Posts Tagged With: The Comic Chef

Fluffernutter Sandwich

Posted on May 26, 2020 by pauldelancey

American Entree

FLUFFERNUTTER SANDWICH

INGREDIENTS

2 slices white bread
1 glop* marshmallow fluff**
1 glop creamy peanut butter

* = A precise scientific term meaning the amount of peanut butter, or fluff, that you want to spread with a knife.
** = See preceding recipe for marshmallow fluff. Or buy it at stores if you live in Massachusetts or its neighboring states. It can also found online.

Serves 1. Takes 3 minutes.

PREPARATION

Spread peanut butter on one bread slice. Spread marshmallow fluff on other. Put bread slices together.

TIDBITS

1) It takes a little skill to cut a fluffernutter sandwich in two. If you slice too slowly or press down with a dull knife, you will most likely squoosh the marshmallow fluff out of the sandwich.

2) “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” – Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

3) Isaac Newton invented the fig newton.

4) On July 18, 1673, Isaac tried to cut a fig newton in half with a dull knife. The slow impact of his knife pushed two halves apart. Figgy stuff came out of the newton pieces. “Wow,” he said, “this gives me an idea. With a big enough knife, perhaps 100 yards long and a large enough fig newton, perhaps 50 yards by 50 yards, I could propel my mansion to the moon.” Space travel looked to be a few years away.

5) But no, just a few minutes after having this brainstorm, his comely maid, Sarah Bellum, sashayed by wearing a tight-fitting dress. Sir Isaac’s blood flowed away from his brain and space travel would be forgotten for three centuries.

6) Then in 1958, Pedro Erickson, head chef at NASA’s two-MichelinTM star restaurant served fluffernutter sandwiches to the engineers. He cut a sandwich in half. The two sandwich halves moved ever so slightly apart while marshmallow fluff oozed out the cut. “Aha,” cried Peter Pepper, “we can use solid-state fuel to propel our rockets. If not with marshmallow fluff, then with something else.” And with that explosive idea, NASA’s mission to space would really take off.

– 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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Bunny’s Feast

Posted on November 22, 2019 by pauldelancey

Bunny Entree

BUNNY’S FEAST

INGREDIENTS

1 large carrot
½ Roma tomato
3 tablespoons raisins.

Serves a bunny family. Takes 5 minutes.

PREPARATION

Break carrot into 2 or 3 pieces. Dice Roma tomato. Do nothing to raisins. Place carrot pieces, diced Roma tomato, and raisins on separate flat surfaces. The separation of ingredients allows the bunnies to create their own three-course meal.

The best time for the bunny feast is just before dusk when it’s dark enough for our furry friends to feel safe and light enough for us to see.

TIDBITS

1) The Chinese dedicate every twelveth year to the rabbit. The Aztecs held that the Centzon Totochtin (say that quickly) are 400 rabbit gods who party all the time. They are the gods of drunks. Ancient Asians believed a rabbit lived on the moon with its friend the moon goddess. Nanabhozo was a Native American creator god who liked to appear as the Great Rabbit.

2) Crusader Rabbit appeared on early television as a force for good. The kindly Velveteen Rabbit appeared in books. Peter Rabbit delighted kids for decades.

3) However, we spurned the good lapins of literature for less savory rabbits. Brer Rabbit and Bugs Bunny were tricksters. To be fair, Bugs Bunny did promote war bonds during World War II.

4) Bunnicula, of literature fame, sucked juice from carrots while the movie, Curse of the Were-Rabbit showed these furry creatures to be other worldly.

5) Rabbits turned deadly in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “That’s no ordinary rabbit.” 1972’s horror flick, Night of the Lepus treated viewers to thousands of mutated rabbits killing and eating the inhabitants of small towns along their Chicago. Spoiler alert, Chicago survives.

6) See? Even the nicest of rabbits can go rather bad without attention. Go to the library with your kids. Check out Peter Rabbit books. Do it today. Civilization hangs in the balance.

– 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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Tuna Stuffed Eggs (Uova Ripiene di Tonno)

Posted on November 15, 2019 by pauldelancey

Italian Appetizer

TUNA STUFFED EGGS

(Uova Ripiene di Tonno)

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 4-ounce can tuna, drained
1 teaspoon capers, drained
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
4 leaves lettuce
1 tablespoon fresh Italian parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

small food processor

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add enough water to cover eggs with 1″ extra. Bring water to boil. Use a large spoon to carefully add eggs. Boil for 12 minutes. Remove eggs and put in a bowl of cold water. Peel eggs. Cut eggs in half along their length. Remove yolks and set aside.

Add yolks, mayonnaise, tuna, capers, pepper, salt, and lemon juice to small food processor. Blend until creamy. Fill egg-white halves with equal amounts of creamy mixture. Tear lettuce leaves in half. Place filled egg-white haves on lettuce-leaf halves. Dice parsley. Garnish with parsley.

TIDBITS

1) One night Contessina de’ Bardi dreamed this entire recipe in modern Italian. Unfortunately, she and many others on the Italian peninsula still spoke Latin. She had no idea what she had imagined.

2) So asked her husband Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464), “We don’t we all learn Italian? That way we can all understand this recipe and make a yummy appetizer. “But,” said Cosimo, “there are sorts of proto-Italian dialects around. How will we get everyone to agree on just one version?”

3) “Well,” said Contessina, “We’ll make Florence the center of the art world. All Italy will come here to marvel at our artistic glory. The visitors will all pick up Florentine Italian. So will I. Then I’ll be able to make you Tuna Stuffed Eggs.” Cosimo said, “Sounds good.” And so began The Renaissance.

– 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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Tibet Yak Butter Tea

Posted on November 10, 2019 by pauldelancey

Tibetan Appetizer

YAK BUTTER TEA

INGREDIENTS

3½ cups water
2 tablespoons loose-leaf black tea or 6 black-tea bags
2 tablespoons yak ghee, yak butter*, or cow butter
½ cup whole milk
¼ teaspoon salt

* = Yak butter can be found in Tibet and nowhere else apparently, not even online. Yak ghee, however, can be purchased on line. I really tried to find yak butter. There are yaks farm in Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming. You can order yak meat from them or even an entire yak. Simply drive to a yak farm and buy the animal.. Somehow put the yak in your van or pickup truck. (I recommend against using the tiny Honda FitTM for this purpose.) Drive the yak back to your humble abode. Milk the yak. (You did buy a female yak, didn’t you?) Put the yak milk in your food processor. Blend until the yak milk separates into yak butter and yak buttermilk. Easy peasy. Drink the yak buttermilk as is or use it to make yak-buttermilk pancakes.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

stool (If you’re milking a yak.)
colander (If you’re using loose tea.)
blender
sonic obliterator

Serves 5. Takes 15 minutes.
.
PREPARATION

Add water to 1st pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add black tea. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 3 minutes. Stir enough times to prevent burning. While tea simmers, build a financial empire. Remove tea leaves or tea bags from tea. Add tea, yak butter or ghee, milk, and salt to blender. Blend on low speed for 3 minutes. Serve the tea right away. Zap un-appreciative guests with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.

TIDBITS

1) This dish is truly difficult to assemble and make. How difficult, you ask?

2) You have to go to a yak farm in west-central America to even find yaks.

3) Suppose you don’t want to buy a yak and take it home. (As suggested earlier in the recipe.)

4) You could ask the yak ranchers if you could milk the yaks right there.

5) They might refuse. They might charge you a lot for milking privileges. They might let you do it for free if they’re in the mood for a laugh and it has been a plumb stressful week of yak ranching.

6) Suppose you get some yak milk. Good. Now you have to transport it back home and that’s likely to be a long drive. And you’ll need to keep that milk cold all the way back or it’ll go bad.

7) The distance from my home to the Colorado yak ranch is 1,155 miles. That would take me 16.5 hours.

8) I wouldn’t risk using a cooler for such a lengthy venture. I think it’s likely the milk would still get warm and go bad in a cooler.

9) I’d be ticked off beyond measure if I drove 16.5 hours to get to the ranch, got laughed at the ranch hands while I milked the yaks, and took the same time to get back home only to find the yak milk went bad.

10) Nothing’s worse than spoiled yak milk

11) Best to put a refrigerator in your care. Plug the fridge into the cigarette lighter. Could you get enough electricity from the cigarette lighter to power the refrigerator? Even if you could, how many miles to the gallon would your get? Two?

12) You could try taking a portable electric generator with you. Could such a generator power your fridge all the way back from Colorado, where you were laughed at while milking yak cows? Doubtful.

13) It’s simpler to fly to Lhasa, Tibet, then buy some yak butter there. As of today, I can fly round trip from near my home to Lhasa, Tibet for $867 with each flight taking 50 hours, a scant 27 hours each way for a scant $1,344.

14) Then buy a really, really tight container, one that doesn’t let heat in at all. Pack the container with ice. Mail it from Lhasa. Pick package up at home. Is this at possible?

15) Don’t know. That’s why I ordered some yak ghee.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Wonton Soup

Posted on November 5, 2019 by pauldelancey

Chinese Soup

WONTON SOUP

INGREDIENTS

2 green onions (1 more later)
1″ ginger root
½ teaspoon brown sugar
½ pound ground pork
2 teaspoons Chinese rice wine or sherry
1 tablespoon soy sauce (2 teaspoons more later)
24 wonton wrappers
4½ cups chicken stock
1 green onion
2 teaspoons soy sauce

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Thinly slice 2 green onions. Grate ginger root. Add 2 sliced green onions, grated ginger, brown sugar, pork, rice wine, and 1 tablespoon soy sauce to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until filling is well blended. Let marinate for 20 minutes.

Place 6 wonton wrappers at a time on flat surface. Keep remaining wrappers covered with wet towel to keep them from drying out. Place ½ tablespoon filling in center of wrapper. Use a finger to lightly wet the edges of the wrapper. Bring 2 opposite corners together to form a triangle. Firmly press edges together. Bring the 2 corners of the long edge together so that they overlap to get a round stuffed wonton with a flat triangle at the top. Repeat for remaining wrappers.

Thinly slice 1 green onion. Add chicken stock to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Add wontons to pot. Reduce heat to low-medium. Simmer for 5 minutes or until wontons start to float. Stir occasionally and gently. Garnish with 1 sliced green onion.

TIDBITS

1) French women, for the last thousand years, have gone for men who are handsome and give them flowers, chocolate, and wonton soup. This held especially true for French queens. Poor old King Phillip II Augustus (1165-1223) had great trouble getting his wife Isabelle of Hainault into a frisky mood. Phil got himself nipple rings. Izzy simply used his rings for coat hangers. Phillip II even gave her flowers, chocolates, and French onion soup. “Not now,” as she gazed at her soup. “Not now.”

2) At his wits end, King Phillip II told his chef to go wild making a new soup. His chef came up with this very same recipe. Isabelle loved it. Indeed, it made her so amorous that the royal couple made whoopee all night long. Nine months later, little Louis VIII was born. Ever since then all French kings who served their queens “Won ton” soup, the opposite of “Not Now” produced future kings; the clods who didn’t, produced no heirs. Something to think about when ordering soup.

– 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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Zanzibar Pizza

Posted on July 2, 2019 by pauldelancey

Tanzanian Appetizer

ZANZIBAR PIZZA

INGREDIENTS – DOUGH

3 cups flour (2 tablespoons more later)
½ teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)
1 cup water
⅔ cup vegetable oil (2½ tablespoons more later)

INGREDIENTS – FILLING & ASSEMBLY

2 green or red chiles
2 garlic cloves
1 red onion
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil (1 tablespoon more later)
¾ pound ground beef
½ teaspoon curry powder
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
¾ cup shredded cabbage
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
chutney or tomato sauce as desired

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker (optional)
no-stick pan

Serves 8. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

If USING BREAD MAKER, add 3 cups flour, water, and ½ teaspoon salt to bread maker. Set bread maker to “dough” setting for 10 minutes. (IF KNEADING BY HAND, add 3 cups flour and ½ teaspoon salt to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Add water and knead by hand for 10 minutes or until dough is smooth.) Divide dough into 6 balls. Add dough balls to shallow bowl. Drizzle ⅔ cup oil over dough balls. Turn dough balls until they are thoroughly coated with oil. Cover and let sit for 1½ hours.

PREPARATION – FILLING AND ASSEMBLY.

While dough sits, mince chiles, garlic cloves, and red onion. Add chile, garlic, red onion, and 1½ tablespoons vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until red onion softens. Stir frequently. Add beef, curry powder, pepper, and salt. Fry at medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until beef browns. Remove from heat.

Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Flatten dough ball until you have 8 8″-dough circles. Push in edges of dough circles to make a wall high enough to prevent egg from running out. Add beef mixture equally to center of dough circles. Top beef mixtures equally with shredded cabbage. Add raw eggs equally over shredded cabbage.

Fold top and bottom of dough circles to the center. Then fold left and right sides to the center. These are the pizzas. Pinch sides as necessary to keep egg from seeping out. Add 1 tablespoon oil to large no-stick pan. Add as many pizzas as possible without having them touch each other. Cook on medium for 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Flip once. You might need to cook in batches. (Cooking times tend to go down with successive batches.)

Serve with chutney or tomato sauce.

TIDBITS

1) IEC, Intertemporal Enforcement Commission, is powerful. Frighteningly so. Consider the following salutary tale.

2) Around 260 AD, a Roman expeditionary discovered the island of Flutoj off the east coast of Africa. The merchants in the force waxed rapturously–I spelled it correctly on the first try; beams with pride–over the abundance of spices found on the island. Why not conquer it for Rome? It’ll be easy they said. And it was. Centurion Pomodoro won the island in a game of rock, paper, scissors.

3) The Romans named it Zanzibar after their Emperor Zanzi who loved to frequent wine bars. Within two days of the renaming of the island to Zanzibar, the British company, MarsTM, filed a trademark infringement complaint with the Intertemporal Enforcement Commission. Mars–the candy maker, not the Roman god–claimed Zanzibar was a rip off of Mars BarTM. Mars asseted that the Romans, renowned engineers, had clearly used a time machine, visited a twentieth-century candy store, saw Mars Bars on sale, made minimal changes to the name when coming up with Zanzibar.

4) How did the news of the renaming of the island to Zanzibar get back to Rome so quickly at a time of communication was limited to the speed of horses and oar-driven ships? Time machines, as well know the Intertemporal Enforcement Commission has time machines.

5) IEC ruled against Emperor Zanzibar and held a contest, So You Want to Be an Emperor? General Courgette did well on this and won the right to overthow the Emperor. And indeed, the plucky Courgette prevailed after a brief civil war marked with great slaughter.

6) This civil war proved so popular with the Roman armies that these conflicts became a weekly event. Courgette’s reign, in fact, was so brief that only culinary historians remember hir.

7)Anyway, these wars so depopulated the Roman Empire that it so fell to barbarian armies. The Dark Ages descended on Europe. People became so poor that they would have no money to spend on candy bars. People wouldn’t buy candy bars until 1932 when the Mars company made it. IEC realized it’s overreach and disbanded in 1998. We’ve fought no wars over candy ever since. Yay.

– 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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Greenlandic Cake

Posted on June 30, 2019 by pauldelancey

Greenlandic Appetizer

GREENLANDIC CAKE

INGREDIENTS – CAKE

7 tablespoons butter
1 cup lukewarm milk
2¼ teaspoons (1 packet) yeast
⅔ cup raisins
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
4 cups flour
no-stick spray
2 tablespoons cold coffee
1½ tablespoons sugar, pearl or confectioner’s

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker (optional)
bread pan

Serves 8. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION – CAKE

Add butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add milk. Stir gently until well blended. Add in yeast, stirring gently as you do so. Mix gently until yeast dissolves. Add raisins, salt, and sugar. Mix until well blended. Add flour. Knead with bread maker or by hand for 10 minutes or until you get a smooth dough.

Place dough on flat surface, cover with towel, and let stand for 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 390 degrees 15 minutes before dough has finished standing. Spray bread ban with no-stick spray. Add dough to bread pan. Spread coffee on top with brush. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 390 degrees for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

TIDBITS

1) The fierce Vikings of old loved cakes, particularly this cake. They got a might testy, particularly when they didn’t get their favorite dessert. Indeed, the Vikings were apt to loot whole cities when in such a mood. What towns did the berserk Norsemen target? Why, the ones with lots and lots of flour and milk, of course, there being no wheat fields or cowherds in icy, cold Greenland.

2) Why didn’t the Vikings simply move to mainland Europe where there were wheat and cows in abundance? Why not set up cake bakeries there? Because all the great Viking cake makers would only live in Greenland. Something about being able to always step out into cold Arctic air after a long day working beside hot ovens. So you can see, if air-conditioned kitchen had been available in the ninth century, there were have been no Fury of the Norsemen. Something to chew on.

– 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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Are You A Fast Food Dick?

Posted on June 29, 2019 by pauldelancey

Are you a fast-food dick? Do you make the help or other customers’ time in the fast-food restaurant miserable? Take this test and find out.

Do you:

1) Wait until you get to the head of the line to read the menu? (2 points)

2) Refuse to let someone else order when you can’t make up your mind? (1 point)

3) Bring in the all-you-can drink cup you got from your last visit so you don’t have to pay for a soda this time? (2 points)

4) Write a check? It’s no longer the 20th century. (1 point. 0 points if you can’t get a credit card.)

5) Ask if the food is fresh? (1 point)

6) Ask if the food is fresh if you see it coming out of a freezer? (2 points)

7) Park in handicapped parking when you are totally healthy, just because you won’t be there long? (3 points)

8) Back out of your parking spot without looking, because who could have possibly expected other cars to be in a fast-food restaurant’s parking lot? (1 point)

9) Order over forty dollars of food? (0 points. This is okay, just be aware people behind you will hate you even though this is not dickish behavior.)

10)Talk loudly into your cell phone all the time? (1 point)

11) Yell at the low-paid store employees? (3 points)

12) Insist on using expired coupons? (1 point)

14) Get got completely by surprised that you will have to pay for your order? ( 1 point)

15) Try to pay with your order completely with unsorted coins? (1 point)

16) Yell at someone for not speaking your language? (3 points)

17) Steal a bagful of ketchup, mustard, taco sauce, or other condiment packages? (1 point)

18) Cause the fast-food restaurant to stop leaving out condiment packages? (2 points)

19) Have kids shrieking all the time and do nothing to stop them? (2 points)

************************************************************************

What does your total score mean?

0 points: You are in no way a fast-food dick. Congratulations.

1-4 points: It’s still okay for you go into a store unsupervised. See a doctor about your dickish traits while they’re still treatable.

5-8 points: Cause for alarm. You may still enter a restaurant unattended. You will, however, be under constant surveillance.

9-12 points: You’re awful. You must post a bond before you enter any restaurant. The bond will be forfeited to your surrounding shoppers, should you ever run up a score of nine or more points.

13-16: You’re nearly erect. You must post a double bond before going into any restaurant. You must also be accompanied by a guard who will taze if you accumulate a score of thirteen or more points.

17+: You dick! You will not be allowed inside any restaurant. You will be fitted with an ankle device that will incinerate you if you enter any fast-food eatery. A drone strike will obliterate you once you step outside.

– 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: are you a dick | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Burmese Crepes

Posted on June 25, 2019 by pauldelancey

Burmese Entree

BURMESE CREPES

INGREDIENTS

¼ cup (drained and cooked) azuki beans, watana beans, red beans, or kidney beans*
⅓ cup shredded coconut*
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rice flour
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2½ cups water
no-stick spray
no-stick pan (You really don’t want the batter to stick to the pan, heavens to Betsy.)

* = Diced green onion or soaked split peas that can also be used for the filling.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

kitchen mallet
trained squirrel with cannon

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Add beans to flat surface. Smash with fork or kitchen mallet until the beans become a paste. Add shredded coconut. Mix with hands until you get a bean/coconut paste.

Add baking soda, rice flour, salt, and sugar to large mixing bowl. Stir with fork until batter is well blended. Add water. Mix with fork until you get a runny batter. Spray pan with no-stick spray. Ladle ¼ cup of batter to pan. Tilt pan so that batter spreads over pan. Fry for 2 minutes at medium heat or until bubbles appear on the crepe’s surface. Sprinkle bean/coconut paste onto the crepe. Use spatula to fold crepe in half. Fry for 1 minute on each side until the outside turns golden brown. Repeat for each crepe.

Serve right away. If quests and family don’t scurry to the kitchen table, threaten them with the squirrel ready at the cannon.

TIDBITS

1) The squirrel to the right is Sergeant Bill Redtail. He’s quite fierce. Don’t disappoint him.

– 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

Choripán

Posted on June 24, 2019 by pauldelancey

Argentinian Entree

CHORIPÁN
(Sausage Sandwich)

INGREDIENTS

1 small red or green chile
4 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
½ tablespoon oregano
½ teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon minced red onion
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
⅓ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons water
½ cup olive oil (2 more tablespoons later)
3 Argentinian chorizo sausages or Italian sausages*
¾ cup fresh parsley or ¼ cup dried parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1 crispy baguette
2 tablespoons olive oil

* = Italian sausages are more like Argentinian chorizo sausages than Mexican chorizos.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

outdoor or indoor grill

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Seed chile. Mince chile and garlic cloves. Add garlic, chile, bay leaf, oregano, pepper, red onion, red pepper flakes, red wine vinegar, and water to mixing bowl. Blend together with fork or whisk. Slowly add in ½ cup olive oil, blending as you do so. Mince parsley. Gradually add in parsley and salt, blending as you do so. Let sit for 30 minutes. This is the chimichurri sauce.

Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Grill sausages for 12 minutes on medium-high heat or until the sausage skins, or casings, are becoming crispy and starting to split open. Turn every 2 minutes to ensure even grilling. Remove sausages from grill and place on a plate. Cut sausages lengthwise ⅔ of the way through. Place sausages back on grill, cut-side down. Grill on medium-high heat for 6 minutes or until cut-side starts to char. Remove sausages to plate. Cover.

Cut baguette into 4 pieces Cut baguette pieces open along their length. Place cut-sides down on grill. Grill for 3 minutes or until cut-sides starts to char. Remove baguette pieces to plate. Drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil equally on open baguette pieces. Add 1 sausage to each baguette piece. Spoon chimichurri sauce equally over sausages. Close baguette pieces.

TIDBITS

1) Choripan is an anagram for Chopin, R.A.

2) R.A. is an abbreviation for Resident Assistant. A resident assistant is someone lives in the college dorms and makes sure the students living there don’t get out of control.

3) RAs get their tuition waived in exchange for this duty. This fact alone makes the RA position a highly desirable one, especially for poor students.

4) And so it was for Frédéric Chopin, who while not quite a poor as a church mouse, was still poorer than a manor mouse. In fact, many culinary historians put Chopin as being a poor as an ale house mouse, although this remains a contentious issue. Indeed, if you want to cause a riot a chefs’ convention just shout “Chopin.”

5) Anyway, Chopin The Mouse, left Poland for Argentina in 1830. Political historians believe he emigrated to avoid the Polish Revolution of 1830 against the Russians.

6) However, culinary historians insist that he immigrated to Argentina to get a free RA scholarship from Argentina National University. Dormitory historians believe the same. There your have it, two out of three historian types agree on this.

7) The Mouse’s life had been drifting along slowly and erratically because the author of these tidbits gets sidetracked so frequently.

8) Ahem, Chopin studied music in college, after a brief and disastrous fling with differential calculus.

9) The Mouse wrote many exciting etudes. Etude Seven, proved especially popular with Argentina’s gamblers. This is why so many fans of chance yell, “C’mon, seven.” Go to a casino; you’ll see I’m right.

10) Chopin made oodles of money selling his first eleven etudes to the local music halls.

11) Then he lost it all playing dice, coming out with a roll of twelve. Etude 12, “Craps,” remains to this day Chopin’s most melancholy work. And it’s likely to stay that way, him being dead and all.

12) But Number 12, earned him enough money to open his own little restaurant in the tenderloin district of Buenos Aires. “Screw it,” said The Mouse , “the real money is in sausage sandwiches.” He named it “Ra” after his college days.

13) The critics loved his restaurant. “Ra is Chopping Ra, the Pharoah of all restaurants.” The name soon shortened to Chopin’ Ra and finally, to Chopin Ra. This and many other rave reviews naturally drew in the rough-and-tumble anagramists of Buenos Aires who renamed it “Choripan,” after the King of Argentina.

14) His fortune made, The Mouse turned once again to music and wrote a tremendous number of etudes and polonaises. These made him so famous that we’ve forgotten his culinary achievements. 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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