Posts Tagged With: recipes

Char Kway Teow (Rice Noodle Stir Fry)

Posted on November 14, 2022 by pauldelancey

Malaysian Entree

CHAR KWAY TEOW
(Rice Noodle Stir Fry)

INGREDIENTS

¾ pound flat rice noodles
2 Chinese sausages
3 ounces fish cake (optional)
3 garlic cloves
1 cup garlic chives*
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce or soy sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce or soy sauce
½ tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce or fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon white pepper
2 eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
¾ pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cups bean sprouts

* = Can be found in Asian supermarkets. Or substitute with garlic, chives, shallots, or combination.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

wok or Dutch oven.

Serves 6. 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Soak dried noodles in warm water for 45 minutes. Drain. Cut Chinese sausage into ½” diagonal slices along their length. Cut fish cakes into ½” wide strips. Mince garlic cloves. Cut garlic chives in 2″ long pieces. Add dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and white pepper to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Add eggs to small mixing bowl. Beat with whisk until well blended.

Add oil, Chinese sausage, fish-cake strips, garlic, garlic chives, shrimp. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic softens. Stir frequently. Add noodles. Stir until well mixed. Add liquid from medium mixing bowl. Mix with wooden spoon until well blended.

Push sausage/fish strips/noodles to one side. Ladle egg from small mixing bowl to newly made space on wok. Scramble eggs. Let everything fry until egg nearly sets. Cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add bean sprouts. Cook for 2 minutes. Stir frequently.

TIDBITS

1) String theory replaces the point-like particles of particle physics with one-dimensional objects called strings. Scientists could have thrown over the point-life particles for Hula Hoops(tm). But they didn’t. Culinary physicists have discovered why the mainstream physicists chose strings.

2) Look below for a rendering of string theory. The alluring spiffiness of this image hides its inspiration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Let’s put a red and white bowl around the center of this picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) Doesn’t that look a lot like Char Kway Teow? Let’s put it next to this recipe’s photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5) Wow! Char Kway Teow clearly provided the inspiration for String Theory. Proof you cannot deny.

6) But unlike String Theory you can eat Char Kway Teow. Whenever travel takes you to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, be sure to dine at Carl La Fong’s House of String Theory. His Char Kway Teow tastes divine. Perhaps it will inspire you as well.

 

– 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: Carl La Fong, cuisine, history, international, science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Simple Fig Bars

Posted on November 13, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

SIMPLE FIG BARS

INGREDIENTS

6½ tablespoons butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour (2 tablespoons more later)
½ cup wheat flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
½ pound fig jam

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
14″ x 10″ cookie sheet
parchment paper

Makes 32 bars. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add butter and brown sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy.

Add 1 cup flour, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Gradually add in flour mix from small mixing bowl to egg/sugar mix in large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy. Use hands to form a round dough ball. Cover and place in refrigerator for 1 hour or until firm.

Dust 14″ x 10″ flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball. Roll out dough ball until it’s ¼” thick. Cut dough along its length into 10″ x 3½” strips. Spread ¼ of the fig jam down the middle of a strip until it’s 1″ wide. Carefully fold both edges of the dough over the fig jam. Pinch seam together to complete fig/dough log. Repeat for each dough strip. Cut each log into 2 shorter mini-logs to make transferring them to the parchment paper easier.

Place parchment paper on cookie sheet. Use spatula to carefully place mini logs seam side down on parchment paper. Use fingers to smooth together any tears in the mini logs. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until mini logs turn golden brown and feel slightly firm. Cut each mini log into 4 fig bars. Let cool on cookie sheet for 15 minutes or until slightly warm. Store in airtight container.

TIDBITS

1) Be sure to mark your calendar for January 16. That’s International Hot and Spicy Food Day.

2) It’s also National Fig Newton Day.

3) So eat hot-and-spicy food and fig bars on that day (IHSFNFND).

4) You might not want to do anything else.

5) Indeed. The Super Bowl used to held in January, but the prospect of having their biggest game of the year fall on International Hot and Spicy Day AND National Fig Newton Day terrified National Football League Executives. They knew the NFL would lose the match up.

6) This is why recent Super Bowls have been held in February.

7) Baseball, for decades, held its World Series in October for the very same reason.

8) Now, World Series Games spillover into November.

9) November is still two months away from IHSFNFND.

10) But the end of the World Series is getting ever closer to that eventful culinary day, because of ever increasing rounds of post-season play.

11) The World Series might eventually coincide with IHSFNFND. If that happens, television executives will simply throw up their hands and stop broadcasting the Fall Classic. This is something even World War II could not do.

12) This must not happen. Contact your senator. Now.

13) It’s worth noting that fig bars’ existential challenge to professional sports in America derives from their many great attributes.

14) Fig bars are high in fiber. Football and baseball are not.

15) Fig bars have many vitamins. Football and baseball do not.

16) Fig bars have many minerals. Football and baseball do not.

17) Fig bars are a tasty snack. Football and baseball do not.

18) Fig bars help digestion. Football and baseball do not.

19) Indeed, footballs and baseballs are even difficult to eat.

20) Oh crudness, National Fig Week runs from November 1 to November 7. The same time as the World Series. Stock up on fig bars; we live in dark, troubling times.

 

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

Wanda Wunder On Clearing Your Mind

Posted on November 12, 2022 by pauldelancey

 

Wanda Wunder #27

 

– 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: Wanda Wunder | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Flags of the World – Green and White

Posted on November 10, 2022 by pauldelancey

How many times has this happened to you? You’ve been scrupulously minding your own business when suddenly you acquire a country, a province, or a city. How did you end up with such an expanse of land and the people, economies, and nuclear weapons that go along with it?

Perhaps you inherited it. Did you think to ask your parents, “Will you be leaving me a country?” I suggest people do so.

Perhaps you own stock in a large corporation, like Amazon(tm), for example. Amazon is growing by leaps and bounds all the time, so it’s plausible to assume that they might buy a small country or parts thereof, to help lower distribution costs.

Perhaps you simply saw the deed to the country on a sidewalk and picked it up.

So, there you have it. You’ve yourself a new country. But won’t the once old country be angry at you? You betcha! Won’t they be chomping at the bit to diversify your retirement portfolio be regainging their independence? Absolutely. Can they do it? Yes, if they ally with some powerful nation, or huge hedge fund, and attack you.

That is the nightmare scenario. The only way to stop this coalition from forming against you is to fool the world into thinking your country isn’t new; that it’s really part of either an old and peaceful nation or portfolio. How do you do this?

Simple, pick a flag that looks like the one from another country, province, or city. How do you do that?

May I suggest limiting the colors of your new flag to calming green and white? There are simply scads of wonderful countries that use only green and white in their banners. Here are my favorite green-and-white flags in order of coolness and usefulness. And you know the saying, “Cool flags, cool people.”

1. North Caucasian Emirate

The North Causian Emirate had flag sported a white happy face on a green background. It was the coolest green-and-white flag ever.*

Was.

Unfortunately this Islamic stated existed for less than a year during the Russian Revolution of 1919 to 1921. Then communists forcibly absobed the North Causian Emirate into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with their boring-hammer-and-sickle-on-an-endless-red-background flag. Friggin’ commies.

North Caucasian Emirate

2. Pakistan

Pakistan has a green and white flags in the world.  It possesses nuclear weapons. So if you acquire Pakistan, from playing poker perhaps, you also get its thermonuclear capability. That would come in handy when confronting medical insurers who refuse to bill you correctly. Oh, and bothersome neighbors.

Pakistan Flag

3. Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia flag also uses a green-and-white flag. The Arabic inscription says, “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” The sword at the bottom will deter people coming to your house to sell a tree-trimming service. And what kind of monster comes unannounced to your front door, anyway?

4. Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island’s flag causes excitement wherever flaps in the wind. (Pretty much just on Norfolk Island.) You just can’t get around ithe green tree in the middle of its flag. They could have put a spoon, a bug, or an advertisement in the middle, but they didn’t. Well done, Norfolk. Your neighbors will never doubt your commitment to Go Green when you run this flag up your flagpole.

Norfolk Island flag

5.Nigeria

The Nigerian flag is the same as Norfolk Island’s, but with no beautiful tree in the middle. The theme of “simplicity, simplictity won out in the nationwide competiton.

6. Rotterdam

The city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands has its own flag. It is the Nigerian flag rotated 90 degrees.

7. Siberia

Siberia’s green-and-white flag boldly dispensed with the boring rectangles prevalent in so many of the world’s flags. Yes, it had two triangles, which I like to think pay hommage to the Pythagorean Theorem. The green triangle represents Siberia’s vast forest. The green triangle stands for the White Russians who fought for the Tsar’s and against the Communists. I prefer to think it stands for the snow that blankets Siberia. At any rate, the green-hating Communists, Philistines everyone of them, threw this flag away in favor of their dreary red banner.

Siberia Flag

8. The regions of the regions of Saxony, Andalusia, Antioquia, and Esmeralda

The down-to-Earth inhabitants hailing from these lands went with simple white rectangle on top of a green one and left it at that. Unpretentious, you bet.

Jaworzno, Poland

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

Who’s a Bad Dog?

Posted on November 9, 2022 by pauldelancey

So does the supermarket allow only animals who’ve turned to a life of crime or ones that work with vice squads?

My apologies for the blurry poster.

 

– 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: things I wonder about | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Uncle Sam Wants You to be Civil

Posted on November 8, 2022 by pauldelancey

Please, please, please, do what he asks.

Uncle Sam #3

 

– 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: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Rain Has Gone

Posted on November 7, 2022 by pauldelancey

There are misheard lyrics in songs. Then there is misheard punctuation in music,

Deep Thought Man ponders one such punctuation puzzler.

Deep Thought Man #9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Chicken Basquaise

Posted on November 6, 2022 by pauldelancey

French Entree

CHICKEN BASQUAISE

INGREDIENTS

1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons fresh thyme
3 tomatoes
2 pounds chicken pieces, bone in or boneless
1 teaspoon salt or fleur de sel*
¼ cup olive oil
3 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto or Bayonne ham*
¾ cup white wine
1 bay leaf
1 cup chicken stock
2 teaspoon Spanish paprika, paprika, or espelette*
1 tablespoon fresh parsley

* = You can find fleur de sel, Bayonne ham, and espelette online, but they can be expensive.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
8″ * 12″ casserole dish

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Seed bell peppers. Cut bell peppers and onion into ¼” slices with mandoline or knife. Cut slices in half. Dice garlic and thyme. Cut tomatoes into ½” wedges. If you are using chicken breasts, cut them in two. Rub chicken pieces with salt.

Add olive oil and prosciutto to large pan. Sauté for 2 minutes at high heat or until prosciutto becomes crispy. Stir frequently. Remove and drain on paper towels. Add chicken pieces to large pan. Sauté for 10 minutes at medium heat or until chicken turns golden brown. Flip chicken pieces every 2 minutes. Remove chicken and drain on paper towels. Add bell pepper, garlic, and onion. Sauté for 2 minutes at medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Add white wine and bay leaf. Simmer at low heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently.

Add contents of pan, thyme, chicken stock, and chicken pieces to casserole dish. Sprinkle chicken pieces with Spanish paprika. Place tomato wedges between chicken pieces. Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees or until sauces thickens. While chicken bakes, dice parsley. Remove casserole dish from oven. Remove bay leaf. Place crispy prosciutto slice over chicken. Garnish with parsley.

TIDBITS

1) It is well known fact that the Basque word for basket is saskia

2) The Franks who overran Gaul, modern day France, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire loved peaches.

3) Indeed, they invaded purposefully to pick prized perfect peaches produced by the innumerable peaches orchards to be found there.

4) At first, frenetic fresh Franks gathered peaches with their hands.

5) But one can only carry off two peaches that way.

6) The ravenous ravagers ranged right to the Rhone valley. The Rhone Valley had for reasons unclear to current culinary historians had a surplus of over a million peach baskets.

7) An advance party of Franks plundered the valley and carried off all the peach baskets. Indeed, everyone of the frightening Franks walked away with maybe twelve baskets; we don’t know the exact number.

8) The First Franks never went anywhere without their baskets. The enraged basketless Second Franks chased them to southwest France.

9) The locals called them Saskia after the First Franks word for basket.

10) In time the Saskia lost their original language. A new language required a new name. The medieval French dubbed these people, Basques.

11) The Basques loved sports. In particular, they loved to play Basquaise Boule. The object of this game was to pass a ball around and try to toss it into a peach basket. Sometimes the players fashioned the ball out of chicken breasts, hence the name Chicken Basquaise. Chef Jean Paul La Grange created this dish to honor the new sport.

12) But wait! There’s more! In 1890, YMCA director James Naismith toured the land of the Basques. His synapses fired and he determined bring this sport back home. It’d be just the thing to tire out restless school kids. The game proved popular, at first, in his town of Springfield. But the kids eventually grew bored of having to climb up a ladder to retrieve the ball from the peach basket. Late one night, a gang of hoodlums calling themselves The Epic of Gilgamesh Haters cut the bottom off all the baskets.

13) But far from ruining the game, this vandalism, made the game much faster. Indeed the tempo of pass, shoot, score, pass, shoot, score now prevailed. The kids loved the game now. So did their parents. A year later, a senior taking Basque studies opined that as we’re living in America, why not call the name something American like basketball.

14) America embraced basketball and soon became a superpower. Now you know how.

 

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

Sherlock Holmes Laments

Posted on November 5, 2022 by pauldelancey

 

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

Turkish Ezogelin Soup

Posted on November 3, 2022 by pauldelancey

Turkish Soup

EZOGELIN

INGREDIENTS – SOUP

¼ cup bulgur wheat
1⅓ cups red lentils
2½ tablespoons rice
2 garlic cloves
1 large onion
1 tomato
2 tablespoons butter (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
2½ teaspoons flour
2 tablespoons tomato paste
6 cups broth, beef, chicken, or vegetable

INGREDIENTS – TOPPING

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon dried mint
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ tablespoon paprika

Serves 6. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION – SOUP

Wash and drain bulgur wheat, red lentils, and rice. Mince garlic, onion, and tomato. Add garlic, onion, 2 tablespoons butter, and olive oil to pot. Simmer at medium heat for 4 minutes until onion softens. Stir frequently.

Add flour. Sauté until flour browns. Stir constantly. (Browning occurs quickly. Don’t let it burn.) Add minced tomato and tomato paste. Stir with spoon until well blended. Add broth. Stir with spoon until well blended. Add bulgur wheat, red lentils, and rice. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes or until lentils soften. Stir enough to prevent burning. Remove from heat.

PREPARATION – TOPPING

While lentils simmer, add 2 tablespoons butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add all other topping ingredients to sauce pan Sauté briefly until butter sizzles. Stir constantly.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

Ladle soup into serving bowls. Drizzle topping over soup. Goes well with lemon slices.

TIDBITS

1) The Ezogelin is round.

2) This is because it is has been ladled into a round bowl.

3) Indeed, all soups ladled into a round bowl become round, not just Ezogelin.

4) What if you wanted your Ezogelin to be another shape, say rectangular?

5) Sad to say, finding a rectangular soup bowl can be quite difficult.

5) Find a hexagonal bowl, even more so.

6) Even though you could place rectangular and hexagonal bowls next to each other and not have any open space between them. As the following nonexistent picture could have shown.

7) So alas, we must work with round bowls.

8) One possibility is to put a square cookie cutter in the bowl. Squirt liquid nitrogen into the space between the square cutter and the round edge of the bowl. Then flash freeze the nitrogen.

9) May I suggest using super-duper insulated gloves while doing this?

10) Why? Nitrogen becomes liquid at -320 degrees Fahrenheit. It freezes at -346. The average low temperature in Wisconsin in the winter is 8 degrees and you’d wear gloves then.

11) What should do if you drop liquid nitrogen? Step back immediately, point at the liquid nitrogen, and say in your loudest, sternest voice, “Liquid nitrogen! Don’t touch it. Your hand will freeze and shatter.”

12) Well, that’s bad. It should go without saying, that you shouldn’t try to mop up a liquid-nitrogen spill either.

13) What about the frozen nitrogen in our newly constructed bowl, the one with the square center? The frozen nitrogen will freeze anything that comes in contact with it. This is unarguably bad for your guests, except of course, for the truly unpleasant ones. Check with the FBI on this one.

14) So we must regretfully search for another way to make square soup.

15) The one that appeals to me is to place repelling force fields, with the correct strengths of course, along the edge of the bowl. These fields will push the soup away and into the shape of a square.

16) Way cool. You’ll dazzle your guests. Safely, too.

17) Not only that, you’ll impress the heck out of the scientists at NASA.

18) Life is good again.

 

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

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