Posts Tagged With: sausage

Spicy Italian Sausage

Posted on April 8, 2023 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

SPICY ITALIAN SAUSAGE

INGREDIENTS

1 medium white onion
2 large garlic cloves
6 mild Italian sausages
water enough to mostly cover sausages
1 cup olive oil
1½ tablespoons oregano
6 slices sourdough bread

Serves 6.

PREPARATION

It really is a good idea to thoroughly defrost the sausages. If not, you will have a tough time judging when they are cooked through. Frozen sausages cook quickly on the outside while still remaining cold, if not frozen, on the inside. You’ll either burn the outside before the inside is done or spend a lot of time at a low-to-medium temperature to cook it evenly. (And what if your guests are ravenous vampires? You don’t want to keep them waiting.)

Be sure to jab each sausage with a fork before cooking. Hot grease builds up inside the sausage if it doesn’t have an escape route. Jabbing a cooked sausage with a fork can result in a jet of hot grease heading toward you. Owie!

Mince onion and garlic cloves. Put sausages in a saucepan. Pour water on them until they are nearly covered. Pour in olive oil. Add garlic, minced onion, and oregano. Bring water to a boil. Reduce heat to a warm and simmer for 30 minutes.

Toast the sourdough bread while the sausages simmer. Sourdough bread goes great with Italian sausage. Put the sausage in the bread. Serve it like you would a hot dog. Spoon some of the olive oil/water mix along with some of the onion and garlic. Let the oil seep into the bread. Add a little of the liquid at a time to the toasted bread so that it doesn’t soak all the way through.

Wouldn’t buying spicy Italian sausage be easier than this? Yes, of course it would, but good cooks will want to have their blend of spices accenting the sausage rather than someone else’s. Also, pre-spiced sausages can never taste better than those with fresh onion marinated in olive oil.

TIDBITS

1) Sausages and legislation are the two things you should never see being made, only the final product. The Swedes like to mix in potatoes with meat to make their sausages. The Swedish word for sausage is korv.

2) I’ve never seen a sausage explode, but I’d bet it would be spectacular, if not dangerous. A frozen sausage makes a better hand-to-hand weapon than a defrosted one.

 

– 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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Fraud! Moby Dick Was Not a Whale

Posted on August 17, 2022 by pauldelancey

 

 

Moby Dick was to be portrayed by a whale in the movie with the same name. There are, of course, sperm whales that can be hired for the role. However, sperm whales know they have no serious competition from human actors, not even the ever superb and ever versatile Tom Cruise. Sperm whales realize this and charge $100,000 a day while on the set. White sperm whales are much rarer and command acting fees of $10,000,000 a day. No motion-picture studio can afford such a cost.

This is why the movie Moby Dick starring Gregory Peck did not film actual white sperm whales. The studio simply could not afford to cast Spanky the Sperm Whale.

So what did they do? There answer was ingenuous. They simply boiled some far-cheaper weisswursts. German white sausages, and drew mouths and eyes on them with a black marker. You really can’t tell the difference unless you see the white sperm whale and the weisswursts side by side and motionless as can be seen below

 

 

Of course, Hollywood always wants a sequel to any blockbuster. It never happened in this case, because the studio’s coffee lady moved to New Zealand, However, my sources told me the sequel would have been called Caleb Dick, Moby’s son. The above picture on the right was a promotional poster for the never-materialized second movie. Now you know.

Oh, and it took more time than I care to reveal to come up with the above pictures. However, that time would have surely been spent by me fomenting revolution in the streets. And we don’t need that.

 

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: are you a dick, observations, you need to see | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Shrimp Briouates

Posted on September 29, 2021 by pauldelancey

Moroccan Entree

SHRIMP BRIOUATES

INGREDIENTS

1 garlic clove
2 green onions
1 small yellow onion
2 tablespoons olive oil (maybe ½ cup more later)
¼ teaspoon chives
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
¼ teaspoon white pepper or black pepper
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
8 ounces filo (phyllo)* sheets
¼ cup melted butter
1 egg yolk**
3 tablespoons olive oil.

* = It’s more authentic to buy ouarka or warqa sheets. They, however, can be very, very difficult to find no matter what the spelling might be.
** = It’s a frustrating experience buying a single egg yolk at the store. For that matter, purchasing a single egg is often difficult as well.

Makes 30. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic, green onions and yellow onion. Add garlic, green onion, yellow onion, and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chives, coriander, cumin, paprika, parsley, and pepper. Add shrimp. Lower heat to medium and sauté for 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink or orange. Stir frequently. Remove from heat. Mince shrimp.

Add filo sheet to flat surface. (Keep other sheets covered until needed. They dry out fast.) Brush filo sheet with butter. Cut filo sheet into strips 4″ wide. Add ½ tablespoon shrimp ½” from the end of the strip. Take one corner of the strip and fold it over diagonally to make a side of a triangle. Take bottom corner of triangle and fold it up to make another triangle. Continue to fold dough until you come to the end. You now have a briouate. Dab loose end of briouate with butter and fold into pocket formed by the open edg.

Add olive oil (½” deep) to pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Add as many briouates as possible without them touching. Deep fry on medium-high heat for 2 minutes or until golden brown. (Frying times go down with successive batches.)Turn briouates enough to prevent burning. Removebriouates and drain on paper towels. Repeat for successive batches. Goes well with harissa.

TIDBITS

1) Frankia, modern-day France, was named after I. A. Frank.

2) Frank operated a chain of sausage stands/inns for hungry, weary pilgrims.

3) The pilgrims loved Frank’s sausage in a bun.

4) So much so that they started calling his delicacies, Franks.

5) The entire land went so hot-dog made that the entire region started calling itself Frankia.

6) See the seminal work on Medieval treatise by Monk Jean de Tours, Mon Dieu, Mon Pays, et Mon Frank.

7) Reading this literary masterpiece is harder than just seeing it. You really do need to be fluent in Medieval French.

8) Anyway in 732*, an invading Arab army under Emir Abdul Rahman threatened Frank’s culinary empire and Frankia itself.

9) *That’s 732 AD. AD stands for Anno Domini, Latin for the year of Our Lord. This system of dating is falling out of favor with many historians who prefer the less assertive, CE, or Common Era. I like to refer to this date as 1246 APB, or After Paul’s Birth. In a strange coincidence, my name is Paul.

10) So why did the Arabs invade Frankia? To convert Frankian Christians to Islam.

11) Culinary historians assert, however, that the reason was that Frank’s Franks were made out of pigs. The Arabs believed no one should eat pigs. So by conquering Frankia, they’d rid the land of forbidden pig-filled Franks.

12) To be replaced by Shrimp Briouates The invaders believed this blessed dish to be the best entree in the entire world.

13) I, personally, do not wish to take sides in the Great Hot Dog/Shrimp Briouate Controversy that has racked humanity for centuries. I can see, however, how they came to believe so strongly in the tastiness of the Shrimp Brioautes.

14) But the adherents of Frank’s Franks prevailed in the Battle of Tours. European pilgrims came to visit Tours to give thanks for hot dog’s victory. Larger and larger groups of pilgrims came, necessitating the forming of tour companies. So many tours came to Tours, that people took to changing the town’s name from Tours to Tours.

15) As a side note, briouate is one of the few dishes that’s spelled with all the vowels: a,e,i,o, and u.
You can even use the sometime vowel, y, if you want to spell briouatey, as in “That pastry is so flaky, it’s positively briouatey.”

 

– 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, Tromsø, Norway

Posted on July 27, 2021 by pauldelancey

Tromsø, Norway

Do you love to eat in a town with just the right amount of people, that is 68,000? Do you crave an bustling town with an invigorating night life? Do you absolutely need art, history, and fantastic scenery? Do you want to take classes at the world’s northernmost university? Are you okay with learning Norwegian to get free tuition? Do you want it all by being above the Arctic, yet experiencing a sub-Arctic climate? Is it essential that you dine on tasty food? Then, oh my gosh, Tromsø, Norway, is the place for you.
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Let’s visit Tromsø’s five best restaurants as TripAdvisor(tm).
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The must-go-to restaurant is Restaurant Smak. I want to go there. I want to go there. If you dine at Smak, please enjoy a meal for me and do let me know how you liked it. True, it’s a bit pricy, but I have never, no not ever, seen an Arctic restaurant with more glowing reviews than this establishment. People rave about the attentive servers and the high quality of their fresh food. The restaurant ensures the freshness of their ingredients by buying only food from the neighboring farms. It’s not surprising then, that Restaurant Smak gets a perfect 5.0 rating. Do try their Jerusalem artichoke soup, white asparagus, wild lamb, cod cheek and hot dogs. And for dessert, try their dill and caramel sorbet. Meals run from three-to-five courses and can take two hours, but the time will fly because everything at Restaurant Smak is good as it can be. I really want to go here.
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Winning the silver medal on our restaurant tour is Raketten. It is a hot-dog kiosk, but what a hot-dog kiosk! This small building serves such good food and has been such a mainstay to the community over the decades that the powers that be designated it an Important Cultural Monument. Can your local fast-food joint boast of a distinction like that? No, I didn’t think so. Keep a sharp lookout on Raketten as the outside line of dedicated hot-dog lovers can be over a hour. Sit by the nice, cozy fire and enjoy some gløgg, a hot punch made with red wine, brandy, sherry, almonds, raisins, and orange peels. What more do you need?  Or perhaps you prefer a delicious hot chocolate topped with marshmallows? Be sure to try their reindeer sausage. Is this a great town or what?
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Third place on our dining tour is Svermeri Kafe Og Redesign. The atmosphere is cozy and the staff is friendly and attentive. It serves delicious fish cakes and desserts. They really, really make fantastic soup and cakes. The number of reviews praising their soups and cakes is legion. I think I’d order their wild-blueberry pie. They even make gluten-friendly cakes. Don’t miss this place.
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We now visit Art Cafe. This is an all around good restaurant with pleasant lunches and fine dining at night. Art Cafe possesses a super cozy atmosphere and a friendly staff. The restaurant is decorated with authentic artistic decor which you may purchase. The jazz bar sounds nice as do the reasonable prices. Many tantalizing dishes abound including: reindeer stew, king crab soup, shrimp, mussels, Norwegian cheese, beef bourguignon, and Greek salad.
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We finish our culinary adventure at Mathallen. It’s named after Allen, the local high-school math teacher. No, not really. It does serve great Scandanavian and European dishes. Mathallen’s uses fresh ingredients from local sources. The waitstaff is pleasant and knowledge. All the food is brilliantly presented. Mathallen gives good value. Restaurant goers praise the seafood especially the herring, cod, salmon, and whale. Fans of meat really should go for their deer and reindeer steaks. And who could resist trying their ice cream made from sour cream and hazel/plum sauce? Don’t forget their satisfying local beer.
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Tromsø’s restaurants
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By far, the best two way to reach Tromsø are by plane and by car. (Although motoring can get exciting when the fog rolls in.) You could visit the town by cruise ship as well. However, you’d have to be extremely patient if you wish to get to there by train. The Norwegian government has been debating extending the rail network to Tromsø for decades. You’d do much better riding reindeer and even then who knows if they know the way?
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Go on the Fjord Excursion by RIB. For how could you possibly travel all the way to northern Norway and not visit the nation’s fjords up close. The guides on the speed boats are quite knowledgeable and the fjords spectacular. If lucky, you can see orcas, sea eagles, reindeer, and seals come near your boat. Well, maybe not the reindeer, they tend to stay on land. Dress warm, it can get cold and rainy out there. You might even experience a blizzard. Astoundingly, many  people really want to experience a blizzard on the sea. At any rate, hot chocolate and cinnamon buns await you at the end trip. Mmm.
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Be sure to go on Night Reindeer Sledding with Camp Dinner and Chance of Northern Lights. Well, the name tells you what to expect, doesn’t it? So don’t think the tour guides can guarantee you the Aurora Borealis. Ahem. The trip is organized even to the point of having lasso tossing and other activities before the tour even starts. Or maybe just drink hot chocolate they serve. Until you go to where it’s really cold, you won’t appreciate how wonderful hot chocolate can be. But this excursion really is tailor made for reindeer lovers. Reindeer pull your sled! Your feed the reindeer! The reindeer feed you! Wow! Wow! Sure, the reindeer feed you from a limited menu, but they feed you! Okay, enough exclamation points. Dinner is a traditional reindeer stew served at major celebrations. Can you get that amazing dish at your local drive through? No, I didn’t think so. And learn about Swami history and culture from the pleasant Swami guides. I want to go on this one.
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People with not enough time to get out of town should make their way to the Polar Museum. There might be no better place in the world to learn about legendary polar leaders and expeditions. Learn about fishing and hunting expeditions to even farther north Svalbard. (Warning to animal right activists, this really isn’t a place you’d want to visit.) Others will want to see a trapper’s hut and the objects needed for Arctic survival. You can even learn the truth about polar bears wandering the streets of Tromsø. Egad, that sounds ominous. Probably isn’t though. Probably. At any rate, I want to head out to Tromsø even more
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Tourists with not much time, especially seal lovers, will want to visit Polaria. It’s a cozy place with the emphasis. See seals frolic up close. Try to get there for the seal feedings. Spend the money and feed the seals yourself. What fun! Polaria fills their aquariums with fishes and plants you won’t find anywhere else.
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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Great Arctic Eats – Kotzebue, Alaska

Posted on April 13, 2021 by pauldelancey

Great Arctic Eats – Kotzebue, Alaska

Are you an introvert who loves to dine out? Did you visit Florence, Italy only to be terrified by the mobs of tourists who completely fill entire streets? Do you love Chinese and Italian food, but simply cannot live without fresh reindeer stew? Is southern Alaska too urban for you? Well, I have the place where you can chill out where it’s chilly and feast where it freezes. It’s Kotzebue, Alaska!
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There are five restaurants listed in TripAdvisor(tm).  So, the competition for your cuisine cash will be intense. Let’s take in the local cuisine.
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The top rated dining establishment is the highly regarded Little Louie’s. They serve a scrumptious reindeer sausage. Yet Little Louie’s is also vegetarian friendly. They make their own sweets. Hooray!  It has great pizza. All its food is good. They pour great coffee. The service is good. What more do you want?

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Next on our restaurant tour is the Bayside Restaurant. Their Mongolian beef platter is great. (Probably because Kotzebue is about as far west you can get in the continental U.S. before hitting Mongolia. Indeed, the Bayside Restaurant is a beacon in the Western Alaskan culinary scene.) Vegetarians will find themselves welcome here. All diners will appreciate their friendly service.
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Winning the culinary bronze medal is  Nullagvik Restaurant. While known for good food, you really must try their reindeer stew. Does your hometown serve great reindeer stew? No, I didn’t think so. Don’t leave Kotzebue without dining on reindeer stew at the Nullagvik Restaurant.

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Next on our list is the Empress Chinese Restaurant. It has the best Chinese food in town. If you crave Chinese cuisine by the Bering Sea, then the Empress Chinese Restaurant is your dining destination.
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Honorable mention goes to the Uutuku restaurant. People have complained that it was only okay, but that it did serve good spicy chicken. For goodness sakes people, how can it be only okay if it plates good spicy chicken? If you’re still not impressed, let me tell you that there isn’t a restaurant within hundreds of miles that makes spicy chicken as good as they do here. And they’re open until midnight. So there.
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Flying to Kotzebue is by far the easiest way to get there. I suppose you could find a way to book passage on some ice breaker or fishing boat. After that, the ease of getting to Kotzebue by other means, such as by car or unicycle, drops off dramatically. Anyway, there are many interesting places to visit here.

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Be sure to visit The Northwest Arctic Heritage Center. It’s run by the National Park Service. It’s chock full of interesting displays and films that help you discover the rich cultures and natural wonders of the Northwest Arctic Circle. The staff is pleasant and helpful. What more do you want?

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By all means, by plane really, go to the Noatak National Preserve. See polar bears, seals, peregrine falcons, and wolves. Just don’t be gauche and complain to your tour leaders about the lack of cell-phone coverage. Don’t make me come up there.

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Immerse yourself in the Northwest Alaska Areas. The best way to get there is through Golden Eagle Outfitters. See grizzly bears and local birds. Go fishing for char, salmon, and Arctic grayling.
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Go to Serpentine Hot Springs where you can witness caribou migrations if you go during the right times of the year. If you appear during caribou-free months, forget your cares in the private bath house. Luxuriate in hot water from Serpentine’s hot spring.

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Other things to see are: Cape Krusenstern National Monument, and Sulianich Art Center (not to be confused with a sandwich center).

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119 people moved to Kotzebue from 2000 to 2010. No doubt, more moved there in the eleven years since then. So don’t wait. See Kotzebue before it turns into a bustling metropolis.
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As always, “Good eating. Good traveling.”

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– 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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Toad in the Hole

Posted on November 18, 2016 by pauldelancey

British Entree

TOAD IN THE HOLE

INGREDIENTStoadinthehole

1 cup flour
¼ teaspoon mustard powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
3 eggs
1¼ cups milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (2 more tablespoons later)
2 pounds bangers or plain pork sausages or beef sausages
¼ teaspoon rosemary
¼ teaspoon thyme
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion
½ tablespoon brown sugar
¾ cup beef stock

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Combination 8″ x 12″ casserole dish & time machine (They’re handy!)

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add flour, mustard powder, and salt to 1st mixing bowl. Blend with whisk. Melt butter. Add eggs to 2nd bowl. Beat eggs with whisk. Add melted butter and milk to eggs. Mix thoroughly with whisk. Add liquid contents of 2nd bowl to flour in 1st bowl. Blend with whisk until mixture becomes smooth bread pudding. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

While pudding sits, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat sides and bottom of casserole dish with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Put casserole dish in oven. Raise temperature to 425 degrees. When oven temperature reaches 425 degrees, remove casserole dish. Add sausages evenly to casserole dish. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes or until sausages start to brown on all sides. You might need to turn them over at least once. (Be careful! Use oven mitts!) Remove casserole dish from oven. Pour bread budding over sausages. Sprinkle with rosemary and thyme. Put casserole dish back in oven. Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes or until toothpick stuck into batter comes out clean.

While batter bakes, mince onion. Add onion and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add brown sugar and beef stock. Simmer on low heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Ladle this beef stock/onion gravy over bread pudding and sausages in casserole dish.

TIDBITS

1) Sometimes it can be quite hard to track down every ingredient listed in a recipe, even when you think they should be easy to find.

2) In the case of this recipe, bangers were the items that were hard to track down. Impossible even. There’s a small discount supermarket (Small supermarket is a bit of contradiction, isn’t it?) that occasionally carries bangers, the British sausage. Occasionally. When it’s overstocked somewhere in San Diego County. How often does that happen? *Bangs head against wall*

3) Sorry for the delay in writing this tidbit, I had a headache from banging my head against the wall.

4) But wait, there was no delay for you, was there? It’s kinda like having your own time-travel machine.

5) Anyway, if you can’t find bangers nearby, try and get plain pork sausages. If your supermarkets don’t have such things, try and get beef sausages.

6) Don’t settle for tiny breakfast sausages. Just don’t. The sausages will settle under this dish’s bread pudding. Your guests will make remarks that while meant to be witty, will come across as being ungrateful and mean. You will race to your closet to get your saber. All sorts of boxes full of stuff you don’t even remember will fall on your head. Your headache will come roaring back as if The HulkTM himself is squeezing your skull. You will be in no mood to see reason. You will skewer all your guests, dispatching them with a hearty “Take that” or “Ho, ho.”

7) The law will take a dim view of such stuff. No, not the screaming of “Take that” or “Ho, ho,” rather the offing of your diners. It bears repeating, police don’t like premeditated murder or even manslaughter in this case. On the other hand, they’re remarkably tolerant of what you say while killing someone. They know if you’re so disturbed as to end someone’s life, you’re not going to be at your literary best. To save yourself embarrassment, may I suggest picking up a copy of 101 Clever Things to Say While Murdering?

8) So murder is out. You will need to create your own bangers. A banger is 65% pork sausage, 30% tusk (dried bread), and 5% seasonings. Simply, take your Bushnell 457 Sausage InjectorTM and fill it with a mixture of 5 parts dried bread to 1 part seasonings. Then inject the tusk/seasoning mix into the plain pork sausage until the ratio of pork sausage to mix is 13 to 7.

9) It does take practice to get the pork sausage/seasoning mix proportion just right. It takes even more practice to inject a lot of mixture into a sausage that already fills in casing completely. In fact, you’re almost certain to explode the sausage, causing you to fly into a rage, fly to your closet to get that saber again, and dispatch the first guest who even comes into your kitchen. That would be bad, run-on sentences like this are horrible.

10) Oh and Bushnell 457 Sausage Injectors are truly hard to find. The company stop making them in 2014. Which is why you simply must have a Bushnell 323 Combination Casserole Dish & Time MachineTM. Simply go back to a time when your local discount supermarket carried bangers. Then use that same gizmo to bake this entree. See? Life is good after all. Thank you, Bushnell.

– 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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Ćevapi – Bosnian Sausage

Posted on October 24, 2015 by pauldelancey

Bosnian Entree

ĆEVAPI
(sausage)

INGREDIENTScevapi-

2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground lamb
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Makes 48 small sausages. Serves 6. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION                                                                                      The Big Bang shown with sausages.

Mine garlic and onion. Add all ingredients to small mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly with hands. Make sausages 2″ long and 1″ wide. Grill using medium heat for 5-to-10 minutes or sausage is brown and cooked through.

Goes quite well in somun, a Bosnia pita bread, or pita loaves. Ćevapi also pairs well with ŝopska salata, a salad consisting of: tomato, cucumber, onions, peppers, sirene or feta cheese, and parsley.

TIDBITS

1) A startling new theory says the entire universe started as a big, big, really big, gigantic even, Bosnian sausage.

2) In splendid contrast to old Big Bang thought, this theory explains how the Big Bang started.

3) It started when someone wrapped the immensely vast Bosnian sausage in aluminum foil and put it a microwave that measured light years across, then set the microwave for 30 minutes.

4) Boom!

5) The Big Bang! Billions and billions of smaller Bosnian sausages flung out in every direction. With time, gravity and radiation from the exploded microwave produced stars, planets, Bosnia, Leonard Nimoy, and Taco BellTM.

6) How do we know this? Because we have brains. Bosnia is an anagram for “ao bains,” which is close to “O, brains.” Coincidence? I don’t think so.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bangers and Mash

Posted on March 23, 2015 by pauldelancey

British Entree

BANGERS AND MASH

INGREDIENTSBangersAndMash-

1 large onion
2 pounds potatoes
5 tablespoons butter (2 tablespoons more later)
6 tablespoons milk
½ tablespoon mustard
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
8 pork sausages (Do try to get authentic British bangers.)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
4 cups beef broth
⅓ cup red wine
4 tablespoons flour

Makes 8 bangers and mash. Takes 1¼ hours.

PREPARATION

Thinly slice onion. Peel and cut potatoes into 1″ cubes. Add potatoes cubes to large pot. Cover potato with water. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15-to-20 minutes or until potato is tender. Drain water. Mash potatoes with, well, a potato masher. Add 5 tablespoons butter, milk, mustard, pepper, and salt. Cover and set aside.

While potato cubes are simmering. add pork sausages and vegetable oil to pan Fry sausages for 20 minutes using medium heat or until sausages turn golden brown. Cover and stir occasionally. Remove sausages and keep covered.

Add onion and 2 tablespoons butter to pan. Sauté onion for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Add beef broth and red wine to pan. Bring to boil using high heat and cook for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add flour. Cook on medium-high for 10 minutes or until gravy starts to thicken. Stir occasionally.

Place a sausage and an equal amount of mashed potatoes on each plate. Cover with an equal amount of onion gravy.

TIDBITS

1) Rationing in Britain during World War I and immediately afterward resulted in butchers adding water to their sausages. This way they could still sell the same amount of sausages with less meat. The water in the sausages expanded during cooking and would burst open the casing with a bang.

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

Powegian Breakfast Burrito

Posted on June 2, 2014 by pauldelancey

Fusion Entree

POWEGIAN BREAKFAST BURRITO

INGREDIENTSPowayBreakfastBurrito-

½ white onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 eggs (1 more egg later)
1 4-ounce can diced green chiles

½ pound sliced ham
1 tomato
1 pound Italian pork sausage
1 cup chipotle salsa
1 cup grated four Mexican cheeses
18 8″ flour tortillas
1 egg

SPECIAL UTENSIL

9″ x 12″ casserole dish

Makes 18 burritos or a saner 9 burritos with the amount of ingredients halved. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mince onion. Dice tomato. Cut ham slices into ½” squares. Add onion and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté onion on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add eggs and diced green chiles. Sauté on medium heat for about 5 minutes or until eggs reach your desired level of doneness. Stir constantly. Remove from heat.

Cut ham into 1″ squares. Dice tomato. Add ham squares, pork sausage, and chipotle salsa to large pot. Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes or until thoroughly warm. Stir occasionally. Add tomatoes and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add cheese. Stir until well blended.

Combine egg/chiles with sausage/cheese/tomatoes mix. Place ⅓ cup of combined mixture on middle, bottom third of tortillas. Fold bottom of tortilla over mixture. Fold in sides until they touch. Roll up tortillas from the bottom to make burrito.

Put egg in small dish. Whisk egg. Brush all burritos with whisked egg. Bake at 400 degrees for 12 minutes or until egg on top of burritos is golden brown and burritos begin to brown.

TIDBITS

1) Eating sausages 5,000 years ago enabled the ancient Sumerians to establish the world’s first advanced civilization.

2) The mighty sausage was first mentioned in the play “The Sausage” written by Epimarchus a really, really long time ago. The play got lost, however, and culinary drama disappeared for a really long time. (Note: really, really long time is longer than a really long time.)

3) Aristophanes, the dude from 5th-century B.C., mentioned sausages in one of his plays. Of course, mentioning sausages is not as good or powerful as writing an entire play about this amazing, meaty delicacy.

4) Culinary tragedy struck in the fourth century A.D., when the Catholic Church banned the eating of sausages as being sinful.

5) Church leaders had noticed the barbarians hordes that were carving up the Roman Empire ate sausages at their festivals. Therefore, sausages were ungodlyl.

6) Historians, often wonder why such spirited warfare existed between the barbarians and the Roman Empire as both peoples possessed sausages. Why fight someone else for something you already have?

7) The Catholic Church, over the years, relaxed its stance on sausage eating, banning it only on Fridays.

8) Arabs burst out of the Arabian peninsula in 632 A.D.. Fired by strong religious belief and fortified with beef sausages, they conquered North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and the Middle East.

9) Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. Normal historians take this to be the start of the Reformation which split Christian church into Catholic and Protestant ones. Culinary historians speculate that if Martin Luther had only been able to eat sausages without guilt, he would have been devouring this wonderful entree to his heart’s content. Full of sausage-induced good will, he couldn’t have possibly mustered up the rage to write even two theses, let alone ninety five. The Christian church would still be one and horrors of the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, fought between Protestant and Catholic Europe would never have happened.

10) Sausage-eating Protestants and six-out-of-seven-days-a-week Catholics built vast colonial empires starting from the 1500s. These empires fell apart during the mid-twentieth century when the European nations switched from consuming vast amounts of sausages to more trendy things such as sushi, salmon quesadillas, and specialty coffees.

12) Vatican II led many Catholics to believe that eating meat on Fridays is okay. The world has not had a major war since then.

13) “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.”
– German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898).

14) “War without fire is like sausages without mustard.”
– King Henry V.

15) “The dog’s kennel is no place to keep a sausage.”
-Danish proverb

16) “Yum.”
-me

– 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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Sausage and Pepperoni Pizza

Posted on March 12, 2014 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

SAUSAGE AND PEPPERONI PIZZA

INGREDIENTSSausagePeppPizza-

1 pizza crust
2 cups pasta sauce (see recipe)
8 ounces sausage meat
4 ounces sliced pepperoni
1⅔ cups mozzarella cheese

SPECIAL UTENSIL

16″ pizza pan

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put pizza crust on pizza pan. Spread pasta sauce over entire crust. Make ½” sausage balls. Put sausage balls and pepperoni slice evenly over sauce. Bake pizza in oven at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese turns golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Pizza has a long and rich history. So does the game of rock, paper, scissors.

2) The game started as rock, rock, rock in Vivaldi Gorge in the year 3,200,010 BC.. The game was played with real rocks and always ended in a tie. Caveman Ogg never lost. He even considered going pro, but stopped from a lack of corporate sponsors.

3) Ten years later Ogg accused Lucy from Olduvai Gorge of cheating. The enraged Ogg used the rock to brain his foe. Ogg fictionalized the account of his bloody deed on his cave’s walls. This was the start of the literary crime genre. So some good came out of it.

4) Lucy’s kin attacked Ogg’s family, driving them far away. In 1949 Drs. Leakey started looking for human bones in Vivaldi Gorge. Ten years later, they switched to Olduvai Gorge and found the bones of Lucy next to a tablet inscribed with the cryptic code of W-0, L-0, T-1,723. Oh, a baseball was found as well, but that’s almost certainly an artifact.

5) In 1845, Alexander Cartwright formalized the rules of baseball. Baseball with its clear victor took America and much of the world by storm. Dr. Simon Iota did change the game of rock, rock, rock to rock, paper, scissors, paper in 1867. But the new rules came too late. Baseball would reign supreme. Rock, paper, scissors is hardly played and is never shown on T.V., except maybe on ESPN4 at 4 a.m. on Tuesdays.

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

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