Posts Tagged With: pork

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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Braised Pork Balls In Sauce

Posted on July 10, 2022 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

BRAISED PORK BALLS IN SAUCE

INGREDIENTS – PORK BALLS

2 green onions (2 more later)
1¼ pounds ground pork (70%, if possible)
½ teaspoon Chinese five spice or white pepper
½ tablespoon brown sugar
1½ tablespoons cornstarch
1¼ teaspoons minced ginger (¾ teaspoon more later)
½ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon soy sauce
6 tablespoons peanut or sesame oil

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

¾ teaspoon minced ginger
4½ tablespoons soy sauce
1½ tablespoons fish sauce or soy sauce
2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine or dry sherry or sake
2 green onions

SPECIAL UTENSILS

wok or large pan

Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION – PORK BALLS

Thinly slice 2 green onions. Add all pork-balls ingredients except peanut oil to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Form 8 pork balls with hands. Add peanut oil to wok. Heat oil at medium-high heat until a slice of green onion in the oil starts to dance.

Carefully add pork balls to hot oil. Fry the pork balls for 2 minutes or until pork balls turn golden brown all over. Gently and quickly turn enough to ensure even browning. Cover. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 15 minutes or until pork balls are no longer pink inside. (You can slice a pork ball slightly open and take a peek.) Turn occasionally to ensure even cooking inside. Use slotted spoon to remove pork balls. Drain on plate covered with paper towel.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

Add all sauce ingredients except 2 green onions to mixing bowl. Mix with spoon until well blended. Add pork balls to serving bowl. Ladle sauce over pork balls. Thinly slice 2 green onions. Garnish with sliced green onions.

TIDBITS

1) Braised Pork Balls In Sauce are round.

2) Electrons are also round. They can be seen with an electron microscope.

3) Electron microscopes are really neat. Where can you get one?

4) First, try CostcoTM. They have everything. However, they tend to sell in bulk. So, you might have to buy four electron microscopes at once. No one needs four such things.

5) So, look for electron microscopes on ebayTM. You might find a good deal. However, you most likely be purchasing a used one. Did the previous owner take good care of it? Will it even work when you receive it in the mail? Do you really want to buy it sight unseen?

6) You can look at everything that Dollar TreeTM carries before buying them. This precaution is essential for making an informed purchase. However, as of press time, the price tag for electron microscope exceeds a dollar. So you’re unlikely to find this gizmo there.

7) I don’t go to swap meets. Thus, I don’t know if you can pick up an electron microscope at one. If you frequent swap meets, please let me know about this.

8) Sometimes you can get a good sofa or desk that are left on the sidewalk in front of someone’s house. The same, however, cannot be said for electron microscope. A friend of mine, took four such abandoned microscopes. Everyone of them proved to be busted. Bummer.

9) But then, who would abandon a perfectly good electron microscope?

10) By the way, what is a synonym for electron microscope? Field emission telescope? Nah. How about Electron View Biggifier (EVB?) That seems more likely. Yeah, we’ll go with EVB.

11) Well then, where can you get an EVB? Okay, you need a really rich EVB hobbyist for a friend. Be sure to drops hints before your birthday.

12) Now a gift on an EVB is really special, no matter how rich your friend. So you really should consider sending her a thank-gift right away. May I suggest giving a fresh batch of homemade chocolate-chip cookies. Everybody loves those.

13) Don’t forget while EVB magnifies electrons, there is no such thing as a Braised Pork Ball microscope to view braised pork balls. All legitimately made pork balls can be seen with the naked eye. Regard with suspicion all microscopic pork balls sold online or by phone call.

14) Above and to the right is an image of the radon atom as seen by my EVB. As you can see, electrons are black.

 

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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Ecuadorian Fritata

Posted on March 23, 2022 by pauldelancey

Ecuadorian Entree

FRITATA

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds pork loins
1 pound pork ribs
1 white onion
1 shallot or ½ red onion
2 teaspoons cumin
4 teaspoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
4 cups water
1 cup orange juice
2 avocados

Serves 3. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut pork loin into 1″ cubes. Separate pork ribs. Dice white onion and shallot. Rub cumin garlic, pepper, and salt onto pork loin cubes and pork ribs. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour 30 minutes.

While pork marinates, dice white onion and shallot. Add marinated pork, white onion, shallot, and water to large pan. Cook for 30 minutes at medium-high heat or until liquid disappears. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add orange juice. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes or until liquid disappears. Stir frequently to prevent burning and to ensure even browning of pork cubes and pork ribs.

Cut each avocado into 6 slices. Add pork to plates. Place 4 avocado slices to the side. Fritata is also often served with sides of: fried plantains, boil yucca, corn, potatoes, and banana.

TIDBITS

1) Pork cubes and avocado slices are natural enemies. The reason for this antagonism has long been lost in the mists of prehistory.

2) Culinary anthropologists, however, speculate that the demise of the dinosaurs 64 million years ago left a power vacuum on Earth. That led to an intense power struggle between pigs and avocados.

3) The Great Porcine-Avocado War ended when the pigs’ ribs decided they had no stomach for conflict and refused to fight anymore. This internal division curtailed the pigs’ desire for aggression. The war ended. And to this day, peace-keeping pork ribs have been placed between pork cubes and avocado slices on plates everywhere. Now you know.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and culinary historian

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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Posole Rojo

Posted on March 12, 2021 by pauldelancey

Mexican Soup

POSOLE ROJO

INGREDIENTS – PORK

3 pounds pork shoulder or leg
60 ounces canned-garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas)
2 bay leaves
7 garlic cloves (4 more later)
3 quarts water

INGREDIENTS – RED SAUCE

6 guajillo chiles or ancho chiles
3 ancho chiles or guajillo chiles
3 cups water
½ small onion (½ more later)
4 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano or marjoram or oregano
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – FINAL

2 avocados
¼ head cabbage
4 red radishes
½ small onion
1 cup tortilla chips

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric blender

Serves 16. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – PORK/GARBANZO BEANS

Cut pork into 1″ cubes. Drain garbanzo beans. Cut 7 garlic cloves in half. Add pork, garbanzo beans, bay leaves, 7 garlic cloves, and 3 quarts water to 1st, large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1 hour or until pork cubes can be pulled apart easily with a fork. Skim off foam with spoon. Stir enough to prevent burning. Remove and discard bay leaves. Remove pork and garlic. Keep water in pot. Shred pork completely using 2 forks. Smash garlic bits with fork. Return pork and garlic to pot.

PREPARATION – RED SAUCE

While pork simmers, add 3 cups water to 2nd pot. Bring to boil. Seed guajillo and ancho chiles to pan. Roast at medium heat for 8 minutes until they start to soften. Stir occasionally . Add chiles to 2nd pot. Cover and remove from heat. Let chiles sit in water for 15 minutes or until they have completely softened. Cut ½ small onion into 4 pieces. Add guajillo chiles, ancho chiles, 4 garlic cloves, 4 onion pieces, and water from 2nd pot to blender. Set blender to puree and blend until pureed. This is the red sauce. Add red sauce, Mexican oregano, pepper, and salt to the pot containing pork and garbanzo beans. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Add red sauce/pork/garbanzo beans to bowls. Cut avocados into 16 pieces each. Shred cabbage. Mince ½ small onion. Slice radishes as thinly as possible. Spread avocado, cabbage, onion, radish, and tortilla chips evenly over bowls of red sauce/pork/garbanzo beans.

TIDBITS

1) The Italian peninsula in 1848. Peasants rioted against the nobles. The nobles suppressed the peasant uprising. Italians took up arms against their foreign masters. The foreign masters fought back. Bullets were positively whizzing everywhere.

2) Then the Second War for Italian Independence began in 1859. Armies marched all over the place. Bullets and cannonballs streaked against the sky. It was all too much for the simple chef, Fabio Marinara who determined to leave for America. His customers pleaded for him to stay. “No,” said Fabio at length.

3) So, the plucky Italian sold all his possessions and bought a ticket to New York on the SS Seaweed.

4) But he boarded instead the SS Flan to Veracruz, Mexico. But that was okay, for Mexican food was love at first sight for Fabio. “Tacos, where have you been all my life?” thought Chef Mariana.

5) Well, across the Atlantic Ocean. But anyway, Chef Fabio opened up a restaurant on the Gulf of Mexico. Within weeks, he perfected this soup, the posole rojo.

6) People loved his soup. They’d burst out singing, “Posole Rojo” everytime this food of the gods went by their tables.

7) A Italian lyricist, Giovanni Capurro heard these outbursts of ecstasy. He thought they were referring to Veracruz’s magnificent red sunsets. He interpreted them to say, “O sole rojo” or “O my red sun.”

8) But Capurro found that the song burgeoning within his heart flowed much easier when he tweaked the words to “O solo mio” or “O my sun.”

9) He took his song back to Naples. Capurro’s song has been an enduring global hit ever since. “O Sole Mio” has even been sung twice on Sesame Street. Now you know.

– 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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Pork Shumai

Posted on August 28, 2019 by pauldelancey

Chinese Appetizer

PORK SHUMAI

INGREDIENTS

2 garlic cloves
1″ ginger root
2 green onions
1 pound ground pork
½ tablespoon cornstarch
¾ teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons rice wine or dry sherry
½ tablespoon sesame oil
1½ tablespoons light soy sauce or soy sauce
40 wonton or gyoza wrappers
3 or so leaves Napa cabbage (You may substitute parchment paper. Be sure to punch holes in it.)
soy sauce for dipping

SPECIAL UTENSILS

kitchen towel
steamer
x-ray goggles

Makes 40 pork shumai. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic, ginger root, and green onion. Add garlic, ginger root, green onions, ground pork, cornstarch, salt, rice wine, sesame oil, and soy sauce to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Add 1 tablespoon pork mixture to middle of wonton wrapper. Wet finger with water. Run finger around edges of wrapper. Wrap sides of wrappers around pork mixture. Seal edges with together with hands, starting at the bottom. Repeat until you have enough dumplings to fill steamer’s basket. Covered completed dumplings, shumai, with damp kitchen towel until they are ready for the steamer. You will likely need to steam the shumai in batches. Make another batch while the previous batch is being steamed.

Add water to bottom part of steamer until it is 1″ from reaching the steamer basket. Bring to boil using high heat. While water comes to boil, line steamer basket with 2 Napa cabbage leaves. Place dumplings on cabbage leaves.(This keeps dumplings from sticking to basket.) Leave ½” gaps between shumai. Cover steamer and steam at high heat for 5 minutes or until done. (If you neglected to pick up x-ray vision goggles at your store, you may sample one.) Remove steamed dumplings, shumai and serve. Continue until all batches have been steamed. Dip in soy sauce as desired.

TIDBITS

1) Pork shumai comes from China.

2) Chinese spare ribs also come from China.

3) As do Chinese horoscopes.

4) And Chinese fireworks.

5) We can thus conclude someone from China invented Chinese checkers.

6) Although glass marbles have been invented and produced several times throughout history and in many different locations, their popularity is cyclical.

7) Indeed in the Middle Ages, adults generally forbade children to engage in any games, whether it was Pin the Tail on the Giraffe’s Neck (PTGN) or play marbles.

8) PTGN would have died out naturally as a recreational pursuit as no child during the Middle Ages could have pinned that high on a giraffe, even if he stood on his tippy does.

9) Playing Marbles (M) also waned in popularity. Medieval Children (MC) had to hike to the wheat fields to get away from parental supervision. Unfortunately, marbles got lost immediately in the amber waves of grain. (This image would ultimately inspire our great song “America the Beautiful.”) No more marbles for play, no more games of Marbles.

10) The game Marbles came to China with the Polo brothers in the thirteenth century.

11) The Great Khan loved the game. And since he loved the game so did all his Chinese subjects. Marbles Mania (MM) was poised to take off in the Land of the Panda.

12) But alas, the Polo brothers only brought enough marbles for one game of Chinese checkers. Then tragedy struck, a mighty wind blew away two marbles. A diligent search by the palace guard recovered one marble. Not enough for a game.

13) The Polo brothers, Marco and Ralph, tried diverting the Great Khan’s wrath by giving him three-and-twenty shirts with short sleeves, and a button-down collar. Sad to say, Khan didn’t cotton to these Polo Shirts. He even ordered the brothers’ execution. Things looked grim for the Polos. Only an IRS audit could have made things worse.

14) Then woo hoo, a divine wind blew dozens of pork shumais from the imperial kitchen onto Khan’s Chinese checkers boards. The game was saved for imperial household. The Chinese peasants could now partake as well. Laborers, at the end of a hot day, would invite neighbors over for a nice game of Chinese checkers, then dine on the pork-shumai marbles after playing was done.

15) Health restrictions in 1857 prohibited the use of pork-shumai marbles. (See Dr. Amos Keeto’s work, The Great Chinese Pork-Shumai-Marble Plague of 1856.) From that year on, Chinese checkers would be played only with glass marbles. Now you know.

– 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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Pork With Camembert

Posted on October 22, 2018 by pauldelancey

French Entree

PORK WITH CAMEMBERT

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds pork tenderloin
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons white wine
½ cup heavy whipping cream or crême fraîche
1 tablespoon fresh* herbs (thyme, marjoram, or sage)
4 ounces Camembert cheese, no rind
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
3 sprigs fresh parsley

* = Try to use fresh ingredients for this dish. However, if that is not possible, use 1 teaspoon dried herbs.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

kitchen mallet

Serves 4. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Slice pork tenderloin crossways into slices 1″ thick. Put pork slices on flat surface. Use the flat side of the mallet to pound slices until they become ½” thick. Rub pepper and salt onto slices. Add butter and olive oil to pan. Warm butter using medium heat until butter melts and browns. Tilt pan occasionally to ensure even melting. Add pork slices. Sauté at medium heat for 4 minutes per side. Remove pork slices to dish and cover to keep warm. Keep liquid in pan.

Add wine to pan. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Add whipping cream and herbs. Stir. Bring to boil again using high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to medium high. Add Camembert cheese and Dijon mustard. Stir constantly until cheese dissolves and blends into the rest of the sauce. Pour sauce over pork slices. Garnish each place with a sprig of parsley.

TIDBITS

1) The above picture proves pork tenderloins covered with Camembert sauce always point to Magnetic North, even when close to the North Pole. Sure, this dish doesn’t pack as many calories for the hard-working dog sledder as does pemmican. And yes, cooking pork with Camembert in the frigid, howling Arctic winds can be difficult, but the entree’s dependability cannot be denied. Indeed, as Peary, the first man to the top of world, would say, “As reliable as pork with Camembert.”

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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Costa Rican Pork Casado

Posted on May 23, 2018 by pauldelancey

Costa Rican Entree

PORK CASADO

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

2 dried chiles, guajillo, ancho, or other
1⅓ cup vegetable or pork stock
5″ carrot
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons molasses
½ small onion (additional 2 onions later)
2½ tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vinegar

INGREDIENTS – SALAD

¼ head cabbage
1 small carrot
1 small tomato
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – RICE

1 cup basmati or white rice
1 onion (1 additional onion later)
2 red bell peppers
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (5 additional tablespoons later)

INGREDIENTS – PLANTAINS

2 plantains
5 tablespoons vegetable oil

INGREDIENTS – PORK

1 onion
4 pork loins

1 15-ounce can black beans

SPECIAL UTENSIL

outdoor grill

Serves 4. Takes 1 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – MARINADE

Seed chiles. Add chiles and vegetable stock to pan. Cook on medium heat for 15 minutes or until chiles soften. Add chiles, vegetable stock and the remaining marinade ingredients. Puree in blender until smooth. Coat pork loins with marinade. Let marinate for 30 minutes. Keep marinade.

PREPARATION – SALAD

Shred cabbage. Dice carrot and tomato. Add cabbage, carrot, tomato, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with fork.

PREPARATION – RICE

Add rice to pot. Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, mince 1 onion and red bell peppers. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Keep rice and onion/bell pepper mix warm.

PREPARATION – PLANTAINS

Peel plantains. Slice plantains in half lengthwise. Add 5 tablespoons vegetable oil and plantain to pan. Sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until plantains become tender and turn golden brown. Drain and keep warm.

PREPARATION – PORK

Cut onion into four slices. Grill onion and pork loins on barbecue grill at high or 450 degrees. Grill onions for 10 minutes or until they start to char. Turn them over once. Grill pork for 20 minutes or until it is cooked through (white inside) or starts to brown. Turn over every 5 minutes. Brush with marinade each time.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Put beans in pot. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until sauce begins to bubble. Add pork to plate with grilled onion slice on top. Add rice to side and top with onion/red pepper mix. Add 2 plantains to the side. (Lots of sides, aren’t there?) Add cabbage to a remaining spot on plate and top with carrot and tomato.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe has orange zest. As far as I know there are no movie titles with the word zest in them. But there is a classic movie called “Lust for Life.” It’s about Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was an artist. So am I. I had a vase displayed in the Gemente Museum in the The Hague, Netherlands. I am now a chef. The upcoming movie about my life is likely to be called, “Lust for Zest.” See, I finished this tidbit with a line to spare.

 

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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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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Newfoundland Pork Buns

Posted on September 24, 2017 by pauldelancey

Canadian Appetizer

NEWFOUNDLAND PORK BUNS

INGREDIENTS

½ pound salt pork
¼ cup shortening or butter
3 cups flour (2 tablespoons more later)
2 tablespoons baking powder
¼ cup sugar
1 cup water

SPECIAL UTENSIL

cookie sheet

Makes 7 buns. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Dice salt pork. Add salt pork and shortening to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until salt pork browns. Add 3 cups flour, baking powder, and sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Use first to make well in flour. Add salt pork and fat from pan to well in flour. Add water. Mix with fork until well blended.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Roll out flour until it is ½” thick. Cut out 4″-wide circles or any other shape or size you desire. Arrange dough circles on cookie sheet. Allow at least 1″ between dough circles. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick stuck in the center of a bun comes out clean.

TIDBITS

1) Ancient Japanese samurai got into so many sword fights that they had to have swords in both hands at all times. If you were a pork-bun-holding samurai, you’d die if a ninja armed with knives, axes, swords, and death stars jumped out of the shadows to attack you. Sure, you might in the first blow, but the best you could hope is crumbs all over the murderous assailant’s face. Then you’d die.

2) Which would be a bummer. So, samurai learned to cook pork buns. They’d poke a hole in the pork bun just wide enough to fit around the warrior’s pony tail. The fierce samurai would then tie the pony into a knot. The knot kept the pork bun from falling off. This freed the samurai’s hands to hold swords. Sword wielding samurai no longer got assassinated by ninjas. The now long-living samurai of 1178 were free to pick flowers and inhale their fragrance.

3) Which didn’t happen, of course. The fierce samurai sought out danger. Since there was none at home, they traveled to Newfound in search of it. They took their pork bun recipe with them, which is why Newfoundland has the recipe. Indeed, culinary archaeologists expect to find  evidence of  samurai habitation in Newfoundland just as they did with the Vikings at L’anse aux Meadows.

– 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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Miso Pork Ramen

Posted on January 7, 2017 by pauldelancey

Japanese Soup

MISO PORK RAMEN

INGREDIENTSmisoporkramen

1 pound pork
1 garlic cloves (2 additional cloves later)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 eggs
2 garlic cloves
1″ ginger root
5 stalks green onions (white and green parts used in separate places)
2 tablespoons mirin
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 cups pork or chicken broth
3 cups water
3 tablespoons miso
¾ teaspoon salt
½ pound ramen noodles

Makes 8 bowls. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Slice pork into strips 2″ long, 1″ wide, and ¼” high. Mince 1 garlic clove. Cut green onions into white and green parts. Add pork strips, mince 1 garlic clove, and soy sauce to mixing bowl. Stir until pork strips are coated. Let marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour.

While pork marinates, add enough water to 1st pot to cover eggs. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add eggs to boling water. Boil from 8 minutes for soft-boiled eggs to 12 minutes for hard boiled eggs.

While eggs boil, dice 2 garlic cloves. Grate ginger root. Cut white parts of green onions into ¼” slices. Add mirin, sesame oil, 2 diced garlic cloves, ginger root, and white parts to 2nd pot. Sauté at medium heat for 2 minutes or until fragrant and green onion softens. Stir frequently. Add broth, water, miso, and salt to 2nd pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Cut ramen noodles in half. Add ramen and pork with its marinade. Reduce heat to warm-medium. Simmer for 3 minutes or until noodles are soft. Stir occasionally.

While 2nd pot simmers, peel eggs and slice them in half. Cut green parts of onions into ¼” slices. Add ramen noodles/liquid to bowls. Garnish bowls with egg halves and sliced green parts.

TIDBITS

1) This is Number One Son’s favorite dish. Whenever asked what he wanted to eat, he’d say, “Ramen.” He’s always made me so proud, from his birth to this very moment. He’s kind, sympathetic, loving, smart, and diligent. I love him so. Number One Son, this recipe honors you.

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

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