Posts Tagged With: omelette

Henri Hassan McTaggart Omelette

Posted on January 24, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Breakfast

HENRI HASSAN McTAGGART OMELETTE

INGREDIENTS

¼ onion
¼ cup fresh cilantro
½ red bell pepper
½ celery stalk
½ tablespoon sesame oil
½ tablespoon peanut oil
½ tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces ground turkey
¼ cup mild yellow pepper rings
¼ teaspoon parsley
¼ teaspoon coriander
⅛ teaspoon thyme
⅛ cayenne
½ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon bacon bits
¼ cup heavy whipping cream
¼ cup salsa
½ cup five Italian cheeses
12 eggs (wow!)
no-stick cooking spray

Makes 4 three-egg omelettes

SPECIALTY ITEM

No-stick cooking pan

PREPARATION

Dice onion, cilantro, red bell pepper (Will a bull charge a red bell pepper?), and celery. In mixing bowl, blend eggs with a whisk. Pour the blended eggs into a measuring cup. It should make about 2 cups.

Add sesame oil, peanut oil, and olive oil to regular frying pan. Turn heat to medium. You should see little bubbles in the oil when it is hot enough. You can also drop a morsel of meat or onion in the pan. When the morsel starts to cook or move, the oil is ready.

Add ground turkey, onion, cilantro, celery, red bell pepper, yellow pepper rings, parsley, coriander, thyme, cayenne, cumin, and bacon bits. Stir occasionally. Cook at medium-high heat until turkey changes color. Add heavy whipping cream, salsa, and five Italian cheeses. Cook and stir until the cream is completely blended into the mix.

Spray a no-stick pan with a no-stick cooking spray. You need all the no-stick help you can get when making a true omelette. Virtuous living also helps.

(Ideally you want no friction at all so that you could get the spatula under the eggs without a problem. Of course, without friction you couldn’t hold a spatula, turn a doorknob, or walk without falling down.)

The following steps make one omelette. Repeat them to make four omelettes.

Turn heat to medium-high. Pour about ¼th of the blended eggs, or ½ cup, in to the no-stick frying pan.

Shake the pan gently so the eggs evenly cover the pan’s entire surface or makes an egg disc. Put lid on top to make it cook faster. Lift the lid every 15 seconds to see how the eggs are cooking. When the eggs are done to your desired firmness, add the turkey/vegetable mix.

Add ¼ of the pepper/spice/whipping cream/cheeses mix or enough to cover about ½ of the spatula. Put the mix in the center/left of the cooked eggs disc. Gently work the spatula under the left of the egg disc and carefully fold the eggs over the mix. Repeat the fold.

Now, you have something approaching a real omelette, not that flipped over, half-mooned shaped egg thing most restaurants today call omelette. After you have gotten some practice, try folding in the top and bottom of the egg disc a tad before rolling it over. A well made omelette is not only tasty, but a thing of beauty.

TIDBITS

1) Not many people know that during the great Civil War between the North and South that a French/Arab/Scot by the name of Henri Hassan McTaggart terrorized the good folks of Poway, California with his kilted band of desperadoes, Los Biente Bagpipes.

2) No farm, no stagecoach or gold shipment passing through Poway’s fertile valleys was safe from these marauders.

3) Los Biente Tam O’ Shanters always attacked upwind, volley after volley of cat-screeching sounds from their bagpipes. If for some reason that didn’t work they’d don their berets and charge, pistols blazing.

4) It took a whole division of infantry in 1865 to capture Los Biente Tam O’ Shanters. Even so, three got away.

5) Justice prevailed as Powegian courts sentenced the outlaws to hang after the trial.

6) As befitted Powegian tradition, Sheriff Harry Albondigas asked McTaggart what he wished for his last meal.

7) McTaggart asked for: onion, cilantro, red bell pepper, celery, peanut oil, sesame oil, extra-virgin olive oil, ground turkey, yellow pepper rings, parsley, coriander, thyme, cayenne, cumin, bacon bits, heavy whipping cream, salsa, five Italian cheeses, eggs, and no stick spray.

8) By the time the Powegian sheriff assembled these ingredients the remaining Tam O’ Shanters sprung McTaggart from jail.

9) Poway has been the culinary capital of French/Arab/Scottish fusion cuisine ever since. Foosh!

10) Or so people say.

 

– 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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Japanese Rice Omelette

Posted on November 17, 2022 by pauldelancey

Japanese Entree

RICE OMELETTE
(Omurice)

INGREDIENTS – FRIED RICE

3 ounces boneless chicken
1 small onion
1½ tablespoons butter (1½ tablespoons more later)
1½ cups cooked rice (warm)
¼ cup ketchup
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – OMELETTE

4 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1½ tablespoons butter
1 ketchup bottle for squirting

SPECIAL UTENSILS

no-stick pan
paper towels

Serves 2. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – FRIED RICE

Slice chicken into ½” cubes. Mince onion. Add 1½ tablespoons butter and onion to regular pan. Sauté onion at medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Add chicken. Sauté for 2 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Add rice, ketchup, pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 2 minutes or until rice is hot and coated with ketchup. Remove and cover to keep warm.

PREPARATION – OMELETTE

Add eggs and milk to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk. Add 1½ tablespoons butter to no-stick pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add ½ of the blended eggs. Tilt pan so that egg mixture covers the surface. Cook egg mixture using medium heat for 1 minute or until egg starts to set on the bottom, but is still runny on top. Sprinkle ½ of the fried rice onto the setting egg mixture, leaving 2″ of egg uncovered on the left and right sides. Use spatula to fold uncovered sides over the rice as far as they can go.

Tilt pan to the right so that the right side of the omelette gets curved slightly by the pan. Then tilt the pan to the left for the same result. Put serving plate on top of pan. While holding plate, turn pan upside down so that the egg side of the omelette is on the top. Cover with paper towel to remove oil and to gently shape omelette into the shape of an American football. Remove towel and artistically drizzle omelette with ketchup. Repeat for the second omelette.

TIDBITS

1) The above picture of Omurice looks a lot like a triangular sail. This is no accident. Look at the Viking ship shown in the picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

2) Now, add a happy face to the triangular sail.

 

 

 

 

 

3) Let’s put those two pictures together.

 

 

 

 

4) Whoa! The pictures are nearly identical.. The Vikings did get the idea for their sail from the Japanese rice omelette. These pictures prove the Erik the Happy saga is true beyond all questioning.

5) In the Happy saga, Erik and his crew of oarsmen set off from Sweden to raid Northumbria. But, he refused to ask for directions and ended up in Japan. While there, Erik dined on a rice omelette. His synapses fired and he made the sail you see above. Voyaging back to Sweden with a sail was a snap.

6) Erik the Happy told Ragnar Lothbrok how easy sailing can now be, Just two months later, in the summer of 792. Ragnar built a long boat and added a triangular sail. He sailed to Northumbria and sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne. Much bloodshed and looting ensued. The age of the Vikings had begun. Now you know.

 

– 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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French Omelette

Posted on October 30, 2022 by pauldelancey

French Breakfast

OMELETTE

INGREDIENTS – OMELETTE

2 eggs
⅛ teaspoon pepper
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter (1 more teaspoon later)
1 teaspoon butter

INGREDIENTS – FILLING (OPTIONAL)*

One or more of the following:

2 teaspoons diced herbs – fresh chervil, chives, parsley, or tarragon (½ teaspoon more for garnish)
1½ tablespoons grated cheese – Gruyère, Gouda, or Parmesan
1½ tablespoons diced meat – cooked bacon, ham, or prosciutto
1½ tablespoons combination of the above

* = These ingredients really must be prepared before you start to cook the omelette.

INGREDIENTS – GARNISH

½ teaspoon diced herbs – fresh chervil, chives, parsley, or tarragon

SPECIAL UTENSIL

no-stick pan. If you can dedicate this pan to omelettes only, so much the better.

PREPARATION

Add eggs, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Beat eggs vigorously with fork until for 20 seconds or until whites and yolks are well mixed. Heat pan at high heat. The pan is warm enough when a tiny bit of butter sizzles in it. Add 1 tablespoon butter. Tilt the pan into different directions so as to completely coat the pan, including the sides, with melted butter. When butter just starts turning slightly brown, add eggs.

Let eggs settle for 3 seconds. (You have to careful with this recipe.) Sprinkle in any filling ingredients now. Start yanking the pan vigorously back to you, tilting more steeply each time. (This forces the egg to roll over itself more after each jerk.) Omelette should be creamy, but not viscous. This process takes about 20 seconds.

Cover pan, serving side down, with plate. Hold plate in place with one hand. Turn omelette onto plate. (The bottom side of the omelette should now be facing up.) Use fork to gently finish shaping omelette. Brush omelette with 1 teaspoon butter. Sprinkle omelette with herb garnish.

TIDBITS

1) The French Omelette is quite tasty.

2) It also looks like a very thin brick.

3) This is no accident.

4) Culinary archeologists tell us that the pharaohs built the very first pyramids in Ancient Egypt with French-Omelette bricks.

5) Look at that! I spelled the word “archeologists” correctly on the first try. Go me.

6) But these omelette pyramids took forever to build. The worker ate the French omelette as fast as they were made.

7) The completed pyramids proved irresistible to neighboring villagers as well. These pyramids rarely lasted more than a day before they gobbled up all the tasty bricks.

8) Doesn’t that mean the villagers ate quite a bit of food at once?

9) Yes, yes it does.

10) Then didn’t the gluttonous eaters get fat?

11) Yes. Hence the saying “French Omelette pyramids, fat people.”

12) So, succeeding pharaohs tried building pyramids with bread slices. Remember the slogan “Pharaoh Twelve Grain Bread(tm) builds strong pyramids twelve ways.”

13) Of the pharaohs instructed their workers to dry out the bread before using it to construct the pyramids. That worked well until . . .

14) It rained.

15) Pyramid construction kept failing until Sadiski of Saqaara, near Memphis, stumbled over a block of limestone. Yowzer! That hurt. “Limestone ain’t no good for nobody but for pharaohs building pyramids.” Clearly English grammar was not rigorously taught in Ancient Egypt.

16) After the swelling in his ankle went down a light bulb–not yet invented at that time–went on in Sadiki’s brain. Why not quarry the limestone in his backyard?

17) In 2630 B.C,, he pitched the idea of cutting limestone into bricks and then using them to make pyramids to Pharaoh Djosi. Djosi, known as DJ to his subjects, loved the idea. And so, Egypt built the first lasting pyramid.

18) Overtime, Memphis would become famous for barbecue, blues, and rock and roll. The musically talented Djosi would provide the inspiration for millennia of future Djs. Now you know.

 

– 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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Japanse Tamagoyaki (Rolled Omelette)

Posted on September 30, 2022 by pauldelancey

Japanese Appetizer

TAMAGOYAKI
(Rolled Omelette)

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs
2½ teaspoons dashi (Japanese soup stock. You might have to make it using dashi powder.)
1¾ teaspoons mirin
½ tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (½ tablespoon at a time)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

8″ square, non-stick skillet
measuring cup
bamboo mat (If you have one.)
sonic obliterator

Serves 2. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add eggs to 1st mixing bowl. Beat eggs with whisk or chopsticks. Add dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and sugar to 2nd mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add dashi/mirin mix from 2nd mixing bowl to eggs. Mix gently with whisk or chopsticks until well blended. Add egg/dashi mixture to measuring cup. (You will need to measure it out later in equal amounts.)

Add ½ tablespoon oil to skillet. Heat using medium heat until oil ripples. Ladle ¼th of egg/dashi mixture to skillet. Tilt skillet to make mixture form a thin layer. (Lift mixture, if necessary, to spread it evenly.) Heat egg mixture until sets on the bottom, but is still soft on top. Poke a hole in each large bubble as it forms.

Roll setting mixture, omelette, into log shape from one side of the skillet to the other with 3 or 4 flips from a spatula. Gently move omelette log back to the side where you started.

Add ½ tablespoon oil to pan. Tilt pan to ensure oil spreads evenly. Gently lift omelette log with spatula to get oil underneath it. (You will be making a 2nd coating to this egg log.) Ladle ¼th of egg/dashi mixture to skillet. Tilt skillet to make new layer of mixture spread evenly. Again, gently lift omelette log to get new layer of egg mixture underneath it. When new layer of egg/dashi starts to set, roll it up from the same starting side with 3 or 4 flips from a spatula. Repeat these steps one more time. Poke air bubbles as they happen.

Add completed omelette logs to bamboo mat or cutting board. Shape logs into a brick. Cut into 1″-wide slices. Serve to adoring guests. Use sonic obliterator on the others.

TIDBITS

1) Eggs are amazing! They are good for so many things. Their applications are

Bouncing eggs: This use is by far my favorite use after eating them. Simply put an egg in a glass. Cover it with vinegar. Change the vinegar after one day. You should find that after six more days that the egg shell will have dissolved. However, the egg will now have a pliable skin. This egg can be bounced. How cool is that? Egg handball, anyone?

Cleaning leather: Rub egg whites into dirty leather. Wipe with a damp cloth. The rubbed-in egg whites now provide a protective base for your leather.

Compost: Crushed eggs provide essential calcium to the soil being made.

Eating: They are great just by themselves, as in scrambled eggs. They are also essential to cakes, meatloafs, and omelettes, and this tasty entree, Tamagoyaki.

Family picnics: What family picnic would be complete without raw-egg tosses and racing with an egg in a teaspoon?

Family rated rioting: Throwing stones and shooting people to express grievances against the government and the economic system is dangerous. Make rabble rousing safe and fun for the entire family. Next time, vent your rage with eggs and scary faces only.

Gardening: Placed crushed eggshells around tender plant shoots. Slugs and other soft-skinned insects will shy away as the shell’s sharp edges hurt the plant-eating pests. Take that, plantacides.

Glue: Make glue with eggs. Make your own today. Earlier times found eggs indispensable for this process.

Hangovers: Eliminate your hangover by drinking a Prairie Oyster. Add raw egg, hot sauce, pepper, salt, TabascoTM, and Worcestershire sauce to a glass. Stir vigorously. Drink.

Healing burns: First, cool down the burn immediately, any way you can. However, if the burn still swells from blood rushing to the site, try using a newly hard-boiled egg. Remove the hot eggshell and rub it on your burn. This dissipates the blood causing the swelling. Back, back, blood, I say.

Metaphors: You have egg on your face. You can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg. This was quite the popular saying among revolutionaries some hundred years ago. The rate of revolutions dwindled after this adage passed from common speech. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Nineteenth century photography: The eggs made for precise photographs. So much so that commercial establishments kept chickens on site.

Painting eggs: Ukrainians and Poles have been particularly adept at painting eggs. It’s called pysanky. You need skill and patience to triumph at this, but my gosh, the results can be spectacular. And what else are you doing with your life?

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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We’re French and You’re Not – Chapter One – Chardonnay Man – Part 3

Posted on June 3, 2022 by pauldelancey

1:55 p.m.: Mon Dieu! We arrive at our balloon minutes before the start of the race. Jean and I tumble into the basket. Pow! The starting gun fires. Jean starts the flame, so that our balloon will rise. But we are not going anywhere! We have neglected to untie our balloon.

Neither Jean nor I are sober enough to get out of the basket and untie the rope. What are we to do? Jean solves things by sticking his newspaper into the flame. He then sets fire to the rope with the burning newspaper. This maneuver works marvelously well and we soon soar into the heavens. We hear angry voices yelling down below. It seems that the fire from the rope is spreading to a nearby café. We shrug our shoulders, set the balloon on automatic pilot, and open our first bottle of champagne. We look forward to a fine race.

12 November, 10 a.m.: I wake up first and peer cautiously over the basket. It appears that we are over the town of Avignon. Well, I think I recognize the famous Pont d’Avignon. I awaken Jean and tell him our location. Jean marvels that we cleared the southern French Alps without incident. Our balloon’s automatic pilot and automatic navigational devices are working splendidly. We wonder for a moment how our competitors manage without them. We are now eating a simple breakfast of fresh croissants, a small omelette, and Perrier.

Noon: It is lunchtime, so we prepare lunch. We have Gruyère cheese, apples and onion soup. We drink a couple bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape, 1922. We look over the edge of the basket and would you believe it, we are over the town of Chateauneuf du Pape. We celebrate this coincidence by throwing eggs at people in the marketplace. These good-natured jests are the things that make races fun for all.

3 p.m.: We amuse ourselves by shooting at birds that land on our balloon. In a way, it is unfortunate that we are drinking so much or our aim would be better.

7 p.m.: We celebrate reaching Valence with a splendid dinner. We start with crab legs and cheese fondue, then trout à la Jean, beef bourguignon, and eclairs for dessert. We complement this satisfying meal with four bottles of Dom Perignon, 1953. Oh yes, for an after-dinner activity we examine the countryside. Jean notices that we have progressed another 100 kilometers. Splendid!

10:30 p.m.: Jean and I spend the night drinking wine and identifying constellations. I win this game by identifying Orion twenty times to Jean’s eighteen. Poor Jean, the clouds block Orion during two of his turns.

13 November, 9 a.m.: Apparently we are scudding over the city of Lyon. We don’t care much for Lyon. Suddenly, Jean spies a McDonald’s below us. What an affront to French cuisine! We bombard the place with our empty bottles and other trash. Below us, we hear the whine of converging police sirens. We also see the manager shooting his rifle at us. Ha! Ha! It appears that the police are lovers of good cuisine, as they are taking away the stupid manager of the stupid McDonald’s. We thumb our noses at your les hamburgers and your les fries!

Noon: Strong southwesterly winds blow us to the town of Besançon. We celebrate by using Doubs cheese in our magnificent omelettes. We have Kronenbourg with our lunch. This is the only time that we shall drink beer during the race. One needs to clear the palate at times.

4 p.m.: We have been heading northwest for a while. In doing so, we pass over the glorious Champagne region. We honor the land below by drinking champagne for the entire afternoon. I suggest that it would be a fine idea to gaze upon the glorious vineyards. Tears come to our eyes.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

We’re French and You’re Not, 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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Chispi Mayai (French Fry Omelette)

Posted on August 12, 2018 by pauldelancey

Tanzanian Entree

CHIPSI MAYAI
(French Fry Omelette)

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon fresh coriander*
1 small onion*
3 eggs
⅛ teaspoon pepper*
¼ teaspoon salt*
½ cup vegetable oil (½ tablespoon later)
2 pounds potatoes

SPECIAL UTENSIL

no-stick pan or spray pan or no-stick spray before adding egg mixture.
x-ray vision

* = These ingredients are all optional. You have an unparalleled opportunity to create you own unique chipsi mayai. Go for it. Go for gold.

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Dice coriander and onion. Add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat with whisk or fork until well blended. Add coriander, onion, pepper, and salt. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended.

Cut potatoes into French fries. Add ½ cup vegetable oil to pan. Heat oil at high heat until a tiny piece of French fry in the oil starts to dance. Carefully add French fries. (Hot oil is nasty when it splatters.) Fry French fries for 10 minutes until they start to brown. Stir occasionally. Remove fries. Drain oil from pan. Add fries and ½ tablespoon oil to a second, unused pan.

Ladle coriander/onion/egg mixture evenly over fries. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium heat or until bottom side is golden brown. (X-ray vision is helpful here.) Spray plate with no-stick spray. Then place plate over pan. Hold plate on pan while flipping pan upside down. The half-cooked omelette will now be upside down. Slide omelette back into pan to cook the other side. Cook for another 3 minutes or until this side too is golden brown.

Goes well with kachumbari (an East African salad), ketchup, tomato sauce, or chili sauce.

TIDBITS

1) You wake up at 3 a.m. to whispering in the kitchen. You sit up in bed. As you do so, the bed frame creaks. The little voices fall quiet. Silence, there is silence. You lie down or perhaps lay down; this is a miserable verb to conjugate. Nervous little laughter emanates from the kitchen. Then more whispering. This time it’s a little more rapid. Does it have a nasty tone? Yes, yes, it does.

2) Post traumatic stress from watching all Friday 13th(TM) makes your heart race. You get out of bed, oh so carefully. Don’t make any noise. Tiptoe to the closet. Get that baseball bat. Go the kitchen. Turn on the light.

3) Dozens of russet potatoes shriek. Their eyes are on you. It’s uncanny how they don’t blink. Is it because of an evolutionary dead end or because they’re tough?

4) They’re wearing potato panty house over themselves. Oh my gosh, your potatoes are going bad. You raise the baseball bat.

5) A potato rolls with amazing speed and strikes your shin. Ow. Another spud rolls on top of that. And then another and another until one has shoved itself into your mouth. You can’t breathe. You drop your bat.

6) In your panic, your stagger to the kitchen-utensil drawer. Your hand flails as you grab for anything to fight off your rogue, murderous tubers.

7) As contrived luck would have it, you latch onto a potato peeler.

8) The potatoes gasp in horror, drop off you and roll to a corner. You julienne the whimpering spuds one by one into majestic, harmless French fries.

9) What to do with all those fries? Why, make this entree, Chipsi Mayai.

10) Indeed, culinary historians believe Chipsi Mayai came about, in Tanzania, because of repeated potato uprisings.

11) Indeed, it is for this very reason that it is illegal to have more than two pounds of potatoes in Tanzanian homes.

12) Don’t try to cheat and say you have two pounds of taters when you actually have three. The phrase “The Tanzanian Potato Police” is a byword for terror.

13) Look at the potatoes below. Are they about to go bad? Don’t take chances. Cook them now.

Chef Paul

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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Spaghetti Omelette From Cameroon

Posted on February 10, 2017 by pauldelancey

Cameroonian Breakfast

SPAGHETTI OMELETTE

INGREDIENTSspaghettiomelette

2 eggs
½ cup cooked spaghetti
1 stalk green onion
¼ small onion
1 small tomato
⅛ teaspoon white pepper or black pepper
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Makes 1 omelette. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat eggs with whisk until blended. Cut green onion into ¼” slices. Dice onion and tomato. Add spaghetti, green onion, onion, tomato, white pepper, salt, and oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until veggies soften and spaghetti starts getting crispy. Stir occasionally.

Pour beaten eggs over veggies. Cook at medium for 3 minutes or until eggs become hard enough to flip over. Flip egg mixture. Cook at medium heat for 2 minutes or until omelette is done to your desired level of doneness. Goes well inside ½ baguette as a sandwich filler.

Isn’t the very idea of a spaghetti omelette way cool?

TIDBITS

1) China invented spaghetti. They built Great Spaghetti Wall of China in 1155 to keep out the Mongol barbarians. It worked. The wall was too high to scale, too thick to batter through.

2) However, in the summer of 1213, Mongols under Genghis Khan approached the wall. Khan’s engineers studied and studied their obstacle. No use. The frustrated warriors threw tomatoes, one of their more non-lethal weapons, at the wall before turning away to head home. Suddenly hot rain, it was summer, deluged and penetrated the Great Spaghetti Wall for ten minutes. The pasta softened. So did the tomatoes. The Mongol horde, tired of endless yogurt meals, attacked the wall with two-tined forks. The cooked spaghetti was great. and so they ate their way through the wall. The Mongols poured into China and devastated the land.

3) The French built the Maginot Line in the 1930s to keep out the spaghetti-hating German army. Unfortunately, the French didn’t have enough pasta to build a wall along their entire northern border. The Germans, in 1940, simply sent their forces around the wall and defeated France. No nation has tried building a spaghetti wall since.

– 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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Omelette Curry

Posted on March 14, 2016 by pauldelancey

Sri Lankan Breakfast

OMELETTE CURRY

INGREDIENTS – OMELETTECurryOmelette-

3 green chiles
1 large onion (1 medium onion later)
3 fresh curry leaves or 3 teaspoons dried leaf fragments or 3 teaspoons dried basil (10 leaves more later)
1½ tablespoons sesame oil (1 tablespoon more later)
6 eggs
1 tomato
½ teaspoon pepper 1/8 teaspoon more later)
1 teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)

INGREDIENTS – CURRY

½” cinnamon stick
¾ teaspoon grated ginger (½” whole ginger)
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 garlic clove
1 medium onion
10 fresh curry leaves or 10 teaspoons dried leaf fragments or 10 teaspoons dried basil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons curry powder (not the same thing as curry leaves)
2 teaspoons chili powder
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ cup water
1 cup coconut milk

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION – OMELETTE

Mince green chiles and onions. Add green chile, onion, 3 curry leaves, and sesame oil to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Remove green chile, onion, and curry leaves from heat. Add eggs to large mixing bowl. Whisk eggs. Dice tomato. Add green chile, onion, tomato, pepper, and salt. Mix with whisk until well blended.

Reduce heat to low. Add all ingredients in mixing bowl to pan. Fry on low heat for 10-to-15 minutes or until omelette is cooked to your desired level of doneness. Remove omelette. Cut omelette into squares. You get quite a bit of latitude in the size of your squares. 1″ perhaps?

(However, there is unanimity on the geometric shape. It has to be a square. What would happen if you cut the omelette into triangles? Would the Omelette Police come after you? Would the Earth’s surface convulse in earthquakes? I don’t know. Play it safe, make squares.)

PREPARATION – CURRY

While omelette cooks, grind cinnamon and ginger. Grind fenugreek seeds just long enough to crack them. Dice garlic clove and onion. Add cinnamon, ginger, onion, 10 curry leaves, curry powder, fenugreek seeds, and sesame oil. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add chili powder, ⅛ teaspoon pepper, ¼ teaspoon salt, turmeric, and water. Stir with spoon until well blended. Simmer on low heat for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add coconut milk. Simmer for 5 minutes or until curry starts to thicken. Stir occasionally.

Add omelette squares back into curry. Simmer on low heat for 2 minutes. Stir occasionally. Goes well with naan bread or rice.

TIDBITS

1) Omelette Curry is an an anagram for the illustrious Portguese navigator and explorer, Telemeo T. Crucy. Senhor Crucy rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1486 and discovered the Indian Ocean by way of the Atlantic. Bartolomeo Diaz did the same in 1488. Telemeo also discovered India via this sea route in 1487. Vasco de Gama duplicated this feat twelve years later.

2) But Crucy the Explorer–the inspiration for Dora the ExplorerTM by the way–got no credit at all, no monuments, no cities, no holidays, not even candy bars named after him. What the heck? Why?

3) Because he was the first one to bring the spicy curry leaves back to Portugal. Of course, the King of Portugal, whose name is lost to us as I am typing in WordPerfect and I’d have to get out of WordPerfect and into my internet browser, by which time I would have lost my train of thought here and degenerated into writing long, rambling sentences.

4) It was João II. The king’s name was João II! I looked it up. Who knew?

5) Anyway, Big Joe, as the king was often by his adoring subjects, was the first to be served the curry leaves. Portuguese monarchs, by established right, got to taste every new spice first.

6) Which was a mistake in this case. No chef in the king’s kitchen knew how much curry to put in the king’s chicken noodle soup. So they guessed.

7) One cup was a bad guess. Big Joe fled the banquet hall. He wasn’t seen for days. But his moans were heard all over the castle. They still can. Even his ghost has yet to get over this tummy ache.

8) Things deteriorated rapidly. Big Joe started hating the world. He tripled taxes on the peasantry. The despising people called him João the Moaner. The Moaner stripped Telemeo of his titles and erased all vestiges of his name. Proper spicing is a must. May this cookbook help.

– 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

Arrowroot Custard

Posted on September 2, 2013 by pauldelancey

St. Vincentian Dessert

ARROWROOT CUSTARD

INGREDIENTSArrowrootCust-

3 tablespoons arrowroot
1 tablespoon milk (3 1/2 cups more later)
3 1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg yolks

PREPARATION

Add arrowroot and 1 tablespoon milk to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork until paste forms. Add 3 1/2 cups milk to pot. Cook milk on high heat until milk just starts bubbling. STIR FREQUENTLY. Add arrowroot paste from mixing bowl to pot and stir. Remove pot from burner. Turn heat down to low.

(Milk burns quickly. Anybody who comes by and sees you intent on boiling milk will say, “Careful, milk burns in a hurry! They cannot help it. It’s inevitable as falling asleep in the back row at a lecture for theoretical economics.)

Add sugar to pot. Mix with spoon until sugar dissolves. Return pot to burner. Simmer on low heat for 3 minutes. Remove pot from burner. Add in vanilla extract and egg yolks. Mix with whisk or fork until egg yolk blend in completely. Allow to cool. (The heat in the mix will cook the yolks enough during this time.)

Drink as much as you dare before sharing with guests. It’s really tasty.

TIDBITS

1) An anagram for “arrowroot custard” is “Coward roars, ‘Trout!’”

2) Arrowroot is a starch-rich underground creeping rhizome.

3) There was a 1964 movie called The Creeping Terror. Leonard Maltin, the film critic, gave it a “bomb” rating. His Classic Movie Guide said, “Awful horror movie, poor on every conceivable (and inconceivable) level.” I saw it. The monster looks a lot like a giant Denver omelette.

4) If that sort of horror movie can get made, why not The Creeping Rhizome? Just saying. You could have The Underground Creeping Rhizome but that would be way too scary.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tunisian Maacouda Bil Batata (potato omelette)

Posted on May 12, 2013 by pauldelancey

Tunisian Entree

MAACOUDA BIL BATATA
(Potato Omelette)

INGREDIENTSMaacouda-

1 pound potatoes
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 eggs
1 teaspoon harissa (See harissa recipe)
5 tablespoons cilantro
1/2 teaspoon coriander
6 tablespoons parsley
1/4 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL

casserole dish
no-stick spray

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice potatoes into fourths. Gently put potato bits in pot of boiling water. Boil for about 20 or until potatoes are tender. Drain water from pot. Mash potatoes with a potato masher or fork.

While potatoes are cooking, dice onion and garlic. Put onion, garlic, and olive oil in frying pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onions are tender. Remove from heat. While potato bits are still cooking, put eggs, harissa, cilantro, coriander, parsley and salt in mixing bowl. Mix ingredients with whisk or fork..

Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Add eggs/spice mix , mashed potatoes, sautéed onions and garlic to casserole dish. Mix with whisk or fork.. Put casserole dish in oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. (If chefs couldn’t use the phrase “golden brown” there wouldn’t be any cookbooks.)

TIDBITS

1) Cilantro seeds are called coriander. I never knew that. I took Economics in college and in graduate and not once did they say anything about this important bit of knowledge.

2) The ancient Egyptians believed their loved ones ate cilantro after they died.

3) Proper spicing is always important, even in the afterworld.

4) Cilantro solve all sorts of digestive problems. Enough said.

5) Oh dear, I’ve written myself into a corner.

6) Bye.

– 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

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