Indonesian Entree

NASI GORENG

INGREDIENTS

1½ cups rice
1 pound chicken breasts
2 garlic cloves
2 green onions
1 shallot
1 inch gingerroot
1 large carrot
1 chile pepper, red or green
½ small cucumber
1 tablespoon sesame oil (1 additional teaspoon later)
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 teaspoon sambal oelek or hot chili sauce
2 teaspoons fish sauce or Hoisin sauce or soy sauce
3 tablespoons ketjap manis or soy sauce
1 teaspoon dried shrimp
½ pound peeled and deveined shrimp
2 eggs

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 40 minutes

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on packet. Shred chicken into thin strips. Mince garlic cloves, green onions, and shallot. Grind gingerroot into fine paste. Dice carrot and chile pepper. Peel and thinly slice cucumber.

Add 1 tablespoon sesame oil, garlic, green onion, ginger, shallot, and chile pepper to first pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and shallot softens. Stir frequently. Add peanut oil, shredded chicken, carrot, sambal oelek, fish sauce, ketjap manis, and dried shrimp to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until chicken turns golden brown. Add shrimp and sauté on medium heat for 4 minutes or until shrimp turns orange.

While chicken and then shrimp sauté, add eggs and 1 teaspoon sesame oil to second pan. Fry eggs on medium heat for about 3 minutes or until done to desired level. Remove eggs and cut into thin strips. Add garlic/onion/gingeroot mix, shredded-chicken mix, rice, and egg strips to large serving bowl. Toss ingredients together. Garnish with cucumber slices.

TIDBITS

1) Shrimp can only swim backward.

2) The ability to walk backward is a highly praised trait among tour guides.

3) You’d think shrimp would be naturals as tour guides, but their limited life expectancy out of water and their, let’s face it, complete inability to speak is a real resume stain.

4) Uncooked shrimp are called “œgreen.” If you know this, you will win on JeopardyTM.

5) Male shrimp cannot get pregnant, just like human males.

6) However, in startling contrast, women usually give birth to one baby, while female shrimp pop out up to one-million eggs.

7) This is why baby-naming books for shrimp are extremely popular and long.

8) If you haven’t seen these books, it is because these books are only found on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico or the sea floors of other seas where shrimp woo, marry, and engage in whoopee.

9) Shrimp raised in shrimp farms do not have access to baby-naming books. This is why captive shrimp always name their male babies, “Robert” and their female offspring, “Marie.”

10) The average shrimp is about 6″ long, while the longest extended to16″. In contrast, the average penis measures 5.1″, with the longest one topping out at 13.5″

11) Hence the famous saying, “Is that a shrimp in your pocket or are you happy to see me?”

12) People’s eyes have only 3 different photoreceptive cones, while shrimp have 16. We can only imagine what vivid colors these crustaceans see, what vivid art they could produce.

13) Unfortunately, shrimp only paint in water colors which run immediately in their underwater abodes. Their art disappears immediately. We never get to see their creations. So we eat them instead.

14) Shrimp are slowly but surely evolving defense systems to fight back. Indeed, the mantis already possesses fast and powerful claws. They can break aquarium glass.

15) You no doubt recall the chaos and the terror that occurred when ten-million mantis shrimps staged a mass break out of the aquarium at Fort Lagniappe, Louisiana. The entire town disappeared under a wave of crabby crustaceans. It was only when the Air Force bombed the shrimp with hot garlic-butter sauce that the threat was contained. Every May 9th since then has been known as National Shrimp Day.

16) To ensure manageable levels of shrimp, the federal government promotes the inclusion of bacon-wrapped shrimp in school lunches. If your school’s cafeteria does not carry this entree, by all means, contact your congressman at once.

– 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.