Posts Tagged With: Polish

Ukrainian Kapusniak (Sauerkraut Soup.

Posted on November 30, 2022 by pauldelancey

Ukrainian Entree

KAPUSNIAK
(Sauerkraut Soup)

INGREDIENTS

1 garlic clove
1 medium onion
1¼ pounds pork spare ribs
9 cups water
1 bay leaf

1 large carrot
2 medium potatoes
¾ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
4½ cups sauerkraut

1 tablespoon minced onion
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons dill or parsley

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic clove and 1 medium onion. Add pork spare ribs, water, bay leaf, garlic clove, and onion to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 50 minutes or until meat can be pulled of the bones with a fork. Stir occasionally. Remove pork ribs.

While pork ribs simmer, peel potatoes and chop them into ½” cubes. Pull pork off ribs with fork. Chop pull pork into ½” cubes. Mince carrot. Add pulled pork, carrot, potato, pepper, and salt to simmering pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Add sauerkraut. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 25 minutes or until potato softens. Stir enough to prevent burning.

While sauerkrautn/pork/potato soup simmers, add vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon minced onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add flour. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 5 minutes or until flour browns. If necessary, add just enough stock from pot to prevent the flour from clumping.

Add minced onion/flour mix from pan to pot. Stir until well blended. Fold in sour cream to soup in pot. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with dill or parsley. Goes well with guests who appreciate your culinary exploits.

TIDBITS

1) Kapusniak is served in a bowl.

2) That is on a table.

3) Which is below your head.

4) Because of that you have to bend your head down to see the bowl.

5) You have keep your head down as you guide your spoon to the bowl.

6) Sure, that action is a snap. You probably have been doing successfully for years.

7) But that very act of bending your head forward places a strain on a your neck.

8) And you look down at your food multiple times a day for every day of your life,

9) The stresses on your neck builds up every time you eat like this.

10) Then one day, later on in your life, you wake up with a blinding pain in your neck.

11) You might even have to go to your doctor for a muscle relaxer.

12) How did this pain happen to you? And all of a sudden.

13) It did not happen all of a sudden. You brought this painful event forward every time you ate from bowls and plates that rested on the table.

14) But the bowl doesn’t have to sit on the table.

15) It’s better to have your bowl hover at mouth level.

16) Then you won’t need to bend your noggin down as much.

17) You’ll find yourself getting fewer and fewer neck pains. Less severe too.

18) How do you make your soup bowl hover?

19) Simple, attach an anti-grav device to it. Frustratingly, these gizmos remain hard to find as of press time. CostcoTM doesn’t even carry it, even though people say they have everything.

21) No problem. Buy yourself a drone. Attach a rope holding a cradle to the drone. Place your soup bowl in the cradle and set your drone to hover such that the soup bowl is continually at mouth level, and Bob’s your uncle.

22) Bob really is nice to have gifted your with a soup-carrying drone. Be sure to thank him.

 

– 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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Polish Chicken Soup (Rosół)

Posted on March 5, 2022 by pauldelancey

Polish Soup

CHICKEN SOUP
(Rosół)

INGREDIENTS

4 carrots
1 celery root or 3 celery stalks
2 parsnips
1 leek
2 medium yellow onions
¼ head Savoy cabbage or regular cabbage
3½ pounds chicken parts with bone in
5 allspice berries, aka allspice seeds
3 cloves
6 peppercorns
2 teaspoons salt
4 quarts water or enough to cover vegetables and chicken in pot
2 tablespoon fresh parsley
½ pound thin egg noodles or thin regular noodles

SPECIAL UTENSILS

8-quart pot or 2 4-quart pots

Serves 16. (This recipe is meant for many people. Feel to cut into in half or more.) Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION

Peel carrots, celery root, and parsnips. Trim leek; keep only white and light-green parts. Leave onions unpeeled and add them to pan. Heat at medium-high heat until you get burn marks. (The burned yellow skins help color the broth.)

Add chicken parts, allspice, cloves, peppercorns, salt, cabbage, carrots, celery root, onions, parsnips, and leek to large pot. Fill pot with enough water to cover everything. Simmer at low heat for 2 hours 30 minutes or until chicken parts are tender and fall off the bone.. Stir enough to prevent burning. Skim off foam as it accumulates on surface to keep the broth clear.

Remove chicken parts, carrots, celery root, parsnips, leek, cabbage, and onions from broth. Tear meat from each chicken part into 4 or more pieces. Cut each cabbage, carrot, celery root, leek, and parsnip into 8 pieces. Remove skins and roots from onions. Cut each onion into 4 pieces. Return all of these ingredients to broth.

About 15 minutes before soup is ready, cook noodles according to instructions on package. Ladle broth with chicken and veggies into serving bowls. Add equal amounts of noodles to each bowl. Dice parsley. Garnish soup with parsley.
TIDBITS

1) People often ask me how much of each ingredient it would take for to make a recipe for everybody in an entire down. Here’s what it would look like for Poway, my fair city.

Ingredients for FEED ALL OF POWAY CHICKEN SOUP

12,141 carrots
3,035 celery roots
6,071 parsnips
3,035 leeks
759 heads cabbage
6,071 yellow onions
10,623 pounds chicken parts
15,176 allspice berries
6,071 cloves
18,212 peppercorns
126 cups salt

2) That’s a lot of food. Buy in bulk.

3) That’s a lot of food to fit in one car. Or even a van. You might want to organize a convoy of vans.

4) But tiny hatchbacks such as the Fit(tm) carry a lot in the back,

5) It’s deceiving I know, but that car can carry of groceries, especially you fold down the rear seats.

6) Anyway, it’s likely no supermarkets, especially the neighborhood ma-and-pa ones have 6,071 parsnips on hand.

7) Nor even the big box stores such as Costco(tm) could fill your ingredients list. You’ll have to go to multiple big stores.

8) All at once. If people hear that all the celery roots, parsnips, and leeks have been cleared out of one store, mass hysteria will ensue. People will start a celery root, parsnip, and leek run the lights of which have never been seen.

9) You and your Feed All Of Poway Chicken Soup pals will have to hit all big box stores at one. You will have to do this with military precision.

10) But then there will be no veggies and roots anywhere in your county. News of this shortage will travel rapidly. Shortages will occur across the land. Celery root-parsnip-and leek riots will erupt across the nation. Police will loose control. Our country will slide into anarchy. Vegetable-and-root lacking people will foment revolution. So on second thought, making this recipe for an entire city is probably not to best thing to do. And it would take a long time to cook.

 

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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pączki (Polish Doughnuts)

Posted on October 26, 2021 by pauldelancey

Polish Dessert

PĄCZKI
(Doughnuts)

INGREDIENTS

1½ tablespoons yeast
1 cup milk, warm
1½ tablespoons water, warm
⅓ cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon rum extract or 1 tablespoon brandy (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 eggs
6 cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons flour
1 quart lard or vegetable oil
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
½ cup of your favorite jam or jelly

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater (with dough hook, if you have it)
sonic obliterator

Makes 20 doughnuts. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add yeast, milk, and water to large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until yeast dissolves. Add butter. rum extract, salt, sugar. and vanilla. Stir with whisk until sugar dissolves. Add eggs. Mix with electric beater on medium setting until well blended and mixture thickens. Add 6 cups flour gradually and blend with electric beater set on low. (Use beater’s dough hook if you have one.) Mix until dough is smooth and will not stick to your hands. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.

Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Roll out dough until it is ¾” thick. Cut dough into 3″ wide circles. (A cookie cutter and upside-down glass work well here.) Let rise for 1 hour on until dough circles double in size.

Add lard to large pan. Heat lard using medium-high heat until a tiny bit of dough dances in the lard. Carefully add as many dough circles as possible without having them touch each other. Fry for 1-to-2 minutes or until the bottom of the dough circles turn golden brown. (Please monitor to prevent burning.) Carefully flip dough circles. Fry for another 1-to-2 minutes or until the second side turns golden brown as well. Remove and place on towel-covered plate. Repeat for the following batches. (Please note that frying times tend to go down with successive batches.)

Let doughnuts cool until they can be handled. Add confectioners’ sugar to mixing bowl. Add doughnut. Turn doughnut until covered with confectioners’ sugar. Use sharp knife to cut a 2″ slit in the middle of a doughnut’s side. Use spoon to insert ½ tablespoon jam into doughnut. Use sonic obliterator on anyone who gives you guff in any way. I mean, geezo flip, you’ve been working with hot grease to make them a super yummy dessert. And no jury would ever convict you.

TIDBITS

1) German bombers attacked London during The First World War, 1914-1918, and World War Two, 1939 -1945.

2) The British, understandably, didn’t like this at all, no not one bit. But what to do? Until the advent of the British radar defense system, the RAC, and later the RAF, found it nearly impossible to find and intercept the German bombers. So, the bombing continued unmolested.

3) Then, on May 19th, 1915, Polish immigrant and master baker, Jan Kowalski, made 20,000 pączki (using this very recipe according to culinary historians) to celebrate the wedding of Antoni Adami and Maja Bartosz.

4) Unfortunately, just before the wedding the father of Antoni told a “Your Mama” joke to the Maja’s mom. It was now well received. Maja’s mom told her husband. Words were said. A few fist fights broke out. The Bartoszes cancelled the wedding. Jan the baker didn’t get paid.

5) Jan’s friend, Bazyli Blaszak, owner of Blaszak’s Catapults was also at the wedding. “I know you feel. I have 500 catapults doing nothing. The British army put in a big order for catapults, but at the last moment they decided to go for75 millimeter artillery pieces instead. Wanted to modernize their army, they said.” He spat. “Dranie.”

6) “Well pierdolić,” said Jan. “We might as well use your catapults to fling my pączki as high as they can go into the sky.” So, the two friends flung up one paçzek after another into the heavens.

7) As contrived luck would have it, a squadron of German Gothas dropped by that very moment to bomb London. The squadron cleared the barrage balloons designed to keep Hun bombers away.

8) But they did not pass through Jan’s and Bazyli’s Polish Doughnut barrage unscathed. Pączek after pączek went through the bombers’ wings, shredding them completely. 31 bombers fell from the skies.

9) The British Army noted the failure of the barrage balloons and invested in anti-aircraft guns, a beefed up fighter force, and 500 polish catapults because hey, they worked.

10) The German air force also took note. All future planes would be designed to fly higher than any catapulted doughnut could achieve. Once the spirit of innovation spread through the Luftwaffe, it never really stopped. Their air planes got better and better. And in May, 1940 the German aircraft played a vital role in overrunning France. Aerial combat had gotten real. So next time, make sure you pay your doughnut caterers.

 

– 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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Fun Festivals – Swamp Soccer World Cup

Posted on July 21, 2021 by pauldelancey

Love soccer? Lover a shorter game? Love mud?  Head on over to Finland and Scotland.* The last Swamp Soccer World Championship (SCWC)  I could find took place in Finland. It might have even been held in Hyrynsalmi, Finland  At any rate, the SCWC is usually held in Finland in the middle of June (Sorry, you missed it this year.) 200-to-300 teams from all over the world compete. The SCWC which has been organized by the so-called Swamp Barno Jyrki Väänänen** since 1998. There are five different ways to compete: men’s, women’s, mixed, men’s hobby, and Masters of Swamp.

The Soccer World Cup is usually held in Scotland on the last weekend of June, just after the World Championship in Finland.. There are rumors of it being held in China, India. and Turkey.

Six players are on each side. Each half lasts for 12 minutes. There are no offside penalties. This is fantastic for all those who never understood the rule in the first place. Other little rules abound. As of about 2018, no Polish team had ever competed.

For my Italian readers, these four sentences translate as Ami il calcio? Ami un gioco più breve? Ami il fango? Dirigiti verso Finlandia e Scozia.

For my English speaking readers, this translates as Swamp Baron Jyrki Väänänen who got the whole thing started. Yay Jyrki!

Swamp soccer arose from the practice of Finnish cross-country skiers to train in swamps.

Mud soccer is lots of fun. Be sure to register for the next Swamp Soccer madness, whether in Finland, Scotland, or whenever. Let me know how it turns out.

 

– 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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Great Arctic Eats – Narvik, Norway

Posted on June 30, 2021 by pauldelancey

 

Do you love to eat? Are you like Goldilocks in that you don’t like too many or too few people around?  Do you like the cool, bracing outdoors? Do you like history, beautiful mountains, and skiing? Well, Narvik, Norway is the place for you.
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There are 24 restaurants listed in TripAdvisor(tm) for Narvik! Let’s dine at the top five eateries.
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The must-go-to restaurant is Linken Restaurant and Bar. Be sure to try their turbot and cod. Fiskehallen also serves great local game such as venison, reindeer, wild boar, and ptarmigan with berries. Ptarmigan with berries! Where else can you get that? And wild boar! You can’t get that in my home town of Poway, California. They also serve reindeer-and-roes soup. Go there, go there and have a meal for me. The rooftop view from Linken is fantastic. Take in the town of Narvik and the beautiful mountains. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable. They also have reindeer tartar. Enough said. Go there.
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Second on our restaurant tour is Fiskehallen. As might be expected from a restaurant whose name means “Fish Hall,” it specializes in fish and seafood. But they do fish so well, perhaps even having the best fish in Norway.  The atmosphere is cozy, the portions are big, and everything is served by a friendly staff. Be sure to dine on their huge, fresh shrimp (OMG),  cod, Arctic char, and pan-fried halibut. Their side dishes are also tasty. Save room for their rich chocolate pudding and ice cream.
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Winning the bronze medal is Milano Restaurant Narvik. Scandavia’s Arctic Circle seems to favor Italian restaurants named Milano. Perhaps Milano is a chain and is winning over all the Northern diners. Milano of Narvik certainly serves great Italian food. They specialize in tasty pizzas. They also serve chicken meals and kabobs. Their large portions are served by a great, caring staff. The tea is great.  If I were to go there, I’d be tempted to sample a slice of their nacho pizza. Nacho pizza, north of the Arctic Circle, who would have guessed it? I am happy to relate that Milano Restaurant gave food during the Christmas season to locals hurting from the recent recession.
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We now visit Kafferiet Resurante og Bar.  Enjoy large portions in a cozy atmosphere. Be sure to try their reindeer shank, cod fillet, and leg of lamb.
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Special mention goes to Sushi Point.  A great staff serves tasty, fresh sushi at a good price. Sushi in the Arctic, this is a great town.
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The four best ways to reach Narvik are by: air, sea, car, and train. The fifth through seventh best ways will most likely take significantly longer and be less enjoyable
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Be sure to visit Narvik Krigmuseum.  This museum does a superb job of honoring the achievement and the courage of the Allied forces fighting the German invaders in 1940. Not only does it relate the fierce battles, but it also devotes a section to analyzing the big questions of war and human rights during conflict. It’s interesting and informative exhibits make it well worth a visit, particularly for history buffs. There’s also a nice little coffee shop and gift shop. Go there
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Then take the cable car to Narvikfjellet. This is resort is quite popular with the locals. It boasts of world class off-piste skiing. I don’t honestly know what off-piste skiing is, but it is world class. This skiing resort has some of the largest vertical drops in Scandinavia. Yikes for me, but fantastic for dedicated skiers. But don’t worry,  Narvikfjellet is also suitable for families and beginners. Admire the breathtaking view from the top and enjoy scenery from the cable car.
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You should probably visit Narvik Kjøretøyhistoriske Museum. Kjøretøyhistoriske translates as Vehicle History. That’s all I really know about the place. The museum earned a rare, perfect rating of 5.0. Yet no one left a review. Why? Why was that so hard? Perhaps the exhibits entranced the visitors so much that they were at a loss for words.
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Next on our museum tour is the Narvik Museum. It receives a still quite good rating of 4.0. However, its guests proved to be much more helpful than those went through the doors at Kjøretøyhistoriske. This museum tells the story of Narvik’s development. It emphasizes the stories of the iron-ore mines, the rail transport, the harbor, and the town’s tunnels and bridges. A section of the museum devotes itself to the great fire that destroyed the town’s old wooden center. Don’t forget to ride in an authentic iron-ore car.
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Finally, please visit the Polish War Memorial and pay your respects to the braves Polish sailors who died fighting the Nazis in 1940. They are especially worthy of our admiration for they sailed all the way here, despite losing their homeland to the Germans in 1939. To remember.
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As always, “Good eating. Good traveling.”

– 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: Arctic eats, travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chicken Shrimp Jambalaya

Posted on July 6, 2018 by pauldelancey

Cajun Entree

CHICKEN SHRIMP JAMBALAYA

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds chicken breasts or thighs
½ pound andouille sausage or Polish sausage
1 bell pepper
2 celery stalks*
4 green onions
3 tomatoes
1 large yellow onion
3 garlic cloves
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon white pepper or black pepper
3 tablespoons lard or butter
2 bay leaves
⅔ cup tomato sauce
2 cups chicken stock or fish stock
2 cups rice
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

* = Technically, the entire thing of celery you buy in the store is a stalk. However, most people think of each individual rib or piece as a stalk. Indeed, many, if not most cookbooks, have thrown up their hands and call each long thingy of celery a stalk. I too have been assimilated and will be calling each long celery thingy a stalk. We live in a perilous world of celery flux.

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Dutch oven
sonic obliterator

PREPARATION

Chop chicken and sausage into ½” cubes. Dice bell pepper, celery, green onion, and tomatoes, and yellow onion. Mince garlic cloves. Add chicken cubes, cayenne pepper, oregano, salt, and white pepper to mixing bowl. Mix by hand until chicken cubes are well coated.

Add sausage cubes and lard to Dutch oven. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until sausage browns. Stir occasionally. Add bell pepper, celery, yellow onion, and garlic. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until yellow onion softens. Stir frequently. Add coated chicken cubes. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink on the outside. Stir frequently. Add green onion, diced tomato, and bay leaves. Lower heat to low-medium and cook for 5 minutes or until chicken becomes tender. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add tomato sauce. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir enough to prevent burning.

Add stock and bring to boil using medium-high heat. Stir occasionally. Add rice. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 15 minutes or until rice becomes tender. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add shrimp. Cook at medium heat for 3 minutes or until shrimp becomes pink or orange. Stir enough to prevent burning. Remove bay leaves. This dish requires at lot of chopping, so if anyone distracts you, zap them with your sonic obliterator.

TIDBITS

1) There are brave shrimp and there are chicken shrimp.

2) Chicken shrimp tastes better.

3) Everybody knows that.

4) Brave shrimp are absolutely unsuited for chicken shrimp jambalaya.

5) Your guests will laugh at you if you make this entree with brave shrimp. And they will hate you.

6) They will tell their friends and those people will tell their own friends in turn. Soon your entire neighborhood will shun you. Eventually, the whole world will do the same.

7) You will have to join the Culinary Protection Program.

8) So buy chicken shrimp.

9) Do chicken shrimp cost more than brave shrimp?

10) Yes, of course. Fierce shrimp are out in the open, daring all comers to fight. They think they can kick their opponents real good with their many feet.

11) However, they are easy prey for shrimp boats with their large nets. Their leg kicks don’t damage shrimp nets much. Not at all actually, to be honest.

12) Most fierce shrimp are thrown back into the sea. Some are saved for caged shrimp fighting. But this is a barbarous sport and nearly all nations have banned it.

13) Where are the chicken shrimp?

14) Being timid, this shrimp hide in tiny rock caves.

15) Doesn’t that make them hard to find?

16) You have no idea. To find chicken shrimp, you need thousands of teeny, tiny subs all equipped with teeny, tiny: sonar, jet-propelled harpoons, and tractor beams. This is why the chicken shrimp, the good shrimp, is so expensive.

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.

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

Machanka

Posted on February 20, 2018 by pauldelancey

Belarusian Entree

MACHANKA

INGREDIENTS

1 pound pork shoulder or loin
1 pound Polish or pork sausages
1 medium onion
2½ tablespoons lard or butter
1¼ cups pork stock or beef stock
5 tablespoons flour
2 bay leaves
1 cup sour cream
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION

Cut pork into 1″ cubes. Cut Polish sausages into 1″ slices. Dice onion. Add pork cubes and lard to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until pork cubes start to brown. Stir occasionally. Remove pork cubes and drain on paper towel. Keep lard in pan.

Add pork stock and flour to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add onion and Polish sausage to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add pork stock/flour mix, pork shoulder cubes, and bay leaves. Cover and simmer at warm-low heat for 1 hour or until pork cubes are tender. Stir enough to keep sauce from burning. Add sour cream, pepper, and salt. Cover and simmer at warm-low heat for 20 minutes. Stir enough to keep sauce from burning. Remove bay leaves.

TIDBITS

1) This dish is made with pork shoulder. It is called Machanka. The speed of sound, 767 miles per hour was, at first, also called Machanka. How was this speed measured? By having someone yell “Machanka” and then measuring the speed of an air molecule issuing from the yeller’s mouth. This technique did not work well. Air molecules are transparent, making them impossible to track.

2) Thank goodness for the scientists at the Pork Shoulder Catapulting Institute (PSCI) in Minsk. The PSCI dates back to the liberation of Belarus from the Mongols in 1373 when Sergey Daškievic, realized that frozen pork shoulders catapulted at Mongol armies completely disrupted their cavalry.

3) In 1962 the United States Air Force needed to know Machanka so it could build wings strong enough to withstand that speed. Naturally, it turned to the PSCI. The Institute’s scientist yelled “Machanka” at a starving artist at the same time a pork shoulder was catapulted. After many trials, the word “Machanka” arrived at the same time as the pork shoulder. The speed of sound was then calculated as (pork shoulder distance/ air time.) Over time Machanka was shortened to Mach 1.

Leave a message. I’d like to hear from you.

Chef Paul

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with 180 wonderful recipes is available on amazon.com. My newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, is also available on amazon.com

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How to Say All Over the World, “No lutefisk, please, it makes me ill. Where is the nearest taco truck?”

Posted on January 22, 2017 by pauldelancey

lutefisktacotruck

“No lutefisk, please, it makes me ill. Where is the nearest taco truck?”

I used GoogleTM Translate to translate the above phrases into the following languages. You might never need to use these words in your global travels, but do you want to take that chance? Read and remember.

Afrikaans – Geen lutefisk, asseblief, dit maak my siek. Waar is die naaste taco vragmotor?
Albanian – No lutefisk, ju lutem, kjo më bën të sëmurë. Ku është më i afërt kamion taco?
Arabic – لا lutefisk، من فضلك، يجعلني سوء. أين هي أقرب شاحنة تاكو؟ (Apparently, this language doesn’t have a word for lutefisk. Who knew?)
Chichewa – palibe lutefisk, chonde, IT kupanga chilichonse choipa. uli yapafupi taco galimoto?
Chinese, traditional – 沒有lutefisk，請，這讓我生病。 最近的taco卡車在哪裡？(What? The Chinese don’t have a word for tacos and they have nuclear weapons. Oh, this doesn’t sound good.)
Dutch – Geen lutefisk, alsjeblieft, het enig ziek. Waar is de dichtstbijzijnde taco truck?
French – Pas lutefisk, s’il vous plaît, IT faire tout mauvais. Où est le camion taco le plus proche?
German – Kein lutefisk, bitte, IT jeder krank machen. Wo ist der nächste LKW Taco?
Greek – Δεν lutefisk, παρακαλώ, αυτό με κάνει να άρρωστος. Πού είναι το πλησιέστερο taco φορτηγό; (What? The Greeks don’t have a word for taco and they call their country the Cradle of Western Thought?)
Hindi – कोई lutefisk, कृपया, यह मुझे बीमार बना देता है। निकटतम टैको ट्रक कहां है? (See? You can order a taco in India. All you have to do is read Hindi and pronounce it correctly.)
Hungarian – Nem lutefisk, kérem, ez teszi beteggé. Hol van a legközelebbi taco teherautó?
Latin – Lutefisk non placet, si male me. Ubi est proxima taco dolor? (If by accident you end up in ancient Rome, you’ll be able to ask for a taco truck?)
Polish – Nie lutefisk, proszę, to sprawia, że chory. Gdzie jest najbliższy ciężarówka taco?
Russian – Нет лютефиск, пожалуйста, это не делает меня больным. Где находится ближайший тако грузовик? (The fact that the country is run by an opportunistic dictator must be balance with the fact that Russians have a word for taco.)
Scots Gaelic – Chan eil lutefisk, feuch, tha mi tinn. Càite bheil a ‘fhaisge taco làraidh?
Spanish – Sin lutefisk, por favor, TI tiene ningún enfermo. ¿dónde está el camión de tacos más cercano?
Swedish – Ingen lutefisk snälla, gör mig sjuk. Var finns närmaste taco lastbil?
Vietnamese – Không LUTEFISK, xin vui lòng, nó làm cho tôi bị bệnh. Trường hợp là xe tải taco gần nhất? (Vietnam has no word for lutefisk. Had France and America known this the Vietnam War might never been fought.)
Yiddish – ניט קיין לוטעפיסק, ביטע, עס מאכט מיר קראַנק. ווו איז די ניראַסט טאַקאָ טראָק?

My spell checker went nuts with this blog.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

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

Categories: cuisine, humor, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Golumkies)

Posted on December 10, 2016 by pauldelancey

Polish Entree

STUFFED CABBAGE ROLLS
(Golumkies)

INGREDIENTSstuffedcabbage

1 medium cabbage head
½ cup rice
3 garlic cloves
1 small onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 egg
1 pound ground beef
½ pound ground pork
¼ teaspoon sweet basil or basil
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
1½ cups tomato sauce
½ cup diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or vinegar

SPECIAL UTENSILS

9″ x 13″ casserole dish
8-quart pot
x-ray vision
kitchen scissors

Makes 12 cabbage rolls. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION

Add cabbage head to 8-quart pot. Add enough water to cover cabbage. Bring to boil using high heat. Boil for 15 minutes or until leaves are soft and pliable enough to be removed easily. Remove cabbage from pot. Let sit until leaves are cool enough to be removed by hand. Drain cabbage. Remove and reserve damaged outer leaves. Carefully remove 12 leaves. Snip off the top part of the large spines on the cabbage leaves. This will make folding the cabbage rolls easier.

While cabbage boils, cook rice according to instructions on package. Dice garlic and onion. Add garlic, onion, and olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Beat egg in small bowl with whisk.

Add garlic, onion, rice, egg, ground beef, ground pork, sweet basil, paprika, parsley, and pepper to large mixing bowl. Mix ingredients with hands until well blended. Place 1/12 of the rice/meat mixture in the lower, middle part of a boiled cabbage leaf. Fold the sides of the leaf over the rice/meat mixture. Roll up the leaf from the bottom to make a cabbage roll. Repeat for the other 11 leaves.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add sugar, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and white wine vinegar to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Place damaged outer cabbage leaves on the bottom and on the sides of casserole dish. (This helps prevent the cabbage rolls from burning.) Place cabbage rolls seam side down in casserole dish. Pour tomato sauce/crushed tomatoes over cabbage rolls. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until meat is done.

(The doneness of the meat is difficult to assess without x-ray vision. If for some reason you don’t possess that capability, may I suggest discretely sampling one? Okay, okay that cabbage roll is yours.)

Place cabbage rolls on plates. Ladle tomato sauce from casserole dish onto cabbage rolls.

TIDBITS

1) There is only one way to spell “taco.” That way is “taco.” However, this are multiple ways to spell this entree, “golumkies.” They are: golumpkies, golabkis, and galumkies. There are probably many other spellings used by underground culinary cultures.

2) There are many, many taco trucks in America. But there aren’t many golumki trucks. This goes back to tidbit 1. All hungry eaters know what they’ll be enjoying when they go up to a taco truck.

3) What if you grew up thinking the correct spelling was golabki?. What if you saw a golumki truck on your street corner? What if you also suffered from dyslexia? You might think the vendor was selling “K gum oil.” You wouldn’t buy that, certainly not the “K” variety. You’d scurry down to the other corner where a truck owner sold tacos. The word tacos is so well known that even dyslexics won’t confuse it with any other word.

4) Lefthanders are much more likely to suffer from dyslexia than are northpaws.

5) There was a time way back when people walked hunched over. Half of them were cro magnon and the others were neanderthals.

6) We know now a right-handed cro magnon named Bartolomeo Diaz killed the first elk. It was delicious, especially cooked that new-fangled way with fire. In fact Bartolomeo routinely won all the caveman chef contests. Bartolomeo, being a kind hearted soul, rushed to all the neighboring caves and wrote, “I so gum elk.” Cavemen, notorious for bad dental hygiene, usually lost all their teeth by adulthood. So their word for “eat” was “gum.”

7) The right-handed cro magnons read Bartolomeo’s words and hunted elk. Elk meat is high in protein. The cro magnons grew in strength and stature. They would conquer the animal kingdom and rule the world.

8) Neanderthals were all lefthanded dyslexics. They interpreted the cave-wall writing as “golumkies.” They stopped all hunter-gatherings and searched for golumki trucks. There were no prehistoric golumki trucks. There are none now. The neanderthals died out. Bummer.

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Kourma Shurpa (beef vegetable soup)

Posted on May 20, 2015 by pauldelancey

Uzbek Soup

KOURMA SHURPA
(beef vegetable soup)

INGREDIENTSKourmaShurpa-

1¼ pounds tri-tip or chuck
3 russet potatoes
2 medium carrots
1 green bell pepper
2 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
2 tomatoes
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ tablespoon cilantro
½ teaspoon coriander
¾ teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons dill
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt or salt
1½ quarts water
2 teaspoons parsley

Makes 10 bowls. Takes about 1½ hours.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cut tri-tip into ½” cubes. Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into fourths. Cut carrots into round ½” slices. Remove seeds from bell pepper. Dice bell pepper, garlic, onions, and tomatoes.

Add tri-tip cubes and oil to Dutch oven. Stir occasionally. Sauté for 4 minutes on medium-high heat or until cubes brown. Add garlic and onion. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add bell pepper, carrot, tomato, cilantro, coriander, cumin, dill, parsley, pepper, and salt.

Add water. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to warm and simmer for 30 minutes or until carrot becomes tender. Stir occasionally. Add potatoes. Simmer for 30 minutes or until potato fourths are tender. Stir occasionally. Garnish with parsley and serve to guests who will be agog with your knowledge of Uzbekistan.

TIDBITS

1) Uzbek is an anagram for bezku.

2) Kudzu is an extremely fast growing vine that’s spreading all over parts of the southern United States.

3) Bezku is a fast growing beet that’s growing all over Uzbekistan.

4) For the longest time, the Turkmen government was aghast about the proliferating bezku.

5) Then came last month’s announcement that Beetball would be added as a sport for the Summer Olympics. Now athletes all over the world are clamoring for beets.

6) Beetball is played very much like volleyball but with a beet instead of a volleyball. So, tough agile hands are a must for the successful participant.

7) Oh, also good eyesight, excellent eyesight, superb eyesight. You really don’t want to get hit in the nose by a beet hurtling toward you at 80 miles per hour, because you didn’t spot it in time.

8) The best beetball players hail from Mongolia. Genghis Khan trained his warriors to dodge arrows by hurling beets at them. Sure, he could have trained his fighters by loosing arrows at them, but men with arrows in their heads or heads invariably prove to be slow learners.

9) That reminds me, the phrase, “That beats all,” really came from “That beets all,” and is a deadly serious statement. Nothing beats beets for tough army training.

10) Genghis Khan and the succeeding khans of Mongolia nearly conquered Europe in 1241. No European army could withstand the Mongols. The Mongol horsemen, toughened by months of beet throwing, easily dodged the arrows of Russian, Hungarian, and Polish archers.

11) It looked really grim for the nascent French pastry industry.

12) Then suddenly in 1242, the fiercesome, all conquering Mongol armies withdrew to Mongolia. Their khan, Ogadai, had tied and the Mongols true to their tradition, had returned to their homeland to elect a new leader. How did Ogadai die?

14) Well, Sven Svenson of Sweden poisoned the Mongol leader with lutefisk. Sven knew that just as no Western army could stand up to the Terror of the East, no man could survive eating lutefisk, or even smelling and looking at it. Apparently though, Sven was okay with run-on sentences.

15) Indeed, lutefisk warfare is the primary reason the tiny Viking armies consistently overwhelmed the much larger armies of Ireland, England, France, and Germany. We hear the expression, “God save us from the fury of the Norsemen,” but it used to be, “God saves us from the horror of lutefisk.”

16) Anyway, Svenson was decapitated by the Mongols, which certainly was a bummer for Sven.

17) The United States and the European Union still permit the making and even the selling of lutefisk to adults and innocent children. Why? Why? Because we all know how lutefisk saved Western civilization in 1241. There is even the suspicion that Western armies maintain vast stockpiles of lutefisk, but no one will talk.

– 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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