Posts Tagged With: mushrooms

Dental Visit Delays Bacon & Chocolate Party’s Iowa Caucus Results

Posted on February 1, 2016 by pauldelancey

B&CtastyHi! Bacon & Chocolate Party’s top election official here. I was at the dentist all day  and am in no mood to count the huge amount of votes.  I am however pleased to report high levels of civility, patience, and kindness among B&C’s Iowan caucusers and its party officials. Don’t forget to vote Bacon & Chocolate Party in November. Bacon & Chocolate party, this is the dawning of the Age of Tastiness.

 

– Paul De Lancey, presidential candidate and nice guy.

 

– 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: Bacon & Chocolate | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Steak au Poivre Vert

Posted on January 26, 2016 by pauldelancey

French Entree

STEAK AU POIVRE VERT

INGREDIENTSSteakAuPoivre-

¾ cup whipping cream
¼ cup green peppercorns
2 shallots
1½ pounds tender boneless beef steaks cut 1″ thick
1½ tablespoons butter
1½ tablespoons olive oil
7 tablespoons cognac or brandy
½ cup beef broth
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons tarragon

SPECIAL UTENSIL

x-ray vision (helpful, but not required)
Sonic obliterator

Makes 4 steaks. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add whipping cream to pot. Cook using medium heat for 12 minutes or until cream thickens and is reduced by half. Stir frequently. Place cream in bowl and let sit in refrigerator.

Crack peppercorns by crushing them against a cutting board with a kitchen mallet or the side of a heavy knife Mince shallots. Add steaks, butter, and olive oil to large skillet. Sauté using medium heat for about 6 minutes on each side for medium rare or until steaks reach desired doneness.

Desired doneness is quite personal and just as open to heated debate just like politics. How do you decide it’s done? Well, x-ray vision is helpful. So is practice. Or you can just cut off a tiny piece and look. You are the master of your domain.

Okay. Add cognac to skillet. Sauté each side at medium-high heat for 1 minute. Place meat on serving plate. Cover with foil. Leave drippings in skillet.

Add shallot to skillet. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until shallot softens. Add cracked peppercorns, chilled whipping cream, beef broth, salt, and tarragon. Bring to boil using high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium for 5 minutes or until sauce is reduced by half. Place steaks on plates. Ladle sauce equally over steaks. Serve hot to adoring guests. Use sonic obliterator on guests who don’t appreciate the cost and the effort. You don’t need that kind of negativity.

TIDBITS

1) Ruva Boldin, 1897 – 1962, was a famous doughnut maker in the Soviet Union. In fact, she made the best doughnut anywhere in the world. It was impossible for any world leader to stay mad at Russia when they bit into one of Ruva’s creations.

2) Stalin, the USSR’s dictator, knew this. This

3) And then what? I started to write tidbit 2) a few days ago. What interrupted me?

4) I’d like to think it was a comet. That would be a good excuse for not working, don’t you think?

5) Me: Sorry boss, I can’t go to work today, there’s a comet passing by my garage door.

Boss: Like I haven’t heard that one before.

6) Yep, it’s better to have believable excuses when calling in sick such as:

Me: Sorry boss, I can’t make it to work today. I know we have a critical meeting with our most important client, but all I have are orphaned socks. I know that their CEO is extremely fashion conscious and if I showed up with mismatched socks, we’d lose that account forever. Can we reschedule the meeting for tomorrow? I need today to buy more socks.

Boss: I know! Just yesterday. I lost half the socks I put in the dryer. I suspect the dryer is merely a portal into a sock-hungry parallel universe. Of course, we’ll reschedule. I need to buy socks myself, but was too embarrassed to say so. I would have shown up with different socks at the meeting, lost the account, and bankrupted the company. Your courage in speaking up has saved the day. I’m giving you a promotion and a raise.

7) Maybe the aliens who ride comets have tractor beams that pull in our socks. With each successive pass by the Earth, they take more and more of our socks.

8) Why do the comet-riding aliens only take one sock from each pair? Because they’re juvenile delinquents, going on a joy ride.

9) But there is a serious consequence to their behavior. As these comets take on more and more socks, the mass of the comet grows and grows. The comet’s gravitational field becomes ever stronger, strong enough to change the orbits of neighboring celestial bodies.

10) Just recently, someone predicted the discovery of huge new planet in our Solar System, because of orbit irregularities in our outer planets. However, it seems more likely that the huge gravitational pull on these planets is coming from the sock-laden Halley’s Comet. This comet is so heavy with socks that when it passes by the Earth in 2062, it’s immense gravitational field will pick us up and hurl us into the Sun.

11) Clearly, this would be bad. Get to your dryer as soon as the buzzer let’s you know the loads is dry. Space aliens will only beam up socks when they’re nice and toasty warm. But move fast, because the aliens are speedy. Save your socks. Save 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.

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

Spotlight on Paul R. De Lancey – Author of “Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms?”

Posted on January 13, 2016 by pauldelancey

Excerpt from Chapter 1-A Loaf Of Bread

DeLanceyPaul

 

The tennis lady gave Joe a long look, her lip licking insinuating a wild hour of addressing and stuffing envelopes. “You know you really should try out for the Lutheran Chippendales.”
She waved goodbye, turned the corner, screamed, and was never seen again. Perhaps the bright reflections off the floor’s gold tiles blinded her, perhaps she got lost in Hungry Hank’s endless Lithuanian-food section, or perhaps she had talked too much and an enraged group of Ronald Reagan mimes got to her.
Joe brought his loaf of Roman Meal bread and pig balls to the Ten-Items-or-Fewer line. In front of him, a blood-splattered Young Republican, Hiram the Insignificant, unloaded the entire contents of aisle 6A onto the checkout counter. Joe thought about moving to the Eleven-Items-or-More lines, but he had only two items. And Lutheran discipline expressly forbade such chicanery. So for 2.9 minutes he dreamed of mushroom-free Thanksgiving dinners until his items moved up to the checkout lady, Deborah Devil.
The parchment skin of her face barely covered her skull. She sported a long bony nose that could double as a handy letter opener. Two golden horns emerged from the scraggly growth of her silver hair. The tip of a small tail swished just below the bottom of her dress. Hungry Hank’s sure took its role as equal-opportunity employer seriously.
Deborah Devil, or as The Supreme Evil preferred to be called, Debbie, did not permit Joe to see any of these demonic warning signs. He saw her as Shania Twain. Why a beautiful, fabulously successful singer worked the Ten-Items-or-Fewer line at Hank’s, he couldn’t say. But his heart pounded. And pounded.
No, some of that pounding came from his fist hitting the conveyor. Part of his brain had revolted against a grave injustice. “The customer in front of me had way more than ten items.”
Debbie sneered. “So?”
“It isn’t right. You should have directed her to another line.”
The evil checker pulled the plug to the cash register. “I don’t like your attitude.”
“That’s outrageous.”
She smiled and leaned forward. Damn, how come Hungry Hank’s let Shania wear her blouse so unbuttoned?
“Sure, hon, I know that. I wanted to get your attention ‘cuz Lutheran men make me so hot. And you’re all Lutheran.
“Tell you what, I’ll ring you up, Joe. All you have to do is be mine tonight, just tonight. C’mon, let Debbie make life fun for you.”
Joe sighed and in just two attempts averted his Lutheran eyes from her heaving breasts. “No, I love my wife. She’s the best. You’re great, but you’re not her.”
Debbie grimaced and pointed a claw-like hand–which always counted against her in beauty contests–toward the display of George’s Mushrooms. “Then buy those. Eat them. Then I’ll ring up your bread.”
“No way, mushrooms are the Devil’s food. I learned that way back in Lutheran Sunday school.”
Debbie’s chest heaved as she drowned out the store’s Lutheran love songs with laughter. “But that’s how I’ll make you leave your Episcopalian mushroom-cooking wife for me.”
Joe shook his head.
Shania licked her lips.
Joe gripped the Roman Meal. “The answer is still no, and I demand to talk to the manager.”
The horned lady rested her elbow on the platinum counter, her chin on her wart-encrusted hand. “Honey, no one manages me.”
A quite distant relative of Achilles came up behind Joe and asked Debbie, “Gonna serve anyone this century?”
Her red eyes flashed and the customer turned into a short monotoned economist. The man scurried away to explain the notion of constant elasticities of substitution to slow fleeing grannies.
One at a time, Shania fixed her eyes on Joe. “I’ll do the same to you if you don’t eat those mushrooms and leave your wife.”
“Mrs. Twain, you should be ashamed of yourself. Doesn’t your husband object to your affairs?”
“Call me Debbie. And no, that limp loser is too busy fighting a forever feud with that holier-than-thou Big Guy to notice my doings and my NEEDS. Shoot, and the sausages on the men that come in here just aren’t big enough, if you know what I mean.”
Debbie leered at Joe’s burgeoning crotch. “But man, ain’t you history’s best hung Lutheran.” Joe blushed. She stared again at his groin. “Man, I’ve worked this job 900 days waiting for you to come along, ever since I met your wife at Chez Episcopalian Beauty Parlor.” Debbie licked her lips. “But your wife didn’t say you were such a hottie.”
She panted and gestured for Joe to come hither. Joe thanked God for the Swedish heritage enabling him to stand firm against offers of fun. He placed his right hand over his heart. “I shall never eat enslaving mushrooms, no way. I shall never dally with you, nor shall I ever, ever leave my wife while I am in my right mind and blood flows through this body.”
The evil temptress laughed. “Fine, then you’ll continue to get new minds and new bodies until you give in.”

 

Author’s Bio

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Paul De Lancey writes in multiple genres: adventure, westerns, morality, time travel, thriller, and culinary, all spiced with zaniness. He is a frequent contributor to HumorOutcasts. His novels Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms?, Beneficial Murders, We’re French and You’re Not and The Fur West  and his cookbook Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World have won acclaim from award-winning authors.

Paul is also the writer of hilarious articles and somewhat drier ones in Economics. Dr. De Lancey obtained his Doctorate in Economics from the University of Wisconsin. His thesis, “Official Reserve Management and Forecasts of Official Reserves,” disappears from bookstore shelves so quickly that most would-be purchasers can never find it in stock.

Paul, known to his friends as Paul, was the proud co-host of the online literary events Bump Off Your Enemies, The Darwin Murders, and Tasteful Murders. He also co-collected, co-edited, and co-published the e-book anthologies resulting from these events. Perhaps Mr. De Lancey will someday  become a literary giant without having to die for the title.

The humorist is a direct descendant of the great French Emperor Napoleon. Actually, that explains a lot of things. Paul ran for President of the United States in 2012! Woo hoo! On the Bacon & Chocolate ticket.  Estimates of Bacon & Chocolate’s share of the votes range from 3 to 1.5% of the total. El Candidato also lost a contentious campaign to be El Presidente of Venezuela. In late 2013, Chef Paul participated in the International Bento Competition. The great statesman is again running for president, this time under HumorOutcasts’ sponsorship. Contact Paul before he gets elected to get that ambassadorship to Tahiti you’ve always wanted.

Mr. De Lancey makes his home, with his wonderful family, in Poway, California. He divides his time between being awake and asleep.

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: book reviews and excerpts, humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Posted on January 7, 2016 by pauldelancey

New Zealander Dessert

HOKEY POKEY ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS – HOKEY POKEYHokeyPokey-

2 tablespoons golden syrup
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda

INGREDIENTS – ICE CREAM

1½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
4 egg yolks

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Waxed parchment paper or cookie sheet
No-stick spray
electric beater
1 gallon plastic container with tight lid

Makes 3 quarts. Takes 45 minutes plus about 6 hours in freezer.

PREPARATION – HOKEY POKEY

Put waxed parchment paper on cookie sheet. Spray waxed parchment paper with no-stick spray. Add golden syrup and sugar to pan. Cook at low-medium heat until mixture melts and then boils. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes. Stir constantly to avoid burning the sugar. Remove from heat. Add baking soda. Stir with fork until mixture becomes pale and frothy. Pour mixture onto waxed parchment paper. Let sit for 30 minutes or until mixture solidifies into hokey pokey. Break hokey pokey with hands, bash with kitchen mallet, or cut with kitchen scissors until you have chunks no longer than ½” long.

PREPARATION – ICE CREAM

While hokey pokey sets, add cream to large mixing bowl. Whip with electric beater set on cream, or high, until cream becomes thickens and soft peaks form. Add vanilla extract, confectioner’s sugar, and egg yolks to second mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on cream, or high, until creamy. Fold confectioner’s sugar/egg mixture from second mixing bowl into first mixing bowl with cream.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Add hokey pokey chunks and ice cream to plastic container. Stir gently with spoon until hokey pokey is evenly distributed. Cover and put in refrigerator for 6 hours or ice cream is firm.

TIDBITS

1) The hokey pokey is a dance where a leader names a part of the body. The participants then put that part in, take part out, put that part in, shake it all about, turn themselves around. That’s what it’s all about.

2) The hokey pokey was used to devastating effect by English forces in the battle of Waterloo in 1815. In a desperate gamble, the French Emperor Napoleon hurled his vaunted Old Guard at the center of the English infantry line. Onward, ever onward they marched, their jaws clenched tightly together by glue-like oatmeal. The English line buckled. One more push and the French would triumph. Napoleon would remain emperor. He would continue to march his armies all over Europe. Europe would continue to be drenched in blood as Napoleon engaged in ceaseless conquest and pursuit of La Gloire.

3) Private Henry Tavert of the English tenor-infantry brigade began to shake in terror. His sergeant growled. “Pull yourself together, man.”

4) “I can’t.” said Henry. “You must,” said the sergeant. “For God, king, and country.”

5) “I still can’t.” The sergeant rolled his eyes. “All right then, do it for your mum.”

6) Henry managed a weak smile. “I can do that. Me mum used to sing the hokey pokey to me whenever I got afraid. It gave me courage, it did.”

7) “Then private, sing the hokey pokey.”

8) And so Henry did, weakly at first, but with increasing conviction and volume with each successive word. The rest of the tenor brigade joined in. When they all got to the part about turning “yourself about,” the song could be heard by the bilingual sergeants of France’s Old Guard.

9) These bilingual sergeants upon hearing the words “turn yourself about,” turned themselves about. The privates taking their cue from their sergeants turned themselves about as well.

10) “D___ me,” shouted the sergeant, “The Frenchies are fleeing. Fix bayonets!” He pointed to the retreating French. “England, put your whole selves out.”

11) The tenor brigade charged. Brigades to their left and right advanced as well. Pretty soon, the entire English army rushed the French. The French retreat became a rout. Napoleon’s once mighty Grande Armée disintegrated never to reform. Europe was finally at peace.

12) Europe stayed at peace for another 99 years. Whenever a country poured it armies across its neighbor’s borders, the defenders would sing the hokey pokey and make the attackers turn themselves about. War became pointless and boring.

13) Until 1913, when countries issued ear plugs to their armies. Soldiers couldn’t hear the hokey pokey and so would no longer turn themselves about. World War I, a horrific bloodbath, commenced only one year later. We need to come up with a countermeasure to ear plugs.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Swedish Saffransbröd

Posted on December 23, 2015 by pauldelancey

Swedish Dessert

SAFFRANSBRÖD

INGREDIENTSSaffranBrod-

2¼ teaspoons yeast
⅓ cup warm water
1 cup milk
½ cup butter
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar (½ cup more later)
½ teaspoon (1 gram) saffron threads
⅓ cup raisins
½ cup sugar
2 eggs (1 more egg later)
4 cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

tin foil
cookie sheet

Makes 4 6″ buns. Takes 2 hours 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Add yeast and water to large mixing bowl. While yeast dissolves, add milk to small pot. Heat milk at high heat until scalding hot (almost boiling). Stir constantly. Reduce heat to medium. Add butter, salt, and 1 teaspoon sugar to pot. Stir constantly until butter melts. Remove from heat.

Add saffron to tin foil. Bake at 250 for 5 minutes or until saffron is toasted. Add toasted saffron to cup. Crush saffron with fingers. Add 1 teaspoon sugar to cup. Mix with fork. Add crushed saffron/sugar to mixing bowl with dissolved yeast. Add 2 eggs, raisins, ½ cup sugar, and buttery milk to mixing bowl. Stir in 4 cups flour, one cup a time. Mix with whisk or fork.

Dust cutting board with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough to cutting board. Let dough stand for 10 minutes. Knead with hands until dough stiffens. Add oil and dough to large bowl. Turn dough until it is coated with oil. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Divide dough into 12 pieces. Use hands to turn each piece into a 12″ rope. Put 3 ropes side by side. Braid the 3 ropes together by crossing the left rope and then the right rope over the center rope until there is one long braid. Join ends of long braid to make a circle or crown. Repeat to make three more crowns. Beat one egg. Brush egg over crowns.
Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Place crowns on parchment-covered cookie sheet. Let crowns rise for 15 minutes or until they puff up into a bun. Bake for 15-to-25 minutes or until golden brown and when a toothpick inserted into buns comes out clean. Let cool on rack.

TIDBITS

1) Böard is Swedish for surfboard. Yes, surfboards were invented by the Swedish baker, Franf. For in 1618, Franf found a large tree trunk washed up on shore. The tree was of a sort unknown to Europe. Franf reasoned it must have come from a large continent to the west.

2) He announced his discovery to the Swedish court and asked royal packing for a proposed voyage of discovery. The Swedish king said Franf was an idiot, noting Christopher Columbus had discovered the New World in 1492, in addition to Basque fishermen, Viking explorers, the third-grade class of Stockholm’s very own Lutefisk academy, Chinese traders, and the people of the great migration across the land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

3) Franf wondered why entire tribes would assemble in frozen Siberia and then trek eastward into howling blizzards to an unknown land. Perhaps they really had a hankering for a White CastleTM burger. Those tiny delights with their minced onions are really tasty. Perhaps the ancient trekkers honestly thought there be a White Castle in the new land, just like the Spanish conquistadors and their Seven Cities of Gold. We’ll never know. Researchers are still waiting for the Cliff NotesTM to come out.

4) Franf waited patiently for the above long tidbit to end, before he could go home.

5) He moped for countless seconds–there were no stopwatches in 1618–before rebounding with the boundless optimism of all Post-Renaissance Swedish bakers.

6) Fraf went to a dock, sat down, pulled out his pipe, lit a match, and commenced to day dreaming. His long reddish beard burst into a fireball of flame; not applying the burning match to the pipe was a mistake. Howling with pain, Franf dove into the bay to put out the fire.

7) Flame extinguished, Franf immediately inventoried certain gaps in his education and there were many. However, the one that consistently came to the forefront was not learning to swim. Thank goodness, the tree trunk from the first tidbit, by now worn down to a thin board, was right next to him. (Notice the neat foreshadowing?)

8) Franf climbed onto the board and sat down to think. Here he was sitting in Sweden, the top of world, when suddenly, in geological terms, he caught a wave. “Häftig,” he shouted, “this is totally awesome!” People gathered on the shore as Franf rode one rörformig wave after another. They joined in. Surfing totally rocked Sweden. It was totally tubular, man.

11) Then the Thirty Years war broke out. Thousands and thousands of surfing Swedes lost their lives in the battlefields of Germany, never again to catch that perfect Baltic Sea wave. Surfing died out in that no longer care free Nordic land.

12) But Franf is still remembered in the vibrant culinary, surfing world. This recipe is called Saffransbröd, in anagrammic remembrance, of Franf’s böard.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Basil Pesto Pizza

Posted on November 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

BASIL PESTO PIZZA

INGREDIENTSBasilPestoPizza-

2 cups fresh basil
4 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons ground walnuts
¾ cup olive oil
¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese
¼ teaspoon white pepper

1 tablespoon flour
no-stick spray
1 pizza crust (bought or from below recipe)
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

SPECIAL UTENSIL

pizza pan
pizza cutter

Makes 1 pizza. Takes 30 minutes plus time needed to preheat oven. Allow 2 hours 15 minutes total if you are making your crust.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven heats, make basil pesto by dicing basil, garlic cloves, and walnuts. Add olive oil, basil, garlic, walnuts, Parmesan, and white pepper to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until garlic softens. Stir pesto frequently. Remove from heat.

Dust pizza pan with flour and spray with no-stick spray. Put pizza crust on pizza pan. Spread basil pesto evenly over the pizza crust. Sprinkle mozzarella evenly over pizza. Put pizza in oven and bake at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese or crust is golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Culinary historians say young Basil Rathbone was named after the herb, basil. Old Basil Rathbone was still named after the herb. In between, he got teased a lot. He took up acting in desperation, for no one cares if a successful actor acts weird or has a strange name. His brilliant performances in the Sherlock Holmes movies gave him that success. The teasing stopped.

2) But the inner anguish from his teasing did not. Then one day while in Spain filming for the movie, The Name Escapes Me, he met a little boy selling basil pesto pizza. It was excellent. Basil Rathbone spread the delicious recipe everywhere he went.. No longer would the little Basils of the world be teased. The actor was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. And the little boy? Why, he became Juan Carlos I of Spain, the man who ended Generalísimo Franco’s brutal dictatorship.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Orange Beef

Posted on November 6, 2015 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

ORANGE BEEF

INGREDIENTSOrangeBeef-

1 orange (Keep peel)

12 ounces flank steak
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 egg white
1 tablespoon rice wine (sometimes called mirin) or pale sherry

1⅓ cups white rice

1″ fresh ginger (or 2 teaspoons fresh)
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons beef broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
⅛ teaspoon pepper
½ tablespoon sugar

5 dried red chiles
1½ cups peanut oil
Fresh zest from 1 orange or 2 teaspoon dry zest

SPECIAL UTENSIL

wok or Dutch oven
zest peeler or potato peeler

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 1½ hours.

PREPARATION

Remove peel orange. Save orange slices. Remove zest, the orange part of the peel, with zest peeler. Dice zest. (If you want to have a more authentic taste and can afford to plan ahead, spread the zest evenly over wax paper and let sit for 1-to-2 days until it is dry and brittle. Or just buy orange zest.)

Cut flank steak into strips 2″ long and ¼” wide. Add cornstarch, egg white, and rice wine to mixing bowl. Toss strips until they are well coated. Add steak strips. Put in refrigerator and marinate for 1 hour.

While beef marinates cook rice according to instructions on package. Mince ginger and garlic clove. Add sesame oil, ginger, and garlic to skillet. Sauté at medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until garlic turns color. Stir frequently. Remove sautéed ginger and garlic to mixing bowl. Add beef broth, soy sauce, pepper, and sugar to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk.

Dice red chiles. Add peanut oil and steak strips to wok. Sauté on medium-high for 2 minutes or until steak strips start to turn brown. Remove steak and drain on paper towels. Reserve 1½ tablespoons of peanut oil Add 1½ tablespoons reserved peanut oil, orange zest, and red chiles to wok. Stir frequently. Sauté on medium-high heat for 2 minutes or until chiles darken and oil smells fragrant. Stir frequently.

Add ginger/garlic/broth/soy sauce from mixing bowl to middle of wok. Return steak strips back to wok. Sauté at medium-high heat for 1 minute or until the steak strips become crispy, shiny, and have absorbed most of the sauce. Serve on top of rice. Garnish with orange slices.

TIDBITS

1) Orange beef originally came from orange cattle roaming the Painted Dessert in Arizona. Their orange hide helped the beeves, or cattle, blend in with the Dessert’s orange rocks. This camouflage technique helped the beeves escape voracious giant carnivorous beavers.

2) Things looked bad when the vicious beavers began Beaver Dam, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient Animal World. The water level in the Painted Dessert began to rise. Then rose even more. The beeves moved higher and higher up the canyon walls. Soon they would reach the green rocks where their orange hides would stand out starkly against the green rocks. The toothy beavers began salivating.

3) Then in a fortuitous stroke of fiction, humans, the Rohohoe tribe, in fact, arrived in the Painted Dessert, bringing commas for run-on sentences and arrows for hunting.

4) And hunt they did. Giant beavers tasted great when sauteéd in a lemon-basil sauce. Life was good for the Rohohoe. It was even better for the beeves. Their feared predator gone, their numbers rebounded or soared, whichever metaphor works best for you.

5) The ancient Chinese loved orange beef, having acquired a taste for it years before. Unfortunately, the abominable snowman, yeti, hunted their own orange beeves to extinction. Orange hides really made hunting in the snow-covered mountains of Tibet overly easy.

6) Fortunately, the ancient Rohohoe loved Chinese jewelry. Trade talks, smoothed by a mutual love of ScrabbleTM proceeded rapidly. And so began the great orange beef cattle drives.

7) Until global warming caused sea levels to rise to such an extent that the land bridge between North America and Asia disappeared. Snap. Just like that.

8) Deprived of Chinese jewelry, the Rohohoe economy dissolved into anarchy. Traces of this once proud people show up only in the finest cookbooks. Bereft of fresh orange beeves, Chinese founded culinary schools. They would rely on their own ingredients. No longer would Chinese caravans ply the world’s continents. No longer would their tradesmen paint, “Cho was here,” on stones all over America’s Southwest. Oh, I guess I should tell also those archeologists, sweltering in the hot Arizonan sun, what those petroglyphs mean.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cuban Ropa Vieja

Posted on October 27, 2015 by pauldelancey

Cuban Entree

ROPA VIEJA

INGREDIENTSRopaVieja-

2 pounds flank steak
½ teaspoon salt
1 Roma tomato (1 additional later)
1 large onion
1 green bell pepper
3 garlic cloves
1 Roma tomato
3 tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup red wine

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add flank steak, and salt to large pot. Add enough water to cover steak with 2″ to spare. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 hours or until steak shreds easily. Keep adding water as necessary to keep steak covered. Remove steak. Reserve 1 cup of the water from the pot. Shred the beef using two forks.

While steak simmers, puree 1 Roma tomato. Seed bell pepper. Mince onion. Dice bell pepper, garlic cloves, and 1 Roma tomato. Add oil, onion, and bell pepper to skillet. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and bell pepper soften. Stir frequently. Add pepper, garlic, pureed tomato, diced tomato. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add shredded steak. Add wine and 1 cup water reserved from boiling the steak. Continue simmering at low-medium heat for 8 minutes or until well blended. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) Most of today’s younger folks have no idea how difficult it is to make ropa viejas, assuming incorrectly that it just shows up on their dinner plates. Nooo! It’s far more complicated than that. The feral flank steak only inhabits certain supermarkets. You’ll need to go online and hire a reputable safari guide if you wish to bring down this cut of meat.

3) And goodness sake, respect the defenses your ingredients have built up after years of human contact. The vicious onion will make your eyes hurt when you slice it. You hurt it. It hurts you. Best way to cut onions is under water. Do you have good scuba gear? The tomato stains your shirts whenever you cut it. This is a reflex action on its part, no thinking is involved. The only known defense against an enraged tomato is to wear red colored shirts.

3) Some ingredients are our friends, though. The friendly garlic bulb wards off blood-sucking vampires, which is good. Do your research. Pick ingredients wisely and be on guard.

– 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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Mexican Molettes

Posted on October 27, 2015 by pauldelancey

Mexican Dessert

MOLETTES

INGREDIENTSMolettes-

¼ cup butter
4 rolls
1¼ cups refried beans
1 cup grated Four Mexican Cheeses
½ cup salsa or pico de gallo

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Let butter soften at room temperature. Cut rolls in half. Remove a little bit of the insides from each half to make a hollow spot. Spread butter over the hollow spots on the roll halves. Put rolls in over. Bakel at 400 degrees for 5-to-10 minutes or until rolls turn crispy and golden brown.

While rolls are baking, cook refried beans in pan at low heat. Put beans in hollow spots in rolls. Add salsa and sprinkle cheese over each roll.

Makes 8 moletttes or half rolls. Takes 15-to-20 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) This dish is sold in the morning by street vendors all over Mexico.

2) The east coast of Mexico is on the Gulf of Mexico.

3) Gulf gas stations used to be all over America.

4) America’s Cup goes to the winner of an international sailing event.

5) Sophia Loren, the famous Italian actress, wore a C cup.

6) Vitamin C is good for you. It helps banish colds.

7) Ice cream is cold. So is Iceland.

8) Iceland also has volcanoes. So does Mexico.

9) But Mexicans eat molettes while Icelanders do not.

– 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

Ćevapi – Bosnian Sausage

Posted on October 24, 2015 by pauldelancey

Bosnian Entree

ĆEVAPI
(sausage)

INGREDIENTScevapi-

2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground lamb
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Makes 48 small sausages. Serves 6. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION                                                                                      The Big Bang shown with sausages.

Mine garlic and onion. Add all ingredients to small mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly with hands. Make sausages 2″ long and 1″ wide. Grill using medium heat for 5-to-10 minutes or sausage is brown and cooked through.

Goes quite well in somun, a Bosnia pita bread, or pita loaves. Ćevapi also pairs well with ŝopska salata, a salad consisting of: tomato, cucumber, onions, peppers, sirene or feta cheese, and parsley.

TIDBITS

1) A startling new theory says the entire universe started as a big, big, really big, gigantic even, Bosnian sausage.

2) In splendid contrast to old Big Bang thought, this theory explains how the Big Bang started.

3) It started when someone wrapped the immensely vast Bosnian sausage in aluminum foil and put it a microwave that measured light years across, then set the microwave for 30 minutes.

4) Boom!

5) The Big Bang! Billions and billions of smaller Bosnian sausages flung out in every direction. With time, gravity and radiation from the exploded microwave produced stars, planets, Bosnia, Leonard Nimoy, and Taco BellTM.

6) How do we know this? Because we have brains. Bosnia is an anagram for “ao bains,” which is close to “O, brains.” Coincidence? I don’t think so.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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