Posts Tagged With: molasses

Stroopwafel

Posted on December 26, 2023 by pauldelancey

Dutch Dessert

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STROOPWAFEL

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INGREDIENTS – WAFFLE
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¼ cup milk, warm
2¼ teaspoon yeast
½ cup butter, softened (⅓ cup more later)
2 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
2¼ cups flour
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INGREDIENTS – FILLING
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1 cup brown sugar
⅓ cup butter, softened
3 tablespoons light corn syrup*
3 tablespoons molasses*
¾ teaspoon cinnamon
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* = Or substitute stroop syrup for these two ingredients. Stroop syrup can be found online.
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INGREDIENT – ASSEMBLY
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no-stick spray
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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electric beater
pizzelle maker
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Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
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PREPARATION – WAFFLE
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Add warm milk and yeast to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add ½ cup butter, eggs, and salt. Mix with electric beater set on medium until well blended. Add flour and knead until a smooth dough ball forms. Divide dough ball into 12 mini dough balls. Cover with cloth and set aside for 1 hour.
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PREPARATION – FILLING
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Add all filling ingredients to pan. Stir over low heat until butter and brown sugar melt. Let sit for 10 minutes.
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PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY
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Spray pizzelle maker with no-stick spray. Add a mini dough ball to center of each spot in the pizzelle maker. Press down on mini dough ball with spatula or oven mitt until it gets to about ½” of the edge of each pizzelle spot. Use pizzelle maker’s instructions to cook mini dough balls into cookies. Remove cookies. Use spatula to spread 1½ tablespoons filling over all of 1 cookie. Place a 2nd cookie on top of cookie with filling to form Stroopwafel. Repeat until all cookies have been used.
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TIDBITS
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1) Many people wonder how to pronounce “stroop” in Stroopwafel.
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2) Is it pronounced stroop or stroop?
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3) In fact, the second pronunciation is correct.
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4) Now you know.
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5) For the longest time, I never made this dessert as I had never thought this dessert was worth the money needed to buy a pizzelle.
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6) Pizzelle is a strange looking word.
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7) Anyway, I got a pizzelle maker for Christmas. Apparently Santa thought I had been rather well behaved.
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8) And indeed, I had indeed carried myself with distinction.
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9) Okay mostly.
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10) Well, just enough of the time to merit a pizzelle maker.
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11) I’m not giving it back. I’m not! I’m not, not even if I received it by mistake.
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12) How could I have received a pizzelle maker by mistake?
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13) I’m guessing that Santa’s sleigh made quite a sharp turn over my chimney to avoid a drone and a pizzelle making came tumbling down out of the toy sack.
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14) Santa hates drones for this very reason.
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15) More and more people and companies are buying drones. The Christmas Eve sky gets ever more difficult for Santa and his deer to navigate.
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16) Culinary Santologists say that Santa’s planning to deploy missile-defense systems on his sleigh for next year’s present run. Now, we’ll really see who’s naughty or nice. Ho! Ho! Ho!
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– 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: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Boston Brown Bread

Posted on June 17, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

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BOSTON BROWN BREAD

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INGREDIENTS
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1 tablespoon butter
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup yellow cornmeal
¾ cup rye flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup raisins (optional)
1¼ cups buttermilk
½ cup molasses
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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3 coffee cans (Use the 14.5 ounce size or as near as you can get.)
aluminum foil
kitchen twine
8″*13″ casserole dish
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Serves 8.  Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease coffee cans with butter. Add allspice, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cornmeal, rye flour, wheat flour, and raisins (optional) to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended..
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Boil water. Add buttermilk, molasses, and vanilla  to medium mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add buttermilk into large bowl containing dry ingredients. Gently mix with spatula until just combined. This is the batter.
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Spoon batter equally into the 3 coffee cans. The batter should not reach higher than ⅔ the way up the cans. Cover the top of the cans will aluminum. Tie aluminum securely to the cans with kitchen twine. Add cans to casserole dish. Put casserole on middle rack in oven. Leave rack partway out. Pour boiling water into casserole dish until the water level is ¾ the way up to the top of the dish. (This method is safer and easier than lifting a dish full of boiling water into the oven.)
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Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour 20 minutes or until the top of a loaf will spring back when lightly touched or until loaves start to pull away from coffee cans. Remove aluminum foil. Place cans on cooling rack. Let cool for 1 hour. Turn over cans and tap the bottom to cans to get loaves to slide out. Goes well with cream cheese or baked beans.
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TIDBITS
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1) Boston Brown Bread is round. This is no accident.
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2) Bread Bread , however, is rectangular and made from bits and pieces of other bread loaves.
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3) Ned Ted Dredd bakes the most famous Bread Bread.
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4) It is said that Ned hails from Jamaica and wears dreadlocks. He’a also kinda scary. People dread seeing his dreads coming toward them.
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5) And that he is also a medical student at Kingston’s prestigious Kedd Medical University. It’s buildings are painted red to get its premeds used to the sight of blood.
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6) So, by all means visit Kedd Med Dread Dread Ned Ted Dredd’s Bread Bread Bakery.
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7) Any back in Boston, keen, lean, and mean Bob “Beantown” Beanstalk was drilling for samples deep into the Earth’s crust.
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8) For he was a, was a …
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9) Crustologist. You know the sort that drill into the crust looking for things that interest an amazingly small number of people.
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10) Anyway, “Beantown” was hopping–no, it’s spelled hoping–to find beetle exoskeletons in his core sample from one-mile down.
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11) For it’s well known that Ancient Egypt’s pharaohs and priests were absolutely gaga about beetles. They bred beetles to be pets. They held beetle relay races on religious holidays, They used rubies to fashion jewelry to look like beetles.
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12) Anyway, Beanstalk believed pharaohs dated back 10,000,009 years. Then if he could find similarly ancient beetles ‘neath the streets of Boston, then he would prove that Egypt was at one time adjacent to what is now New England.
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13) Incoming news! Just before press time, Boston Public Works just fired Bob Beanstalk. No reason was given.
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14) But just before getting the sack, and just before lunchtime, a hungry Bob looked at a brown, round soil sample. “Boy,” he said, “I am really hungry for some good, fresh bread.”
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15) As it so happened, Beanstalk’s wife  had filled his lunch pail with: butter, allspice, baking powder, salt, cornmeal, rye flour, whole wheat flour, raisins, buttermilk, molasses, vanilla extract, an 8″*13″ casserole dish, 3 round cans of coffee, aluminum foil, kitchen twine, six gallons of water, and two bunsen burners. After drinking all that coffee, frenetic Beantown’s synapses fired at an alarming rate and he soon created the first Boston Brown Bread out of the contents of his lunch pail.
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16) Now you know.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
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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: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Georgian Lobio (Bean Stew)

Posted on April 7, 2022 by pauldelancey

Georgian Entree

LOBIO
(Bean Stew)

INGREDIENTS

1 pound dried red kidney beans*
6 cups water
8 cups water
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon salt
3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
⅓ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup walnut halves
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ tablespoon ground fenugreek**
1½ tablespoons pomegranate molasses or juice
¾ teaspoon pepper

* = Red kidney beans MUST be properly boiled. Eating kidney beans that haven’t been boiled for 10 minutes can make you quite sick. They’re quite safe and tasty once sufficiently boiled them. Discard the water used to soak the beans.
** = To be authentic, this recipe should use blue fenugreek. It’s widely available in its native country and extremely difficult to find elsewhere. Please let me know if you discover a source. Thank you.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

spice grinder
potato masher

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes 24 hours to soak beans.

PREPARATION

Add red kidney beans and 6 cups water to large pot. Let sit for 24 hours.

Drain beans. Add 8 cups water, beans, bay leaves, and salt to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Boil for 12 minutes. Stir enough to keep beans from burning. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 1 hour 40 minutes or until beans become tender. (They really must tender.) Check pot every 10 minutes and add 1 cup water, if needed, to keep at least 1½ cups of liquid in the pot. Stir enough to keep beans from burning. Drain water, saving 1½ cups liquid for later use.

While beans cook, dice garlic, and onion. Mince cilantro. Grind walnut halves in spice grinder until you get walnut powder. Add garlic, onion, and olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add fenugreek, cilantro, and walnut powder. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 minute or until mixture becomes fragrant.

Add beans and reserved 1½ cups liquid to large pot. Mash beans with potato masher until only ¼th of the beans remain whole. Stir with spoon until thoroughly blended and the beans and water achieve the consistency of a thick stew.

Add garlic/onion/walnut mixture, pomegranate molasses, and pepper to beans in large pot. Mix with spoon until well blended. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove bay leaves and serve hot.

TIDBITS

1) Desperadoes, bandits, and gunslingers terrorized the Old West.

2) Everyone’s heard of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and the Dalton Gang.

3) But no one knows anything the greatest outlaw of them all. Giorgi Beridze.

4) Beridze terrorized the Great Western Ailroad, GWA, from 1869 to 1875.

5) It should have been called the Great Western Railroad, But the typesetter made a mistake when publicizing the railroad’s inaugural run. Thereafter, passengers called it Typo Road. Many, however, figured Ailroad to be a startling bit of honesty from GWA’s president.

6) Anyway, Mr. Beridze who has been waiting patiently since Tidbit 1 to have his exploits related to recipe-reading world, so disrupted Great Western’s schedules that the company thought it was about to go under.

7) Then on May 10, 1875, Beridze’s Gang’s raided one last time. The outlaws swarmed the train as it huffed its way to the top of Willow Summit, Texas. They expertly and efficiently rounded up all the train’s employees. The bad men forced the conductor to open the doors to the baggage car.

8) In swarmed Hercules Smith. This desperado grunted as he hurled one heavy sack after another to men waiting on the ground. Down to the hard ground fell the bandits below. Sure they caught the sacks, but the savvy railroad had filled the bags with anvils. Irate passengers quickly overwhelmed the lone anvil tosser. A scant hour late, lawmen easily rounded up the concussed Beridze and gang. Judge Noah Moore sentenced Beridze to hang.

9) His jailers asked Beridze what he wanted for his last meal. He requested this dish, Lobio. His jailers road off to find the ingredients: red kidney beans, water, bay leaves, salt, garlic cloves, cilantro, walnuts, olive oil, blue fenugreek, pomegranate molasses, and pepper. A number of those fixings proved impossible to find in 1875 Texas. They had to travel to Beridze’s home country, Georgia. Beridze’s buddies busted him out two months before the jailers returned.

10) Beridze, now anvil shy, fled the country. Embarrassed GWA officials decided the best thing to do was to hush up the whole affair. That’s why we never hear about the daring Beridze.

 

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: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Roast Chicken in Pomegranate Date Molasses

Posted on June 12, 2021 by pauldelancey

Israeli Entree

ROAST CHICKEN IN POMEGRANATE DATE MOLASSES

INGREDIENTS

½ cup date molasses or syrup* or honey
¼ cup pomegranate molasses* or cranberry juice concentrate or grenadine or lemon juice with honey
⅓ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
3½ pounds chicken thighs, thighs with legs, legs – all with bone in

* = May be found in Middle Eastern or kosher supermarkets

SPECIAL UTENSILS

baking pan
baster

Serves 6 or 1 person per chicken piece. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add date molasses, pomegranate molasses, olive oil, and salt in large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add chicken pieces. Turn chicken pieces until thoroughly coated. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes.

Add chicken to baking pan. Ladle marinade over chicken. Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes or until skin is crispy and browned. Baste with juices from pan every 10 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) When I was growing up, milkmen would deliver milk to your doorstep. They also sold, eggs, butter, and cream. They saved so many trips to the store when only when of these ingredients was missing. And who wants to go to the store for just one thing when baking? When I lived in the Netherlands, the milkmen would deliver all that to your home. They’d also sell soup, jam, and beer. Yes, beer. Who wants drunk people driving to the store when their party runs of beer?

2) We really do need to bring back the American milkman. The Dutch milkman would be even more appreciated. But we need more. For how many times have you gone to the store just for flour? Just for lettuce or tomato? And especially just for one herb? We need a culinary mobile, making door-to-door delivers of: herbs, spices, and produce. We’d, of course, also want dairy products. I’d nominate any one who’d provide this service for a Nobel Prize. I can conceive of no worthier cause.

 

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: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Boston Baked Beans

Posted on July 15, 2017 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

BOSTON BAKED BEANS

INGREDIENTS

1 pound great Northern beans
8 cups water
1 medium onion
5 ounces salt pork
¼ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup molasses
2 teaspoons dry mustard
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

Makes 9 bowls. Takes overnight to soak plus 6 hours to cook.

PREPARATION

Add beans and water to large pot. Soak overnight. Reserve liquid from pot. Mince onions. Cut salt pork into ½” cubes. Add all ingredients including reserved liquid to slow cooker.  (If you discarded the liquid, add 5 cups water.) Use low setting to Cook for 6 hours or until beans are tender. Stir before serving.

TIDBITS

1) Beans are fairly round. Bowls are completely round. The Britons of King Arthur’s time ate beans before battle. Beans gave them strength and courage.

2) Though not the element of surprise. The many toots that came of Arthur’s knights always gave them away, no matter how carefully they concealed themselves in ambush. But the armies of King Arthur’s day generally eschewed–not that the illiterate warriors of the day would have known a two-dollar word as eschewed–complicated tactics such as ambush. Generally they came together and bashed the heck out of each other until one side gave way.

3) Naturally, King Arthur’s knights wanted to eat strength-and-courage-giving beans before combat for the knights eating the most beans, bashed the most enemy knights. In turn, these knights got the most gold, land, and the best castles from a grateful and victorious Arthur.

4) All knights wanted this. This meant they had to get the biggest bowl of beans. Soon combat broke out among King Arthur’s fighters. His warriors began to die off before they even saw the enemy.

5) The only way to have equally large bean bowls was to have only one bowl for all the knights, one they ate from at the same time. Naturally, this bowl had to be enormous. An enormous round bean bowl requires an enormous round table to support it. This is how the Round Table came about.

– 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 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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.

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More Mostly Highway Culinary Mishaps

Posted on December 4, 2013 by pauldelancey

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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