Posts Tagged With: spicy

Pasta With Spicy Peanut Sauce

Thai Entree

PASTA WITH SPICY PEANUT SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

1 pound pasta, not multicolored
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons peanut oil
5 tablespoons sesame oil
1/4 tablespoon TabascoTM sauce
7 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons butter
2 cups Asian vegetables: carrots, bell peppers, watercress, snow peas, etc. Try to get more than one color.

PREPARATION

Prepare pasta according to instructions on package or boil pasta for about 7 minutes

Note: put a thin coating of vegetable oil or some other plain-tasting oil on your measuring spoon before measuring something sticky like peanut butter or honey. This will make getting the peanut butter off the measuring spoon easier. (If you try to remove the p.b. by flinging it off the spoon it will go everywhere. And peanut butter can be so hard to remove from a stucco ceiling.)

Put vinegar, soy sauce, water, ginger, sugar, peanut oil, sesame oil, TabascoTM sauce, and peanut butter in blender. Blend using “liquefy” setting.

Cook pasta according to directions on box or bag. Spoon out pasta with pasta spoon–-curved with holes in it.

Dice or mince Asian veggies. Try to have multiple colors. Don’t puree them or you might end with an unappetizing yellow plop. Put butter, minced garlic, and Asian veggies in sauce pan. Saute for about 6 minutes on medium high heat. Stir frequently.

Top pasta with sauce and Asian vegetables. Yum.

TIDBITS

1) Years ago, my wife and I went to a future mom’s party. We brought this dish. Other parents-to-be arrived with fancy dishes or meals picked up at stores. No one touched our dish for a while. It was plain with a bit of diced bell peppers.

Later though, an especially astute man, in my opinion, tried our dish. He loved it and walked around telling everyone that it was great and must be tried. Well, this dish was the first one to be completely eaten. Bliss.

2) It wasn’t eaten at first because it looked boring and that I had used marginally more effort than pouring CheeriosTM into a bowl. Use more than one color with your Asian vegetables.

3) Ice cream was invented by the Chinese. Marco Polo brought this recipe back to Europe. The ice cream was entirely eaten before he got back to Venice.

4) Frozen vegetables are usually frozen right after picking and so might have had less time to lose their nutrients than fresh ones.

5) The Romans thought raw peas were poisonous and dried them before eating.

6) The 17th century French restored the pea to culinary favor.

7) This recipe can be dish intensive. Don’t try it if your dishwasher isn’t working. Just saying.

– 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, food, history, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bacon and Spicy Fried Eggs

American Breakfast

BACON AND SPICY FRIED EGGS

INGREDIENTS

1 pound bacon
8 eggs
1 cup grated four-cheese mix
1 tablespoon Prudhomme’s Poultry MagicTM spice
1/4 teaspoon parsley
1/4 teaspoon tarragon

UTENSILS

Apron or at least reasonably protective clothes

PREPARING THE BACON

Bacon! Everyone loves bacon. Bacon!

After coming down from your bacon high, separate the delectable meaty strips from each other. This helps the bacon fry at the same rate.

Cook bacon at medium high. Bacon can go from golden crispness to ashy black in seconds. So turn over the bacon strips constantly. Do you have to worry about bacon splattering you? Yes, that is why one hand should protect you by holding the pan’s lid while you turn over the bacon. Alternatively, tilt the pan away from you while stirring.

(Does hot bacon grease hurt? My goodness, yes! Put the splattered part of your body immediately under the kitchen faucet and turn on that cold water. Don’t be proud about pouring water onto that splattered part if it can’t be put under the faucet; for example, if you were cooking in the nude–-never do this–-or cooking in a thin pajama bottom. Oh sure, cooking this way might be exciting to your partner, but getting splattered down there with scalding grease is a mood dampener.)

Put paper towels in a bowl, the cooked bacon next, then another towel. Press down on the top towel. Grease sure makes meat and other things taste great, but your stomach will hate it and your heart will want medical specialists standing by.

COOKING THE EGGS

Fried eggs taste best when cooked in bacon grease. The best alternative is butter. When cooking with butter, it is a good idea to spray the pan first with a non-stick spray. This will save minutes of pan scrubbing afterwards.

Crack eggs into frying pan. Sprinkle poultry spice, parsley, and tarragon on top of eggs. Start cooking the eggs on medium high and within a few seconds go down to medium. There is a range of opinion on how long to cook the yolk. This is a matter of taste, unless you’re like me and have an allergic reaction to any yolk that isn’t thoroughly cooked.

Make fried eggs exciting. Add grated-four cheese to it when it is nearly done. A crispy, gold cheese crust looks great and tastes fantastic too. Meat dishes can be spiced. Why not spice your eggs, too, to your liking? Salsa, anyone?

Be VERY CAREFUL about cooking eggs in the bacon grease from your wonderful bacon made just minutes ago. It is already seething with hot and agitated bacon-grease molecules. Fried eggs don’t need to be turned over, once if you prefer, so you don’t need to watch constantly. But you will need to make sure they don’t burn. So, wear that apron, hold that lid, and tilt that pan. And when scooping the eggs out of the pan, use a spatula with holes in it so the grease stays in the pan on not on the eggs.

And it all tastes great. Bacon and eggs served to your sweetheart in bed makes a wonderful morning.

TIDBITS

1) The great film director Alfred Hitchcock loathed eggs. He directed a scene where an actress put out her cigarette in a runny egg yolk.

2) A hard-boiled egg spins faster than one that is not.

3) Presumably, the Earth would spin faster if it were hard boiled.

4) You’d need a large pan to hard-boil the Earth. And a really big stove as well.

5) Eggs age faster at room temperature than in the fridge. They also age slower if left in the carton.

6) Similarly, people keep quite well if put them in a refrigerator. Consult your local law enforcement when attempting this experiment. You’ll be pleased how quickly they’ll come over.

– 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, food, humor, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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