On the Phone #3
– 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.
– 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.
My car just died a sudden and definitive death. Feckity, feck, feck, feck.
– 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.
I like a lot of different foods. However, I can’t stand the following dishes.
Haggis
Lutefisk
Rocky Mountain oysters
Haggis
Liver and onion
Chef’s surprise – a favorite at my college cafeteria
Any meat mass or cooked veggie that has been in your fridge for more than four days.
What foods do you avoid?
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
1 medium yellow onion
1 tablespoon Berbere spices (Or see recipe for BERBERE SPICE MIX)
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ tablespoon ground coriander
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon parsley flakes
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
1½ pounds ground beef
SPECIAL UTENSILS
Electric skillet
Wooden skewers (about 8 inches long. Size matters.)
Spice grinder (if you are making your own Berbere spice mix.)
PREPARATION
Peel and dice onion. Put onion, Berbere spices, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, parsley, pepper, salt, and ground beef in mixing bowl. Indulge in gentle primal scream therapy as you mix everything together with your hands. Make meatballs about 1-inch across until mix is used up. Put meatballs in bowl and chill in refrigerator for at least one hour.
Cook meatballs on electric skillet at 350 degrees. Turn just often enough to ensure meatballs are no longer pink on the inside and starting to brown on the outside. Vigilance is a must. (Tasting isn’t a bad idea either. However, if you taste every meatball before your fiancé arrives, then maybe the relationship wasn’t meant to be.)
Let the meatballs cool down enough so they don’t burn your fingers. Gently place 2 or 3 meatballs on each skewer. (It is possible to pierce your hand or finger with the sharp edge of the skewer. These are wooden skewers, you say, how sharp can they be? Okay, I probably couldn’t terrify an intruder armed with a gun, but I could give him an owie he’d never forget.)
Tastes great on its own or serve with lemon wedges and Moroccan yogurt sauce. (See recipe for this.)
TIDBITS
1) In 711, Arab armies crossed over the Straits of Gibraltar and headed northward to the Frankish Kingdom bringing all sorts of Moroccan spices with them. It is hard to say exactly what spices, as most historians, especially military, are strangely mute on this point.
2) In 732, the Frankish leader defeated the Arabs at the battle of Tours ensuring the survival of French spices and cuisine.
3) Frankish and Arab armies marched back and forth in southern France until 915, making certain the fusion of French and Moroccan spices.
4) Culinary arts stagnated during centuries of peace between France and Morocco.
5) Fortunately, French power and imperialism came back in 1907 when Gallic armies occupied Casablanca. A new round of fighting and culinary exchange between the two great nations began.
6) Unfortunately for gourmands everywhere total peace broke out in 1956 with Moroccan independence.
7) For awhile, it seemed as if the tens of thousands of brave French and Moroccan warriors who died in the cause of culinary integration had fallen in vain.
8) But you can’t keep a good spicer down. Over the next few decades, Moroccans headed to France in search of jobs, bringing their spices with them. Now you can find good French and Moroccan restaurants all over the world. Life is good.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
1 serrano pepper
1 jalapeno pepper
1 red bell pepper
½ medium onion
1 avocado
½ cup fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon peanut oil (1 tablespoon more later)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (1 tablespoon more later)
½ tablespoon lime juice
4 beer bratwursts
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 16 ounce packages of jumbo biscuit dough
½ cup Monterrey Jack cheese
No-stick spray
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. (350 degrees is normal for most dishes. We are throwing caution to the wind today.)
Remove seeds from serrano pepper, jalapeno pepper, and red bell pepper. Dice serrano pepper, jalapeno pepper, red bell pepper, onion, and avocado. Chop cilantro. Cut bratwursts into four pieces, one cut by length and another by width.
Cook peanut oil and vegetable oil in frying pan at medium heat. Add serrano pepper, jalapeno pepper, bell pepper, onion, avocado, and cilantro. Continue cooking for about 10 minutes or until vegetables soften. Stir periodically. Remove sautéed vegetables.
Cook peanut oil and vegetable oil in frying pan at medium heat. Add bratwurst. Cook for about 5 minutes at medium heat or until bratwurst begins to brown. Make sure to turn over bratwurst so that all sides cook evenly.
Flatten individual pieces of biscuit dough to get a larger surface. Put bratwurst piece in center, bottom part of biscuit dough. Put about a tablespoon sautéed vegetable on top of the bratwurst. Sprinkle biscuit dough with Monterey Jack cheese. Roll up dough from the bottom until the tops and the bottoms meet.
Spray biscuit sheets with no-stick spray. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 16 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown on the outside and no longer doughy on the inside. Note times needed to bake biscuits can vary wildly given the oven’s size, age, and nearness of the biscuits to a heating coil. So it’s best to keep a careful eye on the biscuits closest to a heating coil.
TIDBITS
1) This is a classic German-Mexican-American, breakfast-dinner cuisine.
2) This was almost called Fiery Brats In a Blanket.
3) There are 17.88 milligrams of magnesium in 100 grams of bratwurst. I don’t see how this fact could help you.
4) Madison, Wisconsin, holds the annual “World’s Biggest Brat Fest.”
5) I went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the early 80s. I don’t ever recall seeing the festival. I must have been studying.
6) About sixty years earlier, Hitler tried to overthrow the German government by taking over a beer hall.
7) German beer halls serve beer and bratwursts.
8) German bratwursts are excellent.
– 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.
Let’s face it, Elon Musk has brought unprecedented chaos to Twitter(tm). He offered to stop running the company if a poll said he should. The poll did say so. Mr. Musk should be be stepping down shortly.
A new CEO for Twitter is now needed. I humbly offer myself for that role. I will accept the position if the following poll says I should.
Should Paul R. De Lancey, Ph.D. become Twitter’s new CEO?
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
PASTA
3 cups or more of flour (¼ cup more later)
2 eggs (1 more egg used later)
¾ cup water or more
FILLING
2 garlic cloves (2 more cloves used later)
½ pound ground beef
1½ teaspoons parsley
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)
1 egg
MARINARA SAUCE
6 Roma tomatoes
½ large white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons basil
½ teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon thyme
1 6 ounce can tomato sauce
FINAL PREPARATION
water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup flour
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION OF PASTA
Combine 3 cups flour, eggs, and water. Mix with hands. Make a ball of the mixture. It should just be able to come off your hand. If some of the ball sticks to your hand, then add a bit more flour, mix again, and try the new flour. If the flour ball is powdery, it is too dry. Add a bit more water, mix again, and try the consistency of the next ball. There may be a number of these iterations but it must be done. (You don’t want to let all the Italianos and Italianas in the world down, do you?)
Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on your cutting board and rolling pin. Roll flour ball out until it is 1/16″ or NO THICKER than ⅛”. Frequently sprinkle the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Let rolled-out flour sit for AT LEAST 4 hours. It should be nearly dry.
PREPARATION OF FILLING
While rolled out flour dries, peel and mince 2 garlic cloves. Put garlic, ground beef, Parmesan cheese, parsley, and ½ teaspoon salt in frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until beef is no longer red. Put contents of frying pan into bowl. Add egg to bowl. Mix and put beef filling in fridge. (Time to sneak a nice, cold root beer or maybe something even stronger.)
PREPARATION OF MARINARA SAUCE
Mince Roma tomatoes. Peel and mince onion and 2 garlic cloves. Add tomato, onion, garlic, basil, marjoram, oregano, ½ teaspoon salt, thyme, and tomato sauce to sauce pot. Cook ingredients on medium-high heat until it boils, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes with the lid on. (Although the Republic will stand if you chose to cook with it off, you wild child you.) Stir occasionally.
FINAL PREPARATION
Dust cutting board with ¼ cup flour. Use knife to cut 1½”- wide strips in the flour. Cut these strips into rectangles every 3 inches. Dust strips with flour. Put a ½ teaspoon or so of the filling on the right side of the 1½-inch by 3-inch flour rectangle. Fold the left side over the filling. Push down on the open sides with the tines of the fork to seal the ravioli.
Fill pot with enough water to cover ravioli. Add 1 teaspoon salt and olive oil. Boil water. Add ravioli and cook for 20 to 30 minutes. Ravioli should float to the top and the dough should be completely soft. (Pure gold is soft as well. However, it’s not a great ravioli ingredient. Gold’s extreme lethality in a molten state make using it an expensive culinary faux pas.)
Meanwhile back at the range, cook pasta sauce in pot on medium heat until it is warm. Put ravioli in bowl and add pasta sauce.
TIDBITS
1) This tidbit was traded for a second-round and a third-round tidbit in a future cookbook.
2) Flour is extremely flammable. You might want to sweep up spilled flour instead of vacuuming it. Flour mills make strong efforts to prevent flour dust from getting into the air and onto the floors. Metallic and coal dust are also quite flammable.
3) Indeed, the Germans in World War II tried to make thermobaric bombs by releasing coal dust in the air just before the Allied Air Force would make its bombing runs. The Germans planned to ignite the coal dust, but could never do so satisfactorily due to problems in getting the dust to disperse.
4) But if you had tons of coal dust and thousands of giant fans on the ground, I mean really huge, you could ignite the air around the enemy bombers with a powerful flare.
5) It might be hard to smuggle thousands of giant fans into an enemy city, though. Maybe if you did it at night.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
¾ teaspoon cardamom
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¾ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sumac
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
3 pounds chicken breasts
4 medium red or yellow onions
2 tablespoons olive oil (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons olive oil
⅓ cup chicken stock
no-stick spray
12 ounces flatbread (taboun, lavash, or pita)
¼ cup slivered almonds
SPECIAL UTENSIL
9″ x 13″ casserole dish
Serves 6. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and sumac to mixing bowl. Combine with fork. Add lemon juice. Mix with fork until well blended. Add chicken breasts. Mix with hands until chicken is well coated. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours.
While chicken marinates, dice onions. Add onion and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Remove and reserve onion. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and marinated chicken to pan. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until chicken breasts brown. Flip chicken breasts once. Add chicken stock and blend with spoon. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat.
Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Add flatbreads to casserole dish so that they overlap. Spoon the sautéed onion evenly over flatbread. Place chicken breasts on top of onion. Ladle pan juices over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Sprinkle slivered almonds over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for another 5 minutes or until chicken is done and flatbread turns golden brown.
TIDBITS
1) Sumac Chicken backwards in Nekcihc Camus.
2) Amy Camus backwards is Yma Sumac.
3) Yma Sumac has a star on Hollywood Boulevard.
4) I’ve seen her star.
5) You might think that she herself put her star in the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard and through mystical powers led me to it. Years later, I wrote up this event in this blog and in a recipe in a cookbook. Now, you’ve read this.
6) Then a time machine showed up at my door. Ms. Sumac had set it to do this.
7) I got in. The time machine went back to the time when I saw her star on the Boulevard.
8) This sort of thing happens all the time.
9) It’s almost a cliche.
10) But wait! There’s more.
11) After I hopped out of the time machine, it went back to the 1950s when she showed this enthusiastic blog to band leaders.
12) Suitably impressed, she gained one singing gig after another, specializing in exotica music.
13) Heads of recording studios saw her and heard her as well. Whiz, bam, bing, she put out one fantastic album after another.
14) She had made it big.
15) Big enough to rate a star on Hollywood.
16) It just goes to show you what a little pluck and a time machine can do.
17) Of course, it didn’t hurt that she had a range over four octaves
18) In 1946, the Peruvian government formally recognized her claim to be descended
Palestinian Entree
SUMAC CHICKEN√
(Musakhan)
INGREDIENTS
¾ teaspoon cardamom
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¾ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sumac
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
3 pounds chicken breasts
4 medium red or yellow onions
2 tablespoons olive oil (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons olive oil
⅓ cup chicken stock
no-stick spray
12 ounces flatbread (taboun, lavash, or pita)
¼ cup slivered almonds
SPECIAL UTENSIL
9″ x 13″ casserole dish
Serves 6. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and sumac to mixing bowl. Combine with fork. Add lemon juice. Mix with fork until well blended. Add chicken breasts. Mix with hands until chicken is well coated. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours.
While chicken marinates, dice onions. Add onion and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Remove and reserve onion. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and marinated chicken to pan. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until chicken breasts brown. Flip chicken breasts once. Add chicken stock and blend with spoon. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat.
Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Add flatbreads to casserole dish so that they overlap. Spoon the sautéed onion evenly over flatbread. Place chicken breasts on top of onion. Ladle pan juices over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Sprinkle slivered almonds over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for another 5 minutes or until chicken is done and flatbread turns golden brown.
TIDBITS
1) Sumac Chicken backwards in Nekcihc Camus.
2) Amy Camus backwards is Yma Sumac.
3) Yma Sumac has a star on Hollywood.Boulevard.
4) I’ve seen her star.
5) You might think that she herself put her star in the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard and through mystical powers led me to it. Years later, I wrote up this event in this blog and in a recipe in a cookbook. Now, you’ve read this.
6) Then a time machine showed up at my door. Ms. Sumac had set it to do this.
7) I got in. The time machine went back to the time when I saw her star on the Boulevard.
8) This sort of thing happens all the time.
9) It’s almost a cliche.
10) But wait! There’s more.
11) After I hopped out of the time machine, it went back to the 1950s when she showed this enthusiastic blog to band leaders.
12) Suitably impressed, she gained one singing gig after another, specializing in exotica music.
13) Heads of recording studios saw her and heard her as well. Whiz, bam, bing, she put out one fantastic album after another.
14) She had made it big.
15) Big enough to rate a star on Hollywood.
16) It just goes to show you what a little pluck and a time machine can do.
17) Of course, it didn’t hurt that she had a range over four octaves
18) In 1946, the Peruvian government formally recognized her claim to be descended Athualpa, the last Incan Emperor. You might think that her heritage propelled into stardom, But you’d be wrong; the influence yielded by the once mighty Incans had been negligible for over 400 years..
19) No, she had made it big from her drive, her voice, my blog, and a time machine. Proof you cannot deny.
20) Yma died in 2008, at the end of her life.
– 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.
You’d be surprised how useful the following checklist can be. Carry multiple copies to hand out to those who would come between you and your one true love.
– 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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 