flour. Now you know.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

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

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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