Posts Tagged With: Madagascar

Tom Yum Soup From Thailand

Thai Soup

TOM YUM SOUP

INGREDIENTS

½” galangal root, ½ teaspoon ground galangal, or ½ teaspoon ground ginger
2 lemongrass stalks, 2 tablespoons fresh lemongrass, or 2 tablespoons lemon zest
5 Thai chiles, aka Bird’s eye chiles
1 tomato
1¼ pounds shrimp, peeled, deveined (36-40 count)
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons minced garlic
4⅓ cups water
3½ tablespoons fish sauce
5 kaffir lime leaves
¼ cup lime juice
1 tablespoon palm sugar, coconut sugar, or sugar
⅓ cup fresh cilantro

Serves 6. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Peel and dice galangal. If necessary, remove outer, white layers of lemongrass. Mince remaining green part of lemongrass. Dice Thai chiles. Cut tomato into 8 wedges.

Add shrimp and butter to pan. Sauté for 90 seconds at medium-high heat on one side or until the bottom side of the shrimp turns red or orange. Move shrimp occasionally. Flip shrimp and sauté for another 90 seconds on one side or until the bottom side of the shrimp turns red or orange.
Move shrimp occasionally. Remove shrimp and its glaze from the pan and set them aside.

Add water to large pot. Add fish sauce, galangal, garlic, lemongrass, Thai chile, tomato wedges, kaffir lime leaves, lime juice, and palm sugar. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add shrimp and its glaze. Mince cilantro. Garnish with cilantro.

TIDBITS

1) I live in San Diego. To me, this recipe is printed right-side up. However, if I were to plunge all the way through the Earth and come out the other side, coming out somewhere near Antanarivo, Madagascar, this recipe would appear to be upside down. Oh no!

2) This is because I’d upside down as well. Fortunately, all I’d have to do read this recipe is to stand upright. Going from handstands to standing on their feet, is how people on the other side of the globe adapt to a round Earth. Crazy, huh?

 

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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Madagascan Varenga (Shredded Beef)

Madagascan Entree

VARENGA
(Shredded Beef)

INGREDIENTS

⅔ onion
1¾ pounds beef chuck, boneless
7 cups water
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

8″ * 11″ casserole dish

Serves 4. Takes 4 hours.

PREPARATION

Dice onion and parsely. Add all ingredients except parsley to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer at medium heat for 3 hours or until beef chuck can be shredded easily with a fork. (Add water as necessary to keep meat covered.)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Transfer meat and liquid from pot to casserole dish. Roast for 30 minutes or until chuck at top is crispy and browned. Dice parsley. Garnish with parsley. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) Road rage occurs when drivers lose control of their temper and drive aggressively. If only there existed a cure for road rage. There isn’t such a thing, but there might be soon.

2) Madagascar recently suffered through a frightening year of van rage. In this case, van drivers became prone to road rage. No other car drivers fell prey to this anger. Indeed, drivers of hatch backs, pickup trucks, and all sorts of HondasTM were found to be particularly serene motorists.

3) Then Minister of Transportation, an avid anagramist, discovered that “van rage” was an anagram for “Varenga.” He said, “Why not have all van drivers eat Varenga every day?. Maybe our Varenga will calm them down.”

4) It did! All angry van drivers became pussy cats when they hit the road. Now, transportation officials all over the globe are frantically searching for food anagrams for “road rage.” This promises to be a daunting task as the words for “road rage” are different in all languages. The calming anagramic food will thus be another dish for each way of speaking.

 

– 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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Paul the Liberator

Independence Fireworks

By far, the greatest number of nations achieving independence has occurred in my lifetime. It’s true. You can look it up. I am, of course, rather humbled by this knowledge. I don’t recall having much direct influence on this march to freedom but nevertheless, it has happened concurrently with my existence. I can only surmise that my life has always been a  beacon of hope to people in downtrodden lands.

I see a Nobel Peace Prize in the near future.

For the record, countries achieving independence since my birth are:

Togo
Guinea
Madagascar
Mali
Senegal
Ivory Coast
Niger
Cameroon
Togo
Madagascar
Democratic Republic of Congo
Somalia
Benin
Burkina Faso
Chad
Central African Republic
Republic of Congo
Gabon
Nigeria
Mauritania
Sierra Leone
Tanzania
Uganda
Burundi
Rwanda
Algeria
Kenya
Malawi
Zambia
Gambia
Zimbabwe
Rhodesia
Botswana
Lesotho
Mauritius
Eswatini (Swaziland)
Equatorial Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Mozambique
Cabo Verde
Comoros
São Tomé and Príncipe
Angola
Seychelles
Djibouti
Namibia
Eritrea
South Sudan

Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana
Jamaica
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago

Bahrain
Bangladesh
Brunei
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Malaysia
Singapore
Maldives
Palestine
Tajikistan
Timor-Leste
Turkmenistan
United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan
Yemen

Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Moldova
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine

Fiji
Kiribat
Nauru
Samoa
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Solomon Islands
Tonga
Tuvalu
Vanuatu

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Cyprus
Georgia
Abkhazia
South Ossetia
Kazakhstan

 

– 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: history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Madagascan Coconut Milk Chicken

Madagascan Entree

COCONUT MILK CHICKEN

INGREDIENTSCoconutMilkChicken-

4 chicken breasts
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

2 medium onions
2 Roma or small tomatoes
4 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons coconut oil or butter
½ tablespoon ginger
13½ ounce-can coconut milk
3 cups cooked rice

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cut chicken breasts into 1″ cubes. Add chicken, lemon juice, lemon zest, cayenne pepper, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Marinate chicken cubes in lemon juice/spice mix for 45 minutes.

While chicken marinates, dice onion and tomatoes. Mince garlic. Add onion, garlic, and coconut oil to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add marinated chicken. Cook on medium heat for 12 minutes or until chicken is only slightly pink inside. Stir occasionally.

Add tomato and ginger. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add coconut milk. Simmer on warm heat for 30 minutes or until sauce starts to thicken and chicken is no longer pink inside. Stir occasionally. Serve over rice.

TIDBITS

1) Madagascar produces more vanilla than any other country.

2) However, Madagascar’s vanilla shacks invariably seem to be on the other side of the stream.

3) But Madagascar’s streams often have crocodiles in them.

4) Crocodiles have been known to eat people. In all fairness though, people often eat crocodiles.

5) However, this is not to say you want to be eaten, far from it.

6) But you still want that vanilla on the other side and a vanilla substitute won’t do.

7) Hence the Madagascan proverb, “If you cross the stream in a crowd, the crocodile won’t eat you.”

8) At least not the people in the middle of the crowd.

9) The previous two tidbits explain why it is considered bad manners to ask people to cross rivers with you.

10) So there you have it. You can’t cross a Madagascan river to get vanilla, but you can’t ask someone to cross with you.

11) Bummer.

12) Now, however, AmazonTM is apparently considered producing drones to fly products from one spot to another.

13) Critics pooh pooh this idea, saying America’s skies are too crowded for the safe use of commercial drones.

14) However drones would be ideal in Madagascar for shipping bottles of vanilla from the wrong side of the crocodile-infested river to you.

15) This development would be great for Madagascans who want to live. Bad though for the country’s crocs who wish to dine out.

16) So where would Madagascar’s hungry crocodiles go to eat?

17) Tennessee. Tennessee has lots of rivers and not only that the locals there know nothing about even the most basic anti-crocodile measures. Lots of people would be eaten.

18) Being eaten while crossing a river would be a great excuse for not turning in homework.

19) But you could only use this excuse once.

20) The state of Tennessee does not consider breast feeding to be nudity. Crocodiles don’t have breasts. They are reptiles. Only Mammals have breasts.

21) So an undressed crocodile would be arrested by Tennessee’s law enforcement.

22) Let’s hope crocodiles never develop a sense of modesty.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

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

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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