Posts Tagged With: Olduvai Gorge

Cheese Lasagna

Posted on March 29, 2024 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

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CHEESE LASAGNA

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INGREDIENTS – PASTA
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3 cups flour*
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
½ cup water or more
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* = More might be needed for dusting, texture.
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INGREDIENTS – CHEESE
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3 garlic cloves
1 white onion
2½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1¼ cups shredded Parmesan cheese (2 tablespoons more later)
2¼ cups ricotta cheese
⅓ cup red wine
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 26-ounce jar spaghetti sauce
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon basil
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon thyme
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INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY
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2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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9-inch x 13-inch baking dish
no-stick pastry mat
rolling pin
hand crank pasta machine
cooking scissors (If your baking dish is 8-inches x 8-inches, for example)
no-stick spray
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Serves 12. Takes 3 hours 10 minutes.
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PREPARATION – DOUGH
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Combine 3 cups flour, eggs, egg yolk, and water into large mixing bowl. Knead with hands for 15 minutes. Make a ball of the mixture. It should be only slightly sticky and 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. Divide dough ball into 3 equal mini-dough balls. Wrap mini-dough balls with plastic wrap and let sit in refrigerator for 1 hour.
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PREPARATION – CHEESE
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mince garlic cloves and onion. Add mozzarella, Parmesan, and ricotta cheeses to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended
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Add onion, garlic, and olive oil. to frying pan. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add red wine, spaghetti sauce, diced tomatoes, basil, bay leaf, Italian seasoning, oregano, pepper, salt, and thyme. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
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PREPARATION – PASTA
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This preparation needs to be done 3 times. Dust no-stick pastry mat with flour. Remove 1 dough ball from refrigerator. Keep remaining dough balls in fridge until needed. Put this dough ball on pastry mat. Dust rolling pin. Roll out dough into oval shape 5½” wide and ¼” thick. (Anything thicker inhibits dough from going through hand-crank pasta machine.)
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Use pasta machine’s thickest setting. (#1 on mine.) Hold dough vertically and straight as possible over pasta machine’s roller. Turn crank slowly to feed dough oval through roller. Fold resulting dough sheet in half. Cut about ¼” off each side to make it rectangular and thus easier to feed into roller. (This also makes for uniform dough sheets.) Run this folded sheet through roller.
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Dust dough sheet. Set pasta’s setting the next narrower setting. (#2 on mine.) Again, hold dough sheet vertically and straight as possible over pasta machine’s roller. Repeat process, selecting a narrower setting each time, until final pasta sheet is about 1/16″ thick. Repeat entire pasta-sheet preparation until all dough is used. Trim pasta sheets to be 13″ * 4½”. The cutoff pieces of dough can be used to make another sheet.
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PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY
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Grate 2 teaspoons Parmesan. Use no-stick spray on baking dish. Put a layer of lasagna, 2 side-by-side noodles on the dish. If the noodles happen to be longer than your baking dish, snip off the excess length with your scissors. In this recipe, 6 noodles will make one lasagna dish with 2 layers of meat sauce. Reserve about ½ cup meat sauce. Divide remaining meat sauce and cheese equally between layers.
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Cover this 1st layer of noodles with a layer of meat sauce and a layer of cheese. Add a 2nd
layer of noodles, meat sauce, and cheese. Add a 3rd layer of noodles. Spoon just a little meat sauce atop the top layer along with 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese. Put glass lid or aluminum foil on top of baking dish. Cook lasagna in covered baking dish in oven at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Cook uncovered for an additional 15 minutes or until bubbly. Remove and let sit for 5 minutes more.
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TIDBITS
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1) Lucy Olduvai of Olduvai Gorge was the world’s first human. Her parents were almost human. And oh my gosh, her brother Ogg, older than her by two years, was oh so close to be human. But with Lucy, they had finally got birthing a human right.
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2) But, sad to say, Little Lucy was a brat. She taunted her sibling mercilessly. “You’re subhuman,”  The sensitive Ogg ran crying to Mama Olduvai. Mama Olduvai got cross with Little Lucy. “Go play with that herd of mammoth cattle until you’re ready to apologize to your brother.”
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3) Oh, tidbit 3) proves that the nearly humans and first humans had the power of speech and in fact, could speak English. Well done, you.
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4) Anyway, proud Little Lucy wasn’t ready to apologize. So, she spent a lot of time poking the cattle. Then she started pulling. Fortunately for the ascent of humanity, she didn’t start with a bull. She began with a cow and got milk. “Wow, this tastes great! I call it milk.”
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5) Then she spotted a field of wheat. The equivalent of a light bulb turned on her first-human brain. “I’ll bet if I can get the cattle to stampede over the wheat field, they’ll trample and crush the wheat into flour.*”
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6) * = First Human speech was much complex than was first suspected, constructing complicated sentences with commas and everything.
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7) So, Little Lucy, ran back to her family as fast as her first-human legs would carry her. “Mama, Mama, I’ve discovered milk and wheat. We can evolve.”
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8) Mama Ogg scowled. “Evolution can wait. Are you ready to apologize to Ogg?”
“I am. Sorry Ogg.”
“It’s okay,” said Ogg, “Do you think we could make lasagna? I’ve had visions of it in my sleep?”
“Well,” said Little Lucy, “we need culture to make cheese.”
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9) So, the Olduvai Gorgers invented cave painting and five-act plays. But this was the wrong culture for making cheese out of milk. The next day, however, they discovered the right culture.
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10) The Gorgers, being hunter-gathers, par excellence, gathered eggs, garlic, cloves, onions, grapes, olives, tomatoes, basil, bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme, and salt. With their almost-human synapses firing something fierce, they eventually uncovered the secret of making tasty cheese lasagna. Life was truly good for the Gorgers.
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11) Until the mammoth-cattle herd migrated out of Africa. Oh no! No herd, no milk. No milk, no lasagna. “What’s the point of evolving?” said Papa Ogg, “if we can’t dine on lasagna?”
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12) “Let’s follow the mammoth cattle,” said Little Lucy. “Let’s follow the most important ingredient in lasagna.” so they did. And this is how humanity spread over the entire planet. Yay.
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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, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nepali Chicken Thukpa

Posted on September 23, 2023 by pauldelancey

Nepali Soup

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CHICKEN THUKPA

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INGREDIENTS
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½ pound rice noodles
2 garlic cloves
¼ cup fresh cilantro
2 green chiles
2 green onions
1 small yellow or white onion
1 bell pepper
2 carrots
⅔ pound boneless, skinless chicken parts
2 tablespoons olive oil
⅛ teaspoon asafoetida* or ½ teaspoon dried chives
1 teaspoon minced ginger
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon timur powder* or Szechuan pepper* or red pepper flakes
½ cup chopped tomatoes
½ teaspoon turmeric
5 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon lemon juice
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* = These can be found online. Use sonic obliterator on those who complained if you substituted.
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SPECIAL UTENSIL
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sonic obliterator
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Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.
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PREPARATION
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Cook noodles according to instructions on package. Be sure to stir occasionally so noodles don’t stick together. Drain. Rinse with cold water. Mince garlic. Seed green chiles. Dice cilantro, green chiles, green onions, and yellow onion. Julienne bell pepper and carrots. Cut chicken into strips 1½” long and ¼” wide.
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Add olive oil, garlic, and yellow onion to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 4 minutes or until yellow onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken strips. Sauté at medium heat for 3 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Stir frequently. Add asafoetida, bell pepper, carrot, cilantro, minced ginger, green chile, green onion, pepper, salt, timur powder, tomatoes, and turmeric. Stir until well blended. Add chicken broth. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Reduce to low heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add lemon juice and stir. Divide noodles into bowls. Ladle chicken soup over noodles.
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TIDBITS
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1) There are reasons why the Nepalis love Chicken Thukpa so much. It’s soup. Who doesn’t love soup?  It has chiles in it. Who loves chiles? People in hot climates, such as Mexico and Kenya.
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2) But just because you love to put spicy chiles in your food doesn’t necessarily mean you can abide your land’s hot, sweltering weather. You leave your homeland in search of cooler climes and you take along with you the seeds of your beloved in chiles.
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3) In fact, culinary historians and anthropologists say the first such migration occurred when Lucy of Olduvai Gorge, a hominid, butterfly* collector, persuaded her tribe to search out cool, pleasant pastures where chicken herds teemed. * = Butterfly fossils are hard to find.
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4) And so Lucy’s tribe trekked north. They got lost many times as their GPS didn’t work and the men refused to ask for directions.
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5) They continued their march to the European-North American land bridge, evolving along the way and relaxing with a good game of bridge during rest stops.
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6) A long time later, give or take a year, the Evolving Hominids–Isn’t that a great name for a rock ‘n’ roll band?–found Mexico where they naturally united with the Polloan Pueblo. The combined chile-seed-carrying Oldupo People crossed over the North American-Asian land bridge and eventually found themselves in what is now modern-day Nepal.
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7) The Oldupo loved the cool breezes coming down from Nepal’s Himalayan mountains and decided to settle down and finish their evolving there. So, we’ve explained the Nepali’s love of chile, but what about chicken? Chicken Thukpa has chicken it. What about that?
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8) The meteor of 66 million years ago that wiped out nearly all dinosaurs, did not result in the extinction of the gigantic Pullumosaur. This dinosaur chicken stretched to 90 feet in length and stood 80 feet high. It’s very size intimidated the heck out of the predators, who noted the Cretaceous maxim, “There’s nothing more dangerous than colossal giant chicken.”
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9) The pullumosaurs managed to dodge the extinction of its fellow dinosaurs with the simple expedient of burying their head in the sand until the meteor event ran its course.
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10) More than a bit skittish, the dinosaur chickens departed for a new home free of meteors. By a strange coincidence, the pullumosaurs–after many exciting adventures–found themselves in modern-day Nepal.
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11) Unfortunately, Nepal simply didn’t have enough food to support countless herds of gigantic chickens. Over time, evolutionary pressures shrank the pullumosaur in size to our current chicken.
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12) When the Oldupo of tidbit 7) arrived in Nepal, they naturally wondered if chickens would be tasty. Would they go with chiles? They wondered and wondered until Juana Lucy first ate one. “They taste just like chicken,” she shouted. “I bet they’ll make a great soup mixed with chiles.” Ever since, the Nepali descendants of the Oldupo have loved Chicken Thuka Soup. And so do I.
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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.

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Malva Pudding

Posted on August 21, 2023 by pauldelancey

South African Dessert

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MALVA PUDDING

(Malvapoeding)

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INGREDIENTS – CAKE
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2 tablespoons butter, melted
⅔ cup white sugar
3½ tablespoons apricot jam
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup whole milk
¼ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups flour
no-stick spray
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INGREDIENTS – SAUCE
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1 cup evaporated milk or heavy whipping cream
½ cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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electric beater
8″ * 8″ baking or casserole dish
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Serves 8. Takes 1 hour.
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PREPARATION – CAKE
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add 2 tablespoons melted butter and sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on medium until butter and sugar become creamy. Add apricot jam, baking powder, eggs, milk, and salt. Mix with beater set on medium until mixture becomes fluffy. Gradually add flour, mixing all the while until well blended. Spray baking dish with no-stick spray. Pour batter into baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees or until toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean. Poke holes in cake with fork.
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PREPARATION – SAUCE
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About 10 minutes before cake is done, add all sauce ingredients to large pan. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes or until sugar and butter melt, the mixture becomes smooth, and bubbles start to form. Remove from heat and cover. Ladle warm sauce evenly over cake. Let cake sit for 20 minutes to give the cake time to absorb the sauce. Cut cake into 12 pieces. Goes well with vanilla ice cream.
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TIDBITS
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1) Malva puddings are square. Keyboard keys are square. Keyboard keys were inspired by malva puddings. Because everyone loves malva puddings.
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2) Most malva pudding is to be found in South Africa. But there can’t be many South Africa keyboard users and professional typists in comparison to the rest of the world.
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3) That’s true now, but in the first year in the existence of the square keys, 98% of the square-key enthusiasts were South African.
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4) Indeed, these squarekeyers so loved their malva pudding that they made their keys from fresh malva. As one could imagine, typing with fresh malva was quite squishy. Globs of malva pudding got into everything, particularly the keyboard. Typing became impossible.
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5) Everyone knows the surrender ceremony ending the war with Japan was signed on the Battleship Missouri. This document was supposed to have been composed on a square-key typewriter. But the fresh malva keys gummed up the typewriter. No more malva typewriters, no Japanese surrender. No surrender would have meant more atomic bombs, perhaps a bloody invasion of Japan.
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6) Which was bad.
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7) Fortunately, Corporal Lucy Dubai, reserve typist second class, had her personal round-key with her. Her roundkeyer was made of metal with glass caps.
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8) Sure, these keys didn’t give off the same pleasing scent of the square malva keys, but they worked. General MacArthur had Corporal type up the surrender document. The relevant dignitaries signed the surrender terms that very day.
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9) Grateful soldiers and marines, scheduled for the invasion of Japan. Lucy Dubai became a wildly popular pinup girl in barracks all over the Pacific Ocean. Her roundkeyer replaced the malvakeyer as the number-one typewriter pinup. Round keys would dominate the world for decades.
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10) Culinary anthropologists general credit Lucy* of Olduvai Gorge with inventing the first roundkeyer. So, you’d think that round keys would dominate the world to the very moment that you’re reading this tidbit.
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11) However, much of humanity left Africa after Lucy’s invention. Those who went to Europe would favor square keys. This bias can be found in their DNA. However, the tribes who stayed in Africa and those who trekked to Asia preferred round keys. Waves of squarekeyers and roundkeyers would eventually wash up on the shores of North America causing tension and conflict in the United States that haunts us to this very day.
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12) Then how did squares conquer the modern keyboard world? It has something to do with a bar bet at the Blue Armadillo in 1993. There, now you know.
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13) * = Corporal Lucy Dubai could trace direct descent from Lucy of Olduvai Gorge.
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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, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Your DNA

Posted on August 5, 2023 by pauldelancey

Billions of years* ago the first viruses appeared on Earth. (The very first one called herself, “Frieda.”) Hundreds of millions of years* ago, the first critters made their way on to land to dry off. 3.2 million years back, Lucy of Olduvai Gorge celebrated the very first sweet sixteen party for young girls. Sure, we’ve all evolved considerably since, but what has remained constant all that time? What does your DNA have in common with that of Frieda the Virus?

Just two things. They’re shown below.

* = Within two weeks, precision has its limits.

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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: Secrets of the Universe | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tomato Pie

Posted on June 20, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Entree

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TOMATO PIE

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INGREDIENTS­
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1 tablespoon fresh basil
1½ tablespoons fresh dill
3 green onions
1½ tablespoons fresh oregano
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
2½ pounds tomatoes
½ tablespoon salt
¾ cup mayonnaise
¾ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
¾ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 9″ pie shell
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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mandoline (optional)
aluminum foil
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Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Preheat oven to 360 degrees, Dice basil, dill, green onions, oregano, and parsley. Use mandoline or knife to Slice tomatoes into slices ¼”-thick slices with mandoline or knife. Place tomato slices 1-layer deep on paper towels. Sprinkle slices with salt. Place paper towels on tomatoes. Pat tomatoes dry. Let sit 15 minutes. Pat tomato slices dry again with new paper towels. Add mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, basil, dill, green onion, oregano, and mayonnaise to mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended.
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Arrange ⅓ of the tomato slices over the pie crest. Spread ½ of the cheese/mayonnaise mixture over the tomato slices. Repeat. Arrange last layer of tomato slices over the 2nd cheese/ mayonnaise layer. Press these slices firmly into the cheese/mayonnaise. (This makes the layers come together.) Wrap only the edges of crust with tin foil to prevent the crust from browning excessively.
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Bake at 360 degrees for 35 minutes or until the mayonnaise/cheese mixture turns golden brown and begins to bubble. Garnish with parsley.
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TIDBITS
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1) Lucy of Olduvai Gorge had a brother called Tomato. His skeleton has yet to be discovered. That’s why know so little of him. While most homonids were content to be hunter-gathers, Tomato developed the tomato by careful cross pollination. He then scattered tomato seeds along his way to North and South America. It’s only fitting that we named the tomato after him.
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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

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on April 25, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

GLUTEN FREE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

1¼ teaspoon baking soda
2¼ cups gluten free flour*
¾ teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
1½ teaspoons vanilla
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

* = I used King Arthur Gluten-Free Measure For Measure Flour.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
2 cookie sheets

Makes 50 cookies. Takes 1 hour. (Varies with the number of batches.)

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add baking soda, flour, and salt to 1st, large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until thoroughly blended. Add butter, brown sugar, sugar, eggs, and vanilla to 2nd, larger mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set on medium until mixture becomes fluffy. Gradually add dry mixture from 1st mixing bowl to the butter/sugar mixture in 2nd mixing bowl. Mix with beater at medium setting until thoroughly mixed. Fold in chocolate chips. Mix with hands until well blended.

Roll dough into little balls about 1″ wide. Leave a 1″ gap between chocolate chip/dough balls. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown. (Baking times for successive batches may vary.) Let cookies cool for 2 minutes before transferring with a spatula to wire rack or cold plate. Cool for an additional 5-to-20 minutes or as long as you can stand waiting.

TIDBITS

1) Culinary archaeologists hold Lucy of Olduvai Gorge baked the first cookies 3.2 million years ago. Lucy cookies inspired her hominid neighbors to evolve into humans and to develop agriculture. Farming freed people from non-stop hunting and gathering. This left time for adults to get frisky. Frisky adults sparked a population explosion that ate up all the wheat. Whole tribes left Africa searching for new lands suitable for wheat and gluten-free substitutes. Humanity’s ascent had begun.

 

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

Fava Bean Soup From Morocco

Posted on July 27, 2022 by pauldelancey

Moroccan Soup

FAVA BEAN SOUP
(Bessara)

INGREDIENTS

½ pound dried fava beans
3 cups water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1¼ teaspoons cumin
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1¾ teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ teaspoon cayenne
¼ teaspoon harissa* or paprika

* = Harissa maybe found in Middle Eastern supermarkets or online.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

Serves 2. Takes 1 hour 50 minutes plus soaking for 10 hours or overnight.

PREPARATION

Add fava beans to large mixing bowl. Add water to cover beans with 2″ to spare. Soak for 10 hours or overnight. Drain beans. Remove their skin. Add fava beans, 3 cups water, olive oil, cumin, garlic, 1¾ teaspoons paprika, and salt to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally to prevent burning. Cover pot with lid. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour or until fava beans become tender. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

Add contents of pot to blender. Puree until smooth. Add lemon juice. Puree briefly until well blended. Garnish with cayenne and harissa. Goes well with flatbread.

TIDBITS

1) Doesn’t that look like an eye? The Urberqian hominids of modern-day Morocco thought so. Not only that they, along with the entire prehistoric world, believed that anything that looked like an eye but wasn’t, would steal your spirit. No one wants that. So, the Urbeqians wouldn’t eat soup. Then Abim, a really clever hominid, noted that getting cayenne in your eyes blinded you for a bit. So, sprinkling cayenne on soup would blind evil spirits dwelling in soups. Early people could now eat soup. Early people now had energy to explore the world. The Urbeqians did just that, 10 years before Lucy led her clan of Olduvai Gorge. We don’t know about the Urberqians achievement because, you know, prehistory. But this is why we garnish soups with cayenne pepper, and pepper.

 

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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tarte Flambee

Posted on November 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

French Entree

TARTE FLAMBEE

INGREDIENTS – DOUGH

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2 cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon sugar
½ tablespoon olive oil
½ cup warm water
3 tablespoons flour

INGREDIENTS – TOPPINGS

½ pound bacon
¼ pound Gruyère cheese
1 medium onion
¼ cup crême fraiche
¾ pound fromage blanc or cream cheese
⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

pizza stone or baking sheet
parchment paper
mandoline (optional)
sonic obliterator (Go get one)

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

Add pizza stone to center rack in oven. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Add 2 cups flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add oil and water. Knead by hand until well blended and dough forms.

Dust large flat surface with 3 tablespoons flour. Divide dough in half. Roll out dough half until you get a round pizza crust 10″ across. Put parchment paper on baking sheet. Put pizza crust on parchment paper. Repeat for the 2nd dough half.

PREPARATION – TOPPINGS

Dice bacon. Grate Gruyère cheese. Cut onion into slices ⅛” thick. Add crême fraiche, fromage blanc, nutmeg, pepper, and salt to 2nd mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Spread crême fraiche/fromage blanc mix evenly over pizza crusts. Leave a ½” border around the edges. Sprinkle bacon evenly over cheese mix. Sprinkle onion over bacon and crême fraiche. Sprinkle Gruyère cheese over everything.

Carefully, carefully (use oven mitts) slide pizza crusts and the parchment paper underneath them onto preheated pizza stone or baking sheets. Bake at 500 degrees until puffed, golden brown, and crispy. Serve immediately.

Zap unappreciative guests with sonic obliterator. You don’t need negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe uses a pizza stone.

2) The earliest human, Lucy of Olduvai Gorge, did not have a pizza stone. So, she did not make this recipe. If only she had had even a baking sheet. But she did not. No Tarte Flambee for Lucy.

3) Her friend Charlie Olduvai had a football his mom had made from the pelts of little animals. Lucy always promised to hold the pelt football while he ran up to kick it. But Lucy always pulled the pelt ball away at the last moment and Charlie would fall onto his back.

4) Charlie Olduvai grew tired of his mistreatment. So did his parents who never liked Lucy’s parents anyway. “They’ve ruined football for us until the twentieth century. Bah, the slackers will never make anything out of themselves.”

5) So the disgruntled Olduvais left. Many gorge dwellers followed the well-liked family. These first humans thought they’d only walk for a day or so before settling down beside a new stream near a nice plain filled with lots of juicy animals to eat.

6) Then George Gorge piped up and said he wanted a pizza. Now, the little group did carry all the ingredients for pizza for humanity has always hungered for pizza. So they looked for holes in cliffs that would double as a pizza oven. They found dozens of such ovens.

7) But no pizza stones or baking sheets So they marched on. The little walk turned into months, years, and even millennia. Thus, began humanity’s great migration out of Africa.

8) Then the early humans invented the wheel. Brilliant minds soon–thousands of years–made pizza stones. People could finally make pizza! Eat pizza! Huzzah!

9) The Stone Wheel clans appointed wisdom keepers to tell succeeding generations the way to make pizza stones. So for century upon century peoples could feast on mastodon pizza.

10) Then humans, too hungry for mastodon pizza toppings, killed off all the mastodons No other pizza toppings would do. Pizza fell out of favor. There was no long a need for pizza stones, no need to pass on the knowledge to make them. Humanity’s ascent stagnated for millennia.

11) Don’t let this happen again. Buy a baking sheet! Buy a pizza stone! Do it now!

 

– 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

Zambian Chicken Stew

Posted on September 13, 2021 by pauldelancey

Zambian Entree

CHICKEN STEW

INGREDIENTS

1 garlic clove
1 medium onion
1 large tomato
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 pounds chicken pieces, bone-in, skin-on
2 cups chicken stock
½ cup spinach
⅓ cup peanuts, unsalted
½ teaspoon ginger powder
1 teaspoon seasoned salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

Serves 5. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Dice garlic, onion, and tomato. Add garlic, onion, and 2 tablespoons oil to Dutch oven. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and garlic soften. Stir frequently. Remove garlic and onion. Add 2 tablespoons oil. Add chicken pieces. Fry chicken pieces for 10 minutes until they turn completely gold brown on both sides. Turn enough to ensure even browning.

Add back garlic and onion Add tomato and chicken stock. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. While stew simmers, dice spinach and grind peanuts until they form a paste. Add ginger powder, seasoned salt, spinach, and peanut paste. Cover. Simmer for 5 minutes or until chicken pieces become tender. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) As you can see, the next recipe is Chicken Stew. That stew is from Zimbabwe. Other nations have chicken stew recipes including: America, South Africa, India, and China.

2) Some people say aliens came to prehistoric Earth and gave the recipe for Chicken Stew to cavemen on every continent. Mainstream archeologists discount that theory, noting there are no cave recipes to be found on any cave wall nor even paintings of the necessary ingredients. Culinary archeologists assert that the recipe was spread when Lucien, Lucy of Olduvai Gorge’s brother, told the recipe to all he met. Setting out to China, he found himself in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Lucien’s wife then asked for directions and so, the recipe-spreading family continued on its trek.

 

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

Gado Gado

Posted on September 10, 2021 by pauldelancey

Indonesian Appetizer

GADO GADO
(Vegetable Salad)

INGREDIENTS

¾ pound Yukon gold or new potato
3 eggs
½ head Chinese cabbage or Napa cabbage
1¼ cups spinach
1¼ cups bean sprouts (aka mung beans)
½ pound tofu
2 tablespoons peanut oil or sesame oil
½ cucumber
8 prawn crackers*
1 cup peanut sauce or satay sauce

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

* = Some prawn crackers can be served as is. Others need to be deep fried. If so, please follow instructions on package.

PREPARATION

Add enough water to pot to cover potatoes. Bring to boil. Add potatoes. Boil potatoes for 20 minutes using medium-high heat. Remove potatoes and set aside. While potatoes boil, add enough water to 2nd pot to cover eggs. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add eggs. Boil eggs for 6 minutes if soft-boiled eggs are desired or for 12 minutes if you want hard-boiled eggs. Remove eggs from heat and seat aside.

Add enough water to 3rd pot to cover cabbage, spinach, and bean sprouts. Bring to boil. While water comes to boil, dice or shred cabbage and spinach. Add spinach and bean sprouts to pot. Let boil for 30 seconds. Remove spinach and beansprouts with slotted spoon and transfer to large mixing bowl. Add cabbage to pot. Let boil for 2 minutes. Remove cabbage with slotted spoon and transfer to mixing bowl with spinach and bean sprouts. Add ice cubes and cold water. Let sit for 2 minutes. Remove veggies with slotted spoon and pat dry with paper towel.

Cut tofu into 1″ cubes. Add tofu and oil to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 15 minutes or until all sides turn golden brown. Stir frequently to ensure even browning. Remove from heat. Cut cucumber into slices ½” thick. Cut potatoes into ½” cubes. Peel eggs and cut each one into 4 slices.

Add cabbage, spinach, and bean sprouts to large serving bowl. Toss veggies with forks. Arrange potato cubes evenly over veggies. Do the same, one ingredient at a time, for the tofu cubes, cucumber slices, egg slices, and prawn crackers. Divide the peanut sauce into 4 small bowls, 1 for each guest. Guests then add peanut sauce as desired to the top of their salad.

TIDBITS

1) Gado Gado is Indonesian.

2) Gado Gado is anagram for A dog, a dog. It’s also an anagram for A god, a god. And even one for O dga, o dga.

3) Dga is, of course, the plural form for dgum.

4) Only the Latin language changes um to a to make a noun plural. The Ancient Romans spoke Latin. These way-back Romans worshiped gods.

5) They only worshiped gods that looked like people. But they were aware of the gods worshiped in other lands. Such as the dga, the dog gods of what is now Olduvai Gorge.

6) This is a long train of thought, so feel free to have coffee and doughnuts.

7) Anyway, Lucy of Olduvai Gorge is the first known human. Dr. Mary Leakey discovered Lucy’s skull on July 17, 1959. Lucy had a pet dog. She called it Dgma. It’s skeleton was discovered 42 years later under a rusty lunch box left behind by the site’s original excavators.

8) Okay, we now have enough information to trace humanity’s history from then to now.

9) Lucy’s tribe, possessing a limited vocabulary, took to calling all dogs Dgma.

10) Over the millennia, Lucy’s and Dgum’s descendants traveled ever northward. Along the way, because there really nothing else to do but walk, these hardy trekkers decided to worship dogs. Prehistoric shrines to Dgma trace the great northward walk.

11) By 1786 BC, the dgma worshipers reached Egypt. Little Osibis, daughter of Ramses II, saw one of the dogs. “Father, would you buy me that dog?” asked Osibis, “I shall call it Annubis.”
“Well okay,” said the ruler of all Egypt, “ but don’t go asking me to make it a god.”
“Ooh, that’s a good idea.” Osibis clapped her hands. “Make it a god or I shall cry.”
And so softy Ramses added Annubis to Egypt’s horde of gods.

12) In 48 BC, Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt, fought a bit, and took the Queen Cleopatra back with him to Rome. Cleo wanted to take all her dogs with her. Caesar said just one.
“Very well,” said Cleopatra, “I shall bring this dgma.”
“No, said Julius, “The singular form of dgma is dgum. The Romans will kill me if I left you butcher their language.”

13) But Cleo never did change the dog’s name to Dgum. This incensed Brutus, an ardent grammarian, so much that he assassinated Caesar. Rome would become an empire and go on to conquer the world.

14) Dog worship did make it to long-ago Indonesia. Those ancient people, all hardy anagramists, changed the chant “O god, o god” to “Gado, gado.” Gado Gado became the name of the food eaten after morning devotions. Then other stuff happened over the centuries and here we are.

 

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

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