Posts Tagged With: turmeric

Xawaash Spice Mix

Posted on November 8, 2021 by pauldelancey

Somali Appetizer

XAWAASH SPICE MIX

INGREDIENTS

1½ inches cinnamon stick
3 cardamom pods
1 teaspoon cloves
4½ tablespoons coriander seeds
4½ tablespoons cumin seeds
1½ tablespoons peppercorns
3½ teaspoons turmeric

Makes ¾ cup. Takes 25 minutes

PREPARATION

Put cinnamon stick in plastic bag. Hit cinnamon with something hard. Put cinnamon pieces, cardamom pods, cloves, coriander seeds, cumin seeds in pan. Toast at medium heat for 3 minutes or until these ingredients become aromatic. Do not burn. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

Add toasted ingredients to spice grinder. Grind until you get a completely fine powder.. Add powder and turmeric to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Store in airtight jar. Should keep for 4 months.

TIDBITS

1) In the 11th century an architect named Diotisalvi made plans for a tower in Pisa. Workers built his tower lying flat on the ground. It simply remained to put the tower upright. But Diotisalvi went home for lunch, suffered an attack of amnesia, and never came back. So the workers tried raising the tower with a catapult, a trebuchet, with their arms, and blowing underneath it. Nothing worked. Then they hooked up 1,000 horses with ropes and lifted the tower up. Hooray! But oh no, the workers let the horses go too far forward. The tower listed at a four-degree angle!

3) “It’s mighty hard to see if a tower hundreds of feet tall is at a 90-degree angle,” said the foreman. A surprisingly erudite peasant said, “He needed to compare the angle of the real tower with that of a miniature, 90-degree wax tower. It’s easy to see if a small wax tower is at 90-degrees.” After that, architects would check to see if he “has a wax tower.” This shortened to “has a wax.”

3) Pisan anagramists celebrated this discovery by naming the new Arabian spice, Xawaash. Now you know.

 

– 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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Eggs Padang In Spicy Coconut Milk

Posted on July 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

Indonesian Entree

EGGS PADANG IN SPICY COCONUT MILK

 

INGREDIENTS – GARNISH

6 shallots (6 more later)
½ cup – vegetable oil (2 more tablespoons later)

INGREDIENTS – SPICE PASTE

1″ galangal root* or ginger root
1″ ginger root or 2 teaspoons ginger powder
½” turmeric root* or ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
6 shallots
5 Thai chiles (also known as bird’s eye chiles) or Fresno chiles
5 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon coconut milk (2 more cups later)

INGREDIENTS – REST

10 hard-boiled eggs
1 stalk lemongrass or 1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 kaffir lime leaves* or bay leaves, or 1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon tamarind juice*, tamarind paste*, white wine, or rice vinegar

* = You can get these items at Asian or world supermarkets, or use the substitutes listed above.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
spice grinder
food processor
wok or pan with tall sides
sonic obliterator (No modern kitchen should be without one)

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 5 minutes.

PREPARATION – GARNISH

Peel shallots. Use mandoline or knife to thinly slice 6 shallots. Add shallot slices and ½ cup vegetable oil to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until shallot becomes crispy and turns golden brown. Remove crispy shallot from pan. Drain and reserve.

PREPARATION – SPICE PASTE

Use spice grinder to make paste of galangal root, ginger root, and turmeric root. Peel 6 shallots. Add all spice-paste ingredients to food processor. Blend until you get a paste.

PREPARATION – REST

Add enough water to cover 10 eggs to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add eggs. Boil from 6 minutes (for soft-boiled eggs) to 12 minutes (for hard-boiled eggs.) Remove shells.

While eggs boil, remove white, hard part of lemongrass. Dice the green, inside part.. Add 2 tablespoons oil, diced lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until the sautéed ingredients becomes fragrant. Stir frequently.

Add 2 cups coconut milk to wok. Bring to boil using medium heat. Stir frequently. Add spice paste and sautéed kaffir leaves and lemongrass. Cook for two minutes. Stir frequently. Carefully add eggs. Bring to boil again using medium heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 12 minutes or sauce. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add tamarind juice. Stir gently until well blended. Remove kaffir lime leaves. Garnish with crispy shallot slices. Use sonic obliterator to zap guests who complain your substituted ingredients or anything else. You don’t need their negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) It almost goes without saying that eggs are egg shaped. That’s because they are eggs. Elephants, however, are not egg shaped. Indonesia has both elephants and eggs. Indonesia has the Sumatran elephant. This elephant is the smallest Asian elephant. Indonesia also has small eggs.

2) So, we can conclude that the existence of eggs is a necessary requirement for elephants to live. It’s doubtful that elephants eat chicken eggs or any other egg type for that matter. So why do elephants only flourish around eggs? No consensus among the world’s culinary scientists. However, we can answer the age-old riddle, “Which came first, the elephant or the egg?”

3) It’s the egg.

4) Eggs are shaped like the bottom of bowling pins. Indeed eggs bowling was popular in Indonesia in May, 927. But its appeal waned rapidly as the egg pins always fell over and rolled into the gutters. Egg bowlers took to bowling one gutter ball after another. The easy success of knocking down an egg pin that was already down led to constant, lengthy disputes about scoring. Also striking an egg with a bowling ball inevitably shattered the egg. Indonesian bowling leagues used up eggs at a prodigious rate. Only the nation’s leaders could afford to eat eggs. This egg shortage made the common people restless. Indeed, egg anger rose to such a fever pitch, that the elite banned egg bowling. Serenity returned to Indonesia’s beautiful islands but, it had been a near run thing.

5) Then in 1299, Oswaldo Wooden came up with the happy idea of making bowling pins out of wood. The sport of bowling has thrived ever since.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., critic

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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Koftay – Pakistani Meatballs

Posted on March 19, 2021 by pauldelancey

Pakistani Entree

KOFTAY
(Meatballs)

INGREDIENTS – MEATBALLS

½ inch ginger root (½ inch more later)
1 onion (1 onion more later)
1 egg
1¼ pounds ground beef (80% is best)
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)
¼ cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

1 garlic clove
½ inch ginger root
1 onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup full fat Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon coriander
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
2 cups water
½ cup fresh (3 tablespoons if dry) tarragon, cilantro, or parsley

SPECIAL UTENSIL

food processor or blender

Serves 6. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION – MEATBALLS

Add ½” ginger root and 1 medium onion to food processor or blender. Blend until you get paste. Beat egg in small bowl. Add ginger root/onion paste, egg, and all other meatball ingredients to large mixing bowl. Mix ingredients with hands until well blended. Form mix into 1″ meatballs.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

Mince garlic clove, ½” ginger root, and 1 onion. Add garlic, ginger, onion, and oil to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add coriander, red pepper flakes, salt, turmeric, water, and yogurt. Reduce heat to low. Blend with fork.

Add meatballs. Simmer at warm-low heat for 30 minutes. Stir gently and occasionally. While meatballs simmer in sauce, mince tarragon. Garnish meatballs and sauce with tarragon.

TIDBITS

1) Koftay is an Ancient Urartian word meaning meatball.

2 Urartu was an ancient kingdom with lands in what is now eastern Turkey.

3) Urarti civilization thrived under King Sarduri I (832 BC – 820).

4) He formed the fierce Urartian Guard. These proud horsemen swept everything before them.

5) Indeed, the floors of Sarduri’s palace were as clean as anything. Hence, the well-know saying, “As tidy as Sarduri.”

6) Yeah, you could have a safe operation on his tiled floors.

7) And people did. Especially since the Urartian Guard’s practice of riding into battle with brooms meant they incurred quite a few casualties.

8) But it was okay, they were sewn up and were as good as new.

9) Ordinary Urartians noticed the medical success of Sarduri’s palace. They clamored for equal treatment. In 827 the king granted universal health care to his grateful subjects. He could afford this as his other band of horsemen, Urartian Band, armed with lances, sacked one city after another. The gold coins they looted all flowed into the king’s coffers while the meatballs they carried off went to the people

10) Sarduri assessed his people a 10% copay for health care. The coinage starved inhabitants paid in koftay. Our modern word “copay” derives from this concept.

11) However, the Urartian empire declined soon after the king’s death, and eventually disappeared. So did the concept of koftay health care.

12) Universal health care system resurfaced briefly in the late Roman Republic when the reforming Gracchi brothers proposed reinstating koftay. However, the patrician nobility refused. Indeed, they killed the reformers. The Republic soon fell, then did the Empire, followed by barbarian invasions. The Dark Ages of Europe would stretch on for a millennium.

13) However, universal health care would come back to Europe in the late twentieth century. Not so much in America.

14) That’s because Italy loves meatballs so much more than the United States. However, we do have the concept of copay for our private health-care system. We owe this idea to the innovative Urartians and their scrumptious meatballs.

15) 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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Durban Masala

Posted on September 25, 2016 by pauldelancey

South African Appetizer

DURBAN MASALA

durbanmasalaINGREDIENTS

½ teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1¼ teaspoons coriander
1¼ teaspoons cumin
¼ teaspoon fenugreek
¾ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon mace
⅛ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons turmeric

Makes ¼ cup. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to mixing. Mix with whisk until well blended.

TIDBITS

1) Durban is a city in South Africa. Durban rhymes with Durban. This is useful when constructing rhyming poems. In much the same way, gnome rhymes with Nome, a city in Alaska. Over 20,000 gnomes live in Nome, admired for their strong work ethic. They’ll guard your garden for amazing lengths of time and everyone knows much polar bears fear gnomes.

4) Gnomes first came to Massachusetts on the Mayflower, fleeing persecution from waffle eaters. Later, they worked their way south, guarding spice gardens along the way. The little guys eventually settled in Chancellorsville, Virginia–Why not?–to lead a safe, if not totally accepted existence.

5) Tragedy struck in 1863. General Stonewall Jackson was shot after the battle of Chancellorsville. Enraged townsfolk held a gnome fired the fatal shot and drove the wee ones out of town.

6) The gnomes drifted ever northwestward, until they reached Nome on the Bering Sea. They could drift no longer. They wore parkas to keep warm. The parkas covered their faces, just like the natives. You couldn’t tell the gnomes and the people apart. Sure, gnomes are much shorter than people, but you always keep your face to the ground during a blizzard. And 19th-century Nome always had blizzards. The townsfolk didn’t even notice the little folk until 1941, when World War II broke out. People. after kneeling, worked shoulder to shoulder with the gnomes to defeat the common foe. The gnomes gained acceptance into one career after another. Today, Nome’s the gnome genome sequencing capital of the world.

– 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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Colombo Powder

Posted on February 20, 2015 by pauldelancey

French Guianese Appetizer

COLOMBO POWDER

INGREDIENTS??????????

¾ teaspoon cloves
3½ tablespoons coriander seeds
3½ tablespoons cumin seeds
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
1½ tablespoons black, brown, or yellow mustard seeds
1 tablespoon peppercorns
3½ tablespoons turmeric
½ teaspoon ground ginger.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

Makes 1 cup. Takes 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add cloves, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, and peppercorns to pan. Cook in pan at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until seeds turn golden brown or start to crackle. Stir frequently. Put toasted spice mix in spice grinder. Grind spices into powder.

Add turmeric to pan. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes or until turmeric turns golden brown. Add turmeric, ginger, and ground spices to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Store spice mix in air-tight jar.

TIDBITS

1) The above photo is right-side up. The powder would still be just as good upside down. The same can’t be said for Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Just try flipping that dessert over to make Pineapple Right Side Up Cake. If lucky, your host would simply show you the door. If unlucky, the cook would atomize you with her sonic obliterator, an essential utensil for all serious chefs.

2) Don’t open your Colombo powder in a weightless environment such as the space shuttle. The stuff would get everywhere. Contact with the astronauts would make them look jaundiced. They would have to be quarantined and an astronaut never forgets. Or is that an elephant? Certainly, an elephant astronaut would never forget. In any case, keep your Colombo powder sealed.

– 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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Iraqi Potato Beef Casserole (kibbe batata)

Posted on December 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

Iraqi Entree

POTATO BEEF CASSEROLE
(kibbe batata)

INGREDIENTSKibbeBatata-

6 medium brown potatoes
½ teaspoon turmeric

2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound ground beef or lamb
3 tablespoons parsley
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

no-stick spray
2½ tablespoons butter
½ tablespoon cinnamon

SPECIAL UTENSIL

9″ x 13″ casserole dish
Serves 117 square inches

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into eight pieces. Put potato pieces into large pot. Add enough water to cover potato bits. Bring water to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Drain potatoes. Mash potatoes with potato masher. Add turmeric to pot. Use whisk to blend mashed potatoes and turmeric together.

While potato is cooking, mince garlic cloves and onion. Put garlic, onion, and vegetable oil in pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes. Stir frequently. Add ground beef, parsley, pepper, and salt. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until beef is no longer pink.

Spray casserole dish with no stick spray. Cut butter into tiny cubes. Add ½ of mashed potatoes to casserole dish. Smooth mashed potatoes with spoon or spatula. Add ground-beef mix. Smooth ground beef. Add remaining ½ of mashed potatoes to casserole dish. Smooth mashed potatoes. Sprinkle tiny butter cubes and cinnamon over top layer of mashed potatoes.

Bake casserole at 350 degrees for 30-to-40 minutes or until top of casserole turns golden brown. Cut casseroles into squares, diamonds, or rectangles and serve to lovers of good food and friends of geometric shapes everywhere.

TIDBITS

1) This entree is Iraqi.

2) Iraqi food is great, however Iraqi is poor word for making anagrams.

3) You can use the word Iraqi to form the anagram “Qi air.”

4) Qi is a word that is only used in ScrabbleTM games. I don’t know what it means. I don’t play Scrabble anymore.

5) There is a persistent suspicion among culinary wordsmiths that wars and all types of fighting in that country occur to justify the use of the words Iraq, Iraqi, and Iraqis in Scrabble.

6) But what if Iraq were to split into separate countries?

7) Iraq and Iraqi would be taken out of the Scrabble dictionary.

8) And what if you had the tiles IRAQISW in your possession, and you could use the “q” for a triple-letter score and the entire word could be doubled?

9) And what if you were playing the leaders of the superpowers for world domination, the game was about to end because one of the leaders wanted to eat a lutefisk sandwich at the table, and the points from I1R1A1Q10I1S1 are enough to give you the game?

10) Well, you’d lose because Iraq wouldn’t exist anymore in Scrabble. You’d have to go back to your spouse in your tiny apartment who’d ask you where you’d been.

11) You’d say, “Honey, I’ve been playing the nations’ leader Scrabble for world domination.”

12) You’d be told, “Like I haven’t heard that one before. Did you get the milk like I asked you?”

13) A dark mood would envelop you. You’d head to KwikiMart thinking, “If I were the world’s dictator, I could send someone else out to get milk.”

14) On the way home, you’d realize that if Iraq were to split into three nations, the country of Kurdistan would come into existence.

15) What if you had the tiles K5U1R1D2I1S1T1S1 and you could place them in front of AN already on the board for triple K and triple word?

16) Why you’d win the game for sure! You’d be the Earth’s El Supremo. You’d have a milk fetcher on your permanent staff. Chocolate malteds anytime you want! World domination is great!

17) Did you keep the phone numbers of the world’s leaders? Great. Be sure to get those honey-mustard potato chips that Madame President likes.

– 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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Chicken Jalfrezi

Posted on June 6, 2014 by pauldelancey

Pakistani Entree

CHICKEN JALFREZI

INGREDIENTSChickenJalfrezi-

2 green bell peppers
2 green chile peppers
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tomatoes
1.5 pounds boneless chicken
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 chili powder
1 tablespoon ginger
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
3 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
½ tablespoon cilantro
basmati rice (optional)
naan bread (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

deep skillet, Dutch oven, or wok
magic wand

PREPARATION – with magic wand

Wave magic wand and say, “Mumbo jumbo bumbo, make me chicken jalfrezi.” Poof! Your chicken jalfrezi will appear instantly.

PREPARATION – without magic wand

Seed bell peppers and green chile peppers. Dice bell peppers, chile peppers, garlic cloves, onion, and tomatoes. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add oil, garlic, and onion to skillet. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken, chili powder, ginger, salt, and turmeric. Cook on medium heat for 5-to-10 minutes or until chicken is golden brown. Stir frequently.

Add ghee, bell pepper, chile pepper, tomato, coriander, and cumin to skillet. Bring to boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Uncover and let simmer for another 10 minutes or until bell pepper is tender. Garnish with cilantro.

This dish goes well with basmati rice and naan bread.

TIDBITS

1) Magic wands are truly useful. You can make a million dollars, a new house or a fancy sports car appear with them.

2) Or you could use your wand to find your car keys.

3) Nervous people about to make a speech are often told to visually their audience dressed in their underwear. But what if the speaker is too shy to picture the audience so undressed. In this case, the best thing to do, the Good Samaritan thing to do, is to wave your crowd at the crowd and say, “Mumbo jumbo bumbo, let these people wear underwear only.” Poof, the audience will be in its undies. The speaker will gain courage from this and deliver a rip-roaring speech that brings the crowd to its feet and stirs it to action.

4) Since the speech is about recycling, everyone will soon be recycling. Land fills will no longer be needed. The land once set aside for landfills will now be used for farmland, new homes, and root-beer factories.

5) In fact, the audience from the speech will be filled with such fervor that it will make things just so they have more things to recycle.

6) This will be bad. Thank goodness for all those root-beer factories we built in tidbit 4). We will distribute its root beer to the teeming, frothing masses filled with recycling exuberance.

7) One sip of root beer, will calm the frenetic recycling masses. Serenity will be restored. A perfect balance between recycling and over recycling will be achieved. We will live in a new Paradise.

8) So, let these happenings be a cautionary tale to you. Use your magic wand wisely and be prepared for unforeseen consequences.

9) Well as much as you can be prepared for something that can’t be foreseen.

10) Indeed, the motto of the Boy Scouts is “Be Prepared” and they don’t even have magic wands.

11) Always buy new wands. You can never be sure how many spells are left in a used one.

12) After all, wouldn’t you be embarrassed if you tried to impress your dinner guests by summoning a tyrannosaurus rex and found you couldn’t wave it back into non-existence because you had no spells left on your wand.

13) Some of your guests would get eaten. Your surviving friends would leave your home in a huff and would most likely never speak to you again. Your dinner would be a disaster and your homeowner insurance rates would go up.

14) Of course you could have a two-ton bag of T-Rex ChowTM on hand in case this happens. But you’d only be kicking the can down the street. Eventually, the t-rex would just get hungry again. Yep, just stick to new wands or summoning only ice-cold mugs with your used magic stick, for goodness sake.

– 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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Qorma Laward (Afghan chicken stew)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by pauldelancey

Afghan Entree

QORMA LAWAND
(chicken stew)

INGREDIENTSQorbaLawand-

4 chicken breasts or 2 pounds chicken
3 garlic cloves
2 onions
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons peanut oil or ghee (clarified butter)
½ teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ cup water
1 ½ cups whole yogurt

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Put chicken, ginger, lime juice, pepper, and salt into large mixing bowl. Turn the chicken cubes until they are well coated. Place bowl in refrigerator for 1-to-2 hours.

Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil or ghee to large skillet or Dutch oven Add onion and garlic. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add cardamom, chili powder, cinnamon, coriander, and turmeric (Goodness, there are a lot of spices starting with “c.”) Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 2-to-3 minutes.

Add yogurt, coated chicken cubes, and water. Stir with whisk or spoon until blended. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to warm, to avoid curdling the yogurt, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add water as necessary to keep the qorba lawand from drying out. Stir occasionally. Goes well with naan bread or rice.

TIDBITS

1) Naan is a palindrome. So is Anna. So is Anna’s Naan. A Santa Anna’s naan at NASA is an even more ambitious palindrome.

2) Sha Na Na is a famous American rock and roll band. It is also an anagram for Has Naan. Coincidence, perhaps?

3) A big maze stands between you and naan. Oh no, can you find the way?

You

maze

naan

– 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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Kabsa Spice Mix

Posted on April 3, 2014 by pauldelancey

Saudi Appetizer

KABSA SPICE MIX

INGREDIENTSKabsaSpice-

2 1/4 teaspoons allspice
2 1/4 teaspoons cardamom
3/4 teaspoon cloves, ground
½ tablespoon coriander
½ tablespoon cinnamon
½ tablespoon fennel
3/4 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon lime or orange zest
½ tablespoon pepper
½ tablespoon turmeric

Makes 4 2/3 tablespoons

Note: The above list of ingredient assumes the spices to be already ground. However, spice mixes taste better when using grinding your own spices. However, if you think the effort in tracking down ginger root, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, cloves, and peppercorns might turn you into an axe-wielding murderer, please consider using already ground spices.

PREPARATION

Mix ingredients together with fork.

TIDBITS

1) Isn’t that the shortest preparation instruction you’ve ever seen?

2) William Shakespeare could have had the shortest resume ever. All he would have needed to write was, “I am available.”

3) The smallest country in the world is Vatican City with an area of 0.2 square miles and 770 permanent residents. This tiny nation is the spiritual center for over one billion Roman Catholics.

4) Monaco gets the silver medal in the small-countries event with an area 0.7 squares miles and 32,000 people. It’s ruled by Prince Albert II. This nation maintains its independence from France only as long as the princely line produces heirs. Last time I checked the good prince had not produced kids, much less get married. Get cracking, Albert.

– 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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Zapiekanka, Polish Sandwich

Posted on November 17, 2013 by pauldelancey

Polish Entree

ZAPIEKANKA

INGREDIENTSZapiekanka-

1 baguette
1/3 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 pound sliced ham or deli-meat of choice
1 cup grated cheese of choice
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mayonnaise
no-stick spray

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut baguette in half and slice each half open. Cut onion and red bell pepper into thin slices. Add onion, bell pepper, turmeric, pepper, and butter to frying pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion is soft.

Add onion/bell pepper mixture, ham to baguette pieces. Top pieces with grated cheese. Spray baking tray with no-stick spray. Put tray in oven. Bake at 325 degrees for 5 minutes or until bread is crispy and cheese is melted. Remove tray from oven. Squirt, or spread, ketchup and mayonnaise over each piece.

TIDBITS

1) In 1857, native Indian soldiers, sepoys, in the British army believed the new gunpowder cartridges were greased with cow fat and pig fat. This grease insulted the religious beliefs of the Hindu and Muslim soldiers who had to bite the cartridges before using them. This mistake in greasing by the British sparked a major native rebellion.

2) The rebellion resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, embittered the Indians toward the British, and greatly widened the rift between Hindus and Muslims. This gulf persisted resulting in the bloody religious riots of 1947 and three wars between India and Pakistan. Today, these two countries have nuclear weapons pointed at each other.

3) If only Britain had greased its cartridges with olive oil. Today, we also have vegetable oil. A fragile peace prevails over the world.

– 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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