Sometimes you gotta do and see something, but not for the usual big reasons. Sometimes you need to up and see things just ‘cuz.
And here it is, a pomegranate. Just ‘cuz.
You need to see #36
– 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.
– 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.
The struggle is real. I recently had to go back to the store, horrors, for pomegranate syrup.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
INGREDIENTS
1¾ cups pomegranate juice
1 pound boneless pork loin
½ teaspoon garlic powder
¾ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1¼ teaspoons oregano
1 small onion
SPECIAL UTENSILS
skewers
outdoor grill
Serves 4. Takes 4 hours.
PREPARATION
Add pomegranate juice to pan. Bring to boil using medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low-medium. Simmer for 25 minutes or until or until pomegranate juice reduces to 1 cup of syrup. Stir enough to prevent clumping Cut pork into 1″ cubes. Add pork cubes, pomegranate syrup, garlic powder, pepper, salt, olive oil, and oregano to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until cubes are completely coated. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours. (Reserve the marinade.)
While pork cubes marinate, slice onion into 1″ squares. Add 1 pork cube and 1 onion square onto skewer until skewer is full. Repeat for each skewer until pork and onion is gone. Set grill to medium-high. Grill for 15 minutes or until pork cubes start to char and are no longer pink inside. Rotate 3 times.
Place skewers on serving plate. Add reserved marinade to pot. Simmer on medium heat until marinade is warm. Transfer marinade to 1 dipping bowl per guest.
TIDBITS
1) Early Armenians used to make a game out of eating their Pork Kebabs. Players would alternate pulling off a cube of pork or a square of onion off their skewers. Anyone who made the rest of the pork and onion fall off lost. The game always ended in a tie. Nothing falls off a skewer. Then the clever Leslie Scott invented the ever popular game, JengaTM. The Jenga tower of wooden blocks can easily fall down, making it a much more exciting game. But, you can’t eat Jenga. There is a trade off.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
INGREDIENTS
1 pound dried red kidney beans*
6 cups water
8 cups water
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon salt
3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
⅓ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup walnut halves
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ tablespoon ground fenugreek**
1½ tablespoons pomegranate molasses or juice
¾ teaspoon pepper
* = Red kidney beans MUST be properly boiled. Eating kidney beans that haven’t been boiled for 10 minutes can make you quite sick. They’re quite safe and tasty once sufficiently boiled them. Discard the water used to soak the beans.
** = To be authentic, this recipe should use blue fenugreek. It’s widely available in its native country and extremely difficult to find elsewhere. Please let me know if you discover a source. Thank you.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
spice grinder
potato masher
Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes 24 hours to soak beans.
PREPARATION
Add red kidney beans and 6 cups water to large pot. Let sit for 24 hours.
Drain beans. Add 8 cups water, beans, bay leaves, and salt to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Boil for 12 minutes. Stir enough to keep beans from burning. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 1 hour 40 minutes or until beans become tender. (They really must tender.) Check pot every 10 minutes and add 1 cup water, if needed, to keep at least 1½ cups of liquid in the pot. Stir enough to keep beans from burning. Drain water, saving 1½ cups liquid for later use.
While beans cook, dice garlic, and onion. Mince cilantro. Grind walnut halves in spice grinder until you get walnut powder. Add garlic, onion, and olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add fenugreek, cilantro, and walnut powder. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 minute or until mixture becomes fragrant.
Add beans and reserved 1½ cups liquid to large pot. Mash beans with potato masher until only ¼th of the beans remain whole. Stir with spoon until thoroughly blended and the beans and water achieve the consistency of a thick stew.
Add garlic/onion/walnut mixture, pomegranate molasses, and pepper to beans in large pot. Mix with spoon until well blended. Cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove bay leaves and serve hot.
TIDBITS
1) Desperadoes, bandits, and gunslingers terrorized the Old West.
2) Everyone’s heard of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and the Dalton Gang.
3) But no one knows anything the greatest outlaw of them all. Giorgi Beridze.
4) Beridze terrorized the Great Western Ailroad, GWA, from 1869 to 1875.
5) It should have been called the Great Western Railroad, But the typesetter made a mistake when publicizing the railroad’s inaugural run. Thereafter, passengers called it Typo Road. Many, however, figured Ailroad to be a startling bit of honesty from GWA’s president.
6) Anyway, Mr. Beridze who has been waiting patiently since Tidbit 1 to have his exploits related to recipe-reading world, so disrupted Great Western’s schedules that the company thought it was about to go under.
7) Then on May 10, 1875, Beridze’s Gang’s raided one last time. The outlaws swarmed the train as it huffed its way to the top of Willow Summit, Texas. They expertly and efficiently rounded up all the train’s employees. The bad men forced the conductor to open the doors to the baggage car.
8) In swarmed Hercules Smith. This desperado grunted as he hurled one heavy sack after another to men waiting on the ground. Down to the hard ground fell the bandits below. Sure they caught the sacks, but the savvy railroad had filled the bags with anvils. Irate passengers quickly overwhelmed the lone anvil tosser. A scant hour late, lawmen easily rounded up the concussed Beridze and gang. Judge Noah Moore sentenced Beridze to hang.
9) His jailers asked Beridze what he wanted for his last meal. He requested this dish, Lobio. His jailers road off to find the ingredients: red kidney beans, water, bay leaves, salt, garlic cloves, cilantro, walnuts, olive oil, blue fenugreek, pomegranate molasses, and pepper. A number of those fixings proved impossible to find in 1875 Texas. They had to travel to Beridze’s home country, Georgia. Beridze’s buddies busted him out two months before the jailers returned.
10) Beridze, now anvil shy, fled the country. Embarrassed GWA officials decided the best thing to do was to hush up the whole affair. That’s why we never hear about the daring Beridze.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
INGREDIENTS
½ cup date molasses or syrup* or honey
¼ cup pomegranate molasses* or cranberry juice concentrate or grenadine or lemon juice with honey
⅓ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
3½ pounds chicken thighs, thighs with legs, legs – all with bone in
* = May be found in Middle Eastern or kosher supermarkets
SPECIAL UTENSILS
baking pan
baster
Serves 6 or 1 person per chicken piece. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add date molasses, pomegranate molasses, olive oil, and salt in large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add chicken pieces. Turn chicken pieces until thoroughly coated. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes.
Add chicken to baking pan. Ladle marinade over chicken. Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes or until skin is crispy and browned. Baste with juices from pan every 10 minutes.
TIDBITS
1) When I was growing up, milkmen would deliver milk to your doorstep. They also sold, eggs, butter, and cream. They saved so many trips to the store when only when of these ingredients was missing. And who wants to go to the store for just one thing when baking? When I lived in the Netherlands, the milkmen would deliver all that to your home. They’d also sell soup, jam, and beer. Yes, beer. Who wants drunk people driving to the store when their party runs of beer?
2) We really do need to bring back the American milkman. The Dutch milkman would be even more appreciated. But we need more. For how many times have you gone to the store just for flour? Just for lettuce or tomato? And especially just for one herb? We need a culinary mobile, making door-to-door delivers of: herbs, spices, and produce. We’d, of course, also want dairy products. I’d nominate any one who’d provide this service for a Nobel Prize. I can conceive of no worthier cause.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 large onion
2 pounds ground beef
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or black pepper
2½ teaspoons pomegranate syrup*
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 Roma tomatoes
* = Found in Middle Easter or World supermarkets
SPECIAL UTENSILS
8″ casserole dish
mandoline (optional)
Serves 4. Takes 50 minutes
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat casserole dish with butter. Dice onion. Add beef, onion, Aleppo pepper, pomegranate syrup, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Add beef/onion mix from bowl to casserole dish. Smooth surface with spatula. Gently poke about 30 shallow holes in meat. Drizzle vegetable oil over meat. (The shallow holes you made let the oil get into meat.) Slice tomatoes ¼” thick with mandoline or knife. Arrange tomato slices over meat. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
TIDBITS
1) 1,000,000 B.C. – 1519: Nothing happens in history on in cooking.
1519 – Conquistador Cortez brings tomatoes back to Spain. People don’t eat the pretty plants.
1595 – Europeans note that tomatoes are part of the poisonous nightshade family. The French also believe that tomatoes, pommes d’amour, have aphrodisiacal properties. Tomatoes still aren’t eaten.
1872: Tomatoes first appear in an ingredient in a American recipe for tomato chowder.
1870s: The modern American meatloaf appears on the scene.
1894: Joseph Campbell cans condensed tomato soup. This proves wildly successful.
1929-1939: The Great American Depression forces starving family to extend precious protein to great lengths. Making meatloaf ensures that everyone gets some beef. All Americans eat meatloaf.
1949: LegoTM starts producing Legos. Legos look like squares with four raised dots.
1962: Syria gains its independence. Syria starts making meatloaf. Its meatloaf squares have four raised tomatoes slices. Was this meatloaf inspired by Legos? I like to think so.
– 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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 