Wanda Wunder #27
– 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.
Please, please, please, do what he asks.
Uncle Sam #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.
INGREDIENTS
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons fresh thyme
3 tomatoes
2 pounds chicken pieces, bone in or boneless
1 teaspoon salt or fleur de sel*
¼ cup olive oil
3 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto or Bayonne ham*
¾ cup white wine
1 bay leaf
1 cup chicken stock
2 teaspoon Spanish paprika, paprika, or espelette*
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
* = You can find fleur de sel, Bayonne ham, and espelette online, but they can be expensive.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
mandoline
8″ * 12″ casserole dish
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Seed bell peppers. Cut bell peppers and onion into ¼” slices with mandoline or knife. Cut slices in half. Dice garlic and thyme. Cut tomatoes into ½” wedges. If you are using chicken breasts, cut them in two. Rub chicken pieces with salt.
Add olive oil and prosciutto to large pan. Sauté for 2 minutes at high heat or until prosciutto becomes crispy. Stir frequently. Remove and drain on paper towels. Add chicken pieces to large pan. Sauté for 10 minutes at medium heat or until chicken turns golden brown. Flip chicken pieces every 2 minutes. Remove chicken and drain on paper towels. Add bell pepper, garlic, and onion. Sauté for 2 minutes at medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Add white wine and bay leaf. Simmer at low heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently.
Add contents of pan, thyme, chicken stock, and chicken pieces to casserole dish. Sprinkle chicken pieces with Spanish paprika. Place tomato wedges between chicken pieces. Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees or until sauces thickens. While chicken bakes, dice parsley. Remove casserole dish from oven. Remove bay leaf. Place crispy prosciutto slice over chicken. Garnish with parsley.
TIDBITS
1) It is well known fact that the Basque word for basket is saskia
2) The Franks who overran Gaul, modern day France, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire loved peaches.
3) Indeed, they invaded purposefully to pick prized perfect peaches produced by the innumerable peaches orchards to be found there.
4) At first, frenetic fresh Franks gathered peaches with their hands.
5) But one can only carry off two peaches that way.
6) The ravenous ravagers ranged right to the Rhone valley. The Rhone Valley had for reasons unclear to current culinary historians had a surplus of over a million peach baskets.
7) An advance party of Franks plundered the valley and carried off all the peach baskets. Indeed, everyone of the frightening Franks walked away with maybe twelve baskets; we don’t know the exact number.
8) The First Franks never went anywhere without their baskets. The enraged basketless Second Franks chased them to southwest France.
9) The locals called them Saskia after the First Franks word for basket.
10) In time the Saskia lost their original language. A new language required a new name. The medieval French dubbed these people, Basques.
11) The Basques loved sports. In particular, they loved to play Basquaise Boule. The object of this game was to pass a ball around and try to toss it into a peach basket. Sometimes the players fashioned the ball out of chicken breasts, hence the name Chicken Basquaise. Chef Jean Paul La Grange created this dish to honor the new sport.
12) But wait! There’s more! In 1890, YMCA director James Naismith toured the land of the Basques. His synapses fired and he determined bring this sport back home. It’d be just the thing to tire out restless school kids. The game proved popular, at first, in his town of Springfield. But the kids eventually grew bored of having to climb up a ladder to retrieve the ball from the peach basket. Late one night, a gang of hoodlums calling themselves The Epic of Gilgamesh Haters cut the bottom off all the baskets.
13) But far from ruining the game, this vandalism, made the game much faster. Indeed the tempo of pass, shoot, score, pass, shoot, score now prevailed. The kids loved the game now. So did their parents. A year later, a senior taking Basque studies opined that as we’re living in America, why not call the name something American like basketball.
14) America embraced basketball and soon became a superpower. Now you know how.
– 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 – SOUP
¼ cup bulgur wheat
1⅓ cups red lentils
2½ tablespoons rice
2 garlic cloves
1 large onion
1 tomato
2 tablespoons butter (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
2½ teaspoons flour
2 tablespoons tomato paste
6 cups broth, beef, chicken, or vegetable
INGREDIENTS – TOPPING
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon dried mint
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ tablespoon paprika
Serves 6. Takes 50 minutes.
PREPARATION – SOUP
Wash and drain bulgur wheat, red lentils, and rice. Mince garlic, onion, and tomato. Add garlic, onion, 2 tablespoons butter, and olive oil to pot. Simmer at medium heat for 4 minutes until onion softens. Stir frequently.
Add flour. Sauté until flour browns. Stir constantly. (Browning occurs quickly. Don’t let it burn.) Add minced tomato and tomato paste. Stir with spoon until well blended. Add broth. Stir with spoon until well blended. Add bulgur wheat, red lentils, and rice. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes or until lentils soften. Stir enough to prevent burning. Remove from heat.
PREPARATION – TOPPING
While lentils simmer, add 2 tablespoons butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add all other topping ingredients to sauce pan Sauté briefly until butter sizzles. Stir constantly.
PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY
Ladle soup into serving bowls. Drizzle topping over soup. Goes well with lemon slices.
TIDBITS
1) The Ezogelin is round.
2) This is because it is has been ladled into a round bowl.
3) Indeed, all soups ladled into a round bowl become round, not just Ezogelin.
4) What if you wanted your Ezogelin to be another shape, say rectangular?
5) Sad to say, finding a rectangular soup bowl can be quite difficult.
5) Find a hexagonal bowl, even more so.
6) Even though you could place rectangular and hexagonal bowls next to each other and not have any open space between them. As the following nonexistent picture could have shown.
7) So alas, we must work with round bowls.
8) One possibility is to put a square cookie cutter in the bowl. Squirt liquid nitrogen into the space between the square cutter and the round edge of the bowl. Then flash freeze the nitrogen.
9) May I suggest using super-duper insulated gloves while doing this?
10) Why? Nitrogen becomes liquid at -320 degrees Fahrenheit. It freezes at -346. The average low temperature in Wisconsin in the winter is 8 degrees and you’d wear gloves then.
11) What should do if you drop liquid nitrogen? Step back immediately, point at the liquid nitrogen, and say in your loudest, sternest voice, “Liquid nitrogen! Don’t touch it. Your hand will freeze and shatter.”
12) Well, that’s bad. It should go without saying, that you shouldn’t try to mop up a liquid-nitrogen spill either.
13) What about the frozen nitrogen in our newly constructed bowl, the one with the square center? The frozen nitrogen will freeze anything that comes in contact with it. This is unarguably bad for your guests, except of course, for the truly unpleasant ones. Check with the FBI on this one.
14) So we must regretfully search for another way to make square soup.
15) The one that appeals to me is to place repelling force fields, with the correct strengths of course, along the edge of the bowl. These fields will push the soup away and into the shape of a square.
16) Way cool. You’ll dazzle your guests. Safely, too.
17) Not only that, you’ll impress the heck out of the scientists at NASA.
18) Life is good again.
– 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.
We’re just five months away from the start of the First Elephant Marathon on ESPN8. And it’s going to be televised on ESPN8(tm)!
“We couldn’t be prouder,” said gamekeeper Absko Otieno of the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary. “We take in injured elephants and try to rehabilitate them. To that end, we constantly take them out for exercise. Got to build up their muscles and endurance, you know.
“At first, we could only get them to walk for a mile at most. A few months later, we stretched their walks to two miles. But you know, a healthy elephant needs to do much more. But we just couldn’t coax them into doing that. What to do?
“Then thank goodness, just as we going to give up again after just two miles, a peanut truck came by. You know, just like an ice cream truck but with peanuts. So this peanut truck came by playing Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” And you know, just as peanuts are the elephants’ favorite food, “Ride of the Valkyries” is their favorite music. Elephants can’t get enough of Wagner.
“Anyway, all the elephants turned around and ran after the peanut truck. For 26 miles, a marathon! We paid the peanut-truck driver to drive 26 miles around the sanctuary every week. At first, maybe a dozen people showed up to watch. Then a hundred. Then hundreds. Then thousands and tens of thousands. This country went elephant-racing mad.
“Soon wildlife tours made stops to see our elephants race. One of them worked for ESPN. He bought the rights to the elephant marathon. There you go, and oh, don’t try this at home. Hope to see you at our marathon!”
Ellie the Elephant practicing for the marathon.
– 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.
Oh gosh, a lot of this lately.
Angry Man #15
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.
This is what happened.
– 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 – CHICKEN
2 chicken breasts
¾ teaspoon salt
INGREDIENTS – SALAD
½ red onion
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
⅔ head Napa cabbage or ½ head green cabbage
1 large carrot
½ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup fresh mint
2 green onions
⅓ cup roasted peanuts
¼ teaspoon black pepper
INGREDIENTS – DRESSING
2 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoons chili garlic sauce or sriracha
2 tablespoons fish sauce or soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
SPECIAL UTENSIL
mandoline
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour.
PREPARATION – CHICKEN
Add chicken and salt to pot. Add enough water to cover chicken. Bring to boil using medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low-medium. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and tender to the fork. Remove chicken and shred with two forks.
PREPARATION -SALAD
While chicken simmers, use mandoline or knife to cut red onion into slices ¼” thick. Add red-onion slices and rice wine vinegar to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Let sit for 15 minutes.
While chicken simmers and sliced red onion sits, shred Napa cabbage. Julienne carrot. Dice cilantro, mint, and green onion. Add shredded chicken and all remaining salad ingredients to mixing bowl with red onion..
PREPARATION – DRESSING
Mince garlic cloves. Add all dressing ingredients to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended.
Add dressing ingredients to bowl with chicken and salad. Toss salad and dressing with two forks until well blended.
TIDBITS
1) Shredded Chicken Salad uses shredded chicken.
2) You can tell my synapses are really firing today.
3) Shredding is also a surfing term. It means to surf a wave in a flamboyant and adept manner.
4) Shredding and shredding means to shred a wave then shred chicken for a meal or eat shredded chicken for a meal. The following conversation illustrates the two meanings of shredding.
Surfer 1: “Whoa dude, you really shredded the gnarly waves out there.”
Surfer 2: “Thanks man, primo waves. Primo waves.”
Surfer 1: “Ya hungry for Ho Chi’s chicken shack?”
Surfer 2: “Cowabunga dude, he really shreds the chicken.”
5) Wouldn’t The Two Meanings of Shredding be a great title for a book on Eastern philosophy?
6) Potato chip is a derisive term for a ridiculously small surf board.
7) Note that a small surf board is relative to the size of a surf. What is a potato chip for a 6′ 7″ man would be an okay board for a petite woman.
8) Surf boards for chicken are never called potato chips.
9) Because chickens are so small to start with.
10) Most chickens never master the art of surfing. Turkeys never do. Roosters could shred the waves if they would only concentrate. But after every successful maneuver, they’ll crow to the heavens, lose sight of the waves, and wipeout. And let me tell you, there’s nothing surlier than a rooster that’s bailed.
11) However, a small number hens can really surf. If you’re lucky you can see hens shooting the curls at your local beach. But if you want to be guaranteed world-class hens shredding the waves, you really must attend the Hilo Chicken Surfing Invitational every May. Be sure to book right away. Tickets and rooms disappear months in advance.
– 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.
Now you’ve gone and done it.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
INGREDIENTS
2 garlic cloves
1 shallot
½ tablespoon chili powder
¾ teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon fennel powder
½ tablespoon garam masala
¾ teaspoon minced ginger
½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (5 tablespoons more later)
1¼ pounds fish: cod, seer fish, or king mackerel
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 lemon wedges
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Mince garlic cloves and shallot. Add all ingredients except fish and 5 tablespoons vegetable oil to mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whish until you get a well blended paste. Cut fish into 8 pieces Pat cod dry. Pat paste onto fish pieces. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Add 5 tablespoons vegetable oil to large pan. Fry at medium-high heat until a little bit of paste starts to dance in the oil. Gently add fish pieces to hot oil. Fry for 3 minutes. Carefully flip fish pieces. Fry again for 3 minutes. Keep flipping and frying until fish turn brown on both sides, become crispy, and flaky. Garnish with lemon wedges. Goes well with rice.
TIDBITS
1) The two Chettinad Fish Fry fillets in the above picture look like wings. Birds have wings. They can fly. Fish that have highly modified pectoral fins can jump out of the water and glide for up to 650 feet.
2) Flying fish propel themselves out of the sea at 35 miles per hour. This speed far exceeds anything humans can manage. Of course, the limited range of the heavier-than-air fish rules out long distance races such as the mile. However, flying beat the pants out of human sprinters, whether it be the 100-yard dash or the even longer 100 meters.
3) This is why flying fish were banned from all international sprints. They never got the chance to compete in any Olympics. No, not even in 1896.
4) The Exocet missile is named after the Latin name for the flying-fish family. So, that is something.
– 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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