Posts Tagged With: Texas

Pralines

Posted on May 9, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

PRALINES

INGREDIENTSPralines-

1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup butter
2 cups pecan halves
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

SPECIAL UTENSILS

candy thermometer
cookie sheet
waxed paper

Makes 23 squares. It should make more but the family keeps nibbling before I can get them all wrapped in waxed-paper squares.  (The squares, not the family. Goodness sake, you didn’t think you were going to get an exciting admission, did you?)

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to large pot. Cook on medium heat until temperature of syrup reaches 234-to-240 degrees or until a drop of syrup forms a soft ball that can be flattened when dropped in cold water. Watch carefully and stir constantly.

As soon as syrup is ready, use large spoon to quickly and carefully drop syrup onto cookie sheet. Try to make praline patties about 2″ across and ½” high. (Be careful, hot praline syrup will burn like molten lava if it gets on you.) Let syrup cool. While dessert cools, cut waxed paper into 6″ squares. Wrap each praline patty in waxed-paper squares. Tie at top with rubber band.

Makes a great gift. Great for yourself as well.

TIDBITS

1) Pecans help a man’s sex life. Pecans have a lot of zinc. Zinc helps men produce more testostone.

2) Chocolates make women feel slightly more romantic.

3) Chocolate-covered pecans make for a night of whoopie.

4) The pecan tree is the state tree of Texas. There are a lot of Texans. Need I say more?

– 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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Salsa

Posted on January 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

Mexican Appetizer

SALSA

INGREDIENTSSalsa-

3 serrano chiles
9 cloves garlic
1 white onion
8 Roma tomatoes
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/4 teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Remove seeds from serrano chiles if you desire a milder salsa. Put chiles, garlic, onion, tomatoes, and oil in baking dish. Stir until garlic, onion, and tomatoes are well coated with oil. Roast in oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Dice roasted veggies. Add veggies, cilantro, lime juice and salt to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk or fork. Goes great with everything except lutefisk.

TIDBITS

1) May, 1997, was National Salsa Month. Our officials have too much time on their hands.

2) In 2003, Texas declared tortilla chips and salsa to be the Official State Snack. The Texas government has too much time on its hands.

3) Pace Foods uses over 20 million pounds of hot peppers every year. That’s a lot of peppers or maybe just one huge pepper. Can you imagine a pepper that big? If you managed to eat it you’d need a really huge glass of milk to coat the pain receptors in your throat.

4) It would take a really big cow to give enough milk to fill that glass in tidbit 3).

5) Tomatoes and serrano chiles are not vegetables. They are fruits. So is a banana.

6) “Sometimes a banana is just a banana.” – Sigmund Freud. Freud would have been greatly interested in a dream about a twenty-million-pound serrano chile.

7) Oh, and some historians think Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean to get away from lutefisk.

– 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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Tamales

Posted on November 2, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

TAMALES

INGREDIENTS – MEAT MIX

1 onion
1 1/2 pounds chicken breast (or ground beef or shredded pork)
1 beef bouillon cube
1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder (1 tablespoon more later)
1/2 tablespoon coriander
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1/4 cup yellow corn meal
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder (1/2 teaspoon more later)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

INGREDIENTS – CORNMEAL COATING

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoons chili powder (2 tablespoons more earlier)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (1/2 tablespoon more earlier)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package corn husks or tamale paper

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

1 cup tomato sauce
1 7.5 ounce can chili
1 bouillon cube
1 cup vegetable oil

(This recipe is spicy. If you prefer milder food, consider reducing the amounts of chili powder by up to half the stated amounts.)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

2 large pots
Box of wooden toothpicks (optional)

PREPARATION – SOAKING OF CORN HUSKS

Place corn husks at a time in first large pot. Heat corn husks at warm heat for 1-to-2 hours.

Soaking makes the corn husks pliable. Stiff, brittle corn husks really don’t roll well. The corn husk will split or the tamale will unravel. (You’ll end up shouting over the ensuing disaster and your whole family will head grumpily out to a fast- food joint.) Soak those corn husks.

PREPARATION – MEAT MIX

Set aside an afternoon to do this. Mince onions. Shred chicken breast or meat of choice. Crumble bouillon cube. Combine onion, tomato sauce, shredded chicken, chili powder, coriander, cumin, corn meal, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and bouillon.

Mix thoroughly with hands. Shape mix into sticks no longer than about 3/4 the width of the corn husks.

PREPARATION – TAMALE COATING

In large bowl, mix corn meal, chili powder, garlic powder, and salt. Roll meat sticks in corn meal until coated all over.

Take a tablespoon of this coating and place it near the top, narrow part of the corn husk. Roll the husk from the top until the meat stick is enclosed. Fold in the sides of the husk and finish rolling. Be sure to roll it tight. Place the resulting tamale in second large pot with the seam side down.

Continue with the rest of the tamales. Put each tamale right up against the side of the pot or another tamale to prevent the husks from unraveling. You might wish to hold the tamales together with a wooden toothpick as well.

REMAINING PREPARATION

Mix sauce ingredients together. Pour sauce over tamales. Add enough water to cover the top layer of tamales. Bring to boil then reduce heat. Simmer for 40 minutes. Add vegetable oil. Simmer for 5 minutes more. Let soak for 30 minutes. This gives the cornmeal time to absorb the sauce.

Unroll the corn husks and serve the tamales. Cover the tamales with as much sauce as desired from the pot.

ADDITIONAL MEALS FROM THIS RECIPE

It’s possible that you might run out of pots to cook all the tamales you would otherwise make. You can use the excess meat mix as a burrito or taco filling. The remaining sauce in the pot makes an excellent chili soup. Reorganize the fridge. Make room for all this great food.

TIDBITS

1) My grandmother, who was born in Sonora, used to make tamales. I wish I remembered this better.

2) After making this dish, you’ll have a much greater appreciation of why tamales cost so much in stores and in restaurants. You’ll also see why establishments make tamales in such big batches.

3) Profusely thank your sweetheart who cleans up after your cooking. If you don’t have a sweetheart, consider finding one to help you tidy up after making tamales.

4) There is a Tamale Museum in Newport Beach, California. Featured there are paintings of Los Angeles’ taco trucks.

5) The first tamale factory in America opened in Austin, Texas in 1911. Prior to that, America was in the culinary dark ages.

6) There is a tamale factory in Vicksburg, Mississippi. It opened in 1939. I’ve been there. Their food is good. People in Northwest Mississippi are serious about their tamales. Who knew?

– 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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Fish-Stick Fajitas

Posted on October 14, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

FISH-STICK FAJITAS

INGREDIENTS

12 fish frozen sticks
2 garlic cloves
1 medium white onion
1 green bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/4 teaspoon TabascoTM sauce
1 teaspoon red chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
3/4 teaspoon Seafood MagicTM spice
6 small flour tortillas
1/2 cup shredded Four Mexican cheeses

UTENSILS

No-stick frying pan
A lazy Susan, about 24 inches across, if you can find one.

PREPARATION

Cook fish sticks according to instructions on package. Use food processor to mince garlic cloves. Use knife to slice the onion and all bell peppers into rings. Then cut rings into fourths.

Pour vegetable oil and lime juice into no-stick frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat. Saute one at a time the following ingredients: onion, green bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, and red bell pepper. (Saute means to leap in French. You will leap too if the oil gets on you. Always be careful.) Put each ingredient in its own bowl. Put bowls on lazy Susan, again if you have one. Add more vegetable oil and lime juice if you run out while sauteing all the ingredients.

Whisk together in small bowl: chili powder, cumin, coriander, and Seafood spice. Apportion equally over the onion and bell-pepper bowls. Put an equal amount of TabascoTM sauce, about two drops in each bowl.

Heat each tortilla in microwave for 12 seconds. Put a tortilla with 2 fish sticks on each plate. Let the guests take as much of the onions and bell peppers as desired.

TIDBITS

1) Many believe Sonny Falcon operated the first fajita stand in Texas in 1969.

2) The word “fajita” entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1971. Way to go, Falcon.

3) So, fajitas are not technically Mexican, but Tex-Mex.

4) TabascoTM sauce is not Mexican either. It comes from Avery Island in Louisiana and is used extensively in Cajun food.

5) The TabascoTM company was formed by the McIlhenny family, presumably not Mexicans, in 1868.

6) Mr. McIlhenny’s first instinct was to name it “Petite Anse Sauce,” but everyone else objected. Good for them.

7) Before 1863, the family made its fortune from the salt mines on Avery Island. However, in that year, Union soldiers destroyed the mines, leaving only a crop of hot peppers. Those peppers became the genesis of the TabascoTM company.

8) So, a lot of culinary good came out of the Civil War.

9) You should visit the TabascoTM factory on Avery Island. Don’t leave without going through the island’s Jungle Gardens, which boasts of a wonderful collection of flowers, birds, and alligators which can scoot as fast as 25 mph.

10) Only the alligators there scurry up to 25 mph. Don’t infer from the last sentence of 9) that flowers in Avery, Louisiana can move that fast. Flowers there and indeed everywhere else in that state are rather sedentary.

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

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