Posts Tagged With: World War I

Simple Corned Beef 2

Posted on May 22, 2023 by pauldelancey

Irish Entree

SIMPLE CORNED BEEF 2

INGREDIENTS

6 russet potatoes
3 large carrots
1 large white onion
1 4- pound ready-to-cook corned beef brisket
½ head cabbage

SPECIAL UTENSIL

crock pot

Serves 6. Takes 8 hours using low setting on crock pot and 14 hours using high setting.

PREPARATION

Clean potatoes and carrots. Cut potatoes in two. Cut carrots and onion into slices no thicker than ½”. Add potato, carrots, onion, and corned beef to crock pot. You may need to cut the corned beef into smaller pieces depending on the size of your crock pot. Add water to crock pot until it covers the corned beef. If using low setting on crock pot, cook for 12 hours, possibly overnight. If using high setting, cook for 8 hours (or 2 hours per pound.) Either way, cook until brisket is tender.

Now that you have lots of time, let’s play tic-tac-toe.

 

 

 

 

 

45 minutes before corned beef is ready, cut cabbage into slices no thicker than ½”. (1 hour 30 minutes before if using low heat.) Add cabbage to crock pot. Add water until it covers the cabbage. Cook on high setting for about 45 minutes or on low setting for 1 hour 30 minutes or until everything is tender. Serve to adoring guests.

Tell your spellbound guests corned-beef takes 10 days to prepare. This, of course, is the do-it-yourself corned-beef version. You used ready-to-eat corned beef brisket. But you needn’t tell them that.

TIDBITS

1) Potatoes make great French fries.

2) They’re nutritious and a great source of calories too.

3) They grow in the ground where they can’t be seen by hungry, foraging armies marching back and forth across peasants’ fields.

4) On July 14, 1689 Madame Farine du Blé of Poulet sur Marne noticed invading Bavarians ransacking the granary of her neighbors, the Herbes, while leaving her own field of potatoes untouched.

5) This fact kinda excited the peasantry of France who relied almost exclusively on food for eating.

6) Frederick the Great of Prussia noticed this fact as well. He insisted that all the Prussian peasants plant potatoes.

7) And boy, those peasants were glad they did. Massive French, Austrian, and Russian armies crisscrossed the Prussian kingdom from 1756 to 1763 carting off all the wheat they could find. But the Prussian peasants didn’t starve.

8) Why? These farmers simply waited for the invading soldiers to leave, dug up their potatoes, and cooked them. And if the peasants also had the proper spices and deep fryers, they dined on papas rellena, Peruvian stuffed potatoes.

9) When individual peasants don’t starve, the country as a whole doesn’t starve. A well-fed nation can afford to feed its armies in the field. And those Prussian armies did really well earning both victory and survival at the end of the Seven Years War.

10) Prussia united Germany in 1871. A united Germany caused World War I. A united Germany caused World War II. Both wars were unarguably unpleasant.

11) So think about that when you are asked, “Do you want fries with 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.

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German Bee Sting Cake (Bienenstich Kuchen)

Posted on April 4, 2022 by pauldelancey

German Dessert

BEE STING CAKE
(Bienenstich Kuchen)

INGREDIENTS – ALMOND TOPPING

½ cup butter (6 tablespoons more later)
5 tablespoons sugar (3 tablespoons more later)
1 tablespoon honey
1½ tablespoons heavy whipping cream (½ cup more later)
1⅓ cup slivered almonds
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

INGREDIENTS – CAKE

2¾ teaspoons yeast
2⅔ cups flour
5 tablespoons butter (1 tablespoon more later)
3 tablespoons sugar
⅔ cup milk, lukewarm (2 cups more later)
1 egg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
parchment paper

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

6 tablespoons vanilla pudding powder
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (½ teaspoon more later)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
8″ * 12″ baking pan
parchment paper

Serves 16. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – ALMOND TOPPING

Add ½ cup butter to pot. Melt butter using low-medium heat. Stir gently and frequently. Add 5 tablespoons sugar and honey. Stir constantly until sugar melts and liquid is well blended. Add 1½ tablespoons heavy whipping cream and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract. Stir with spatula until well blended. Remove from heat. Fold in slivered almonds. Just before cake is ready to be bake, use low heat to make topping lukewarm and spreadable.

PREPARATION – CAKE

Add all cake ingredients except 1 tablespoon butter to mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Knead for 15 minutes or until mix becomes a smooth and pliable dough. Remove dough. Grease mixing bowl with 1 tablespoon butter. Return dough ball to mixing bowl. Cover with cloth and let rise for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. 15 minutes before dough has finished rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cover baking pan with parchment paper. Add dough to baking pan. Smooth dough until it is level. Use spatula to spread almond topping over dough. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until cake turns golden brown and a toothpick inserted into middle of cake comes out clean. Remove from heat and let cool for10 minutes. Grab opposite sides of parchment paper, remove cake, and place on serving plate.

Let cool for another 15 minutes. Cut cake into 16 rectangles, 2″ * 3″. Use serrated knife to cut each rectangle lengthwise into 2 thin layers.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While cake cools, add pudding powder 1 cup milk and ½ cup heavy whipping cream to mixing bowl. (Prepare according to instructions on package.) Cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

After filling has chilled, use spatula to carefully spread equal amounts of filling on bottom half of the cake rectangles. (The ones without the slivered-almond topping.) Place cake rectangles with slivered-almond topping on rectangles covered with filling.

A forgotten episode from the Great War

TIDBITS

1) World War I was mostly a static affair as it became incredibly difficult to dislodge the enemy infantry defending their trenches.

2) Then a German beekeeping general thought, why not use bees? After all, everyone flees bees.

3) So, on March 13, 1915 the Germans sent boys and girls carrying this cake to the British lines. The Tommies loved this dessert. So did the bees. The bees dive bombed the British soldiers who fled en masse. The Germans were on the verge of total victory. Then the wind shifted toward the German lines. Countless soldiers on both sides suffered repeated stings. The Great Bee Sting Truce was agreed upon and lasted for two weeks. After that, Bee Sting Cake got banned as a weapon of war.

 

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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Kuwaiti Machboos

Posted on September 30, 2018 by pauldelancey

Kuwaiti Entree

MACHBOOS

INGREDIENTS

1 green chile
2 garlic cloves
2 inches ginger root
2½ pounds boneless chicken, thighs or breasts
½ teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon turmeric
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups basmati rice
1 gram saffron (This is expensive. Get a sonic obliterator to protect it.)
2 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons slivered almonds
3 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
2 medium onions
1 large tomato
1 bay leaf
4 inches cinnamon sticks
3 cloves
2 dried lemons

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor
sonic obliterator (To protect your saffron.)

Serves 5. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Slice chile in half lengthways. Seed chile. Add garlic cloves and ginger root to food processor. Chop until garlic and ginger becomes paste. Add chicken, cardamom, coriander, paprika, pepper, and turmeric to mixing bowl. Mix with hands until chicken pieces are well coated.

Use sonic obliterator to zap intruder trying to steal your saffron. Add chicken stock, rice, and saffron to pot. Simmer on low for 30 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. Add almonds and raisins to mixing bowl. Add enough warm water to cover almonds and raisins.

While chicken stock/rice simmers, mince onions and tomato. Add ghee, onion, and tomato to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Cut dried lemons in half. Add coated chicken, bay leaf, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and dried lemon halves. Cook at medium-high heat for 10 minutes. Stir frequently. Add chile, garlic/ginger paste, and tomato. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and simmer for 15 minutes or until chicken is done. Stir occasionally.

Drain water from almonds and raisins. Remove and discard bay leaf and cinnamon sticks. Remove chicken and set aside. Add rice to plates, then onion/garlic/spices remaining in pan, and then chicken. Garnish with almonds and raisins.

TIDBITS

1) The United States Paranormal Force (USPF) is based out of Casper, Wyoming.

2) This was totally secret until tidbit 1) which kinda let the cat out of the bag. Ok, totally out of the bag. It was all an accident. I was looking for a substitute for goat meat for one of my recipes. My search engine said, “Did you mean ghosts?” No, I did not. But the search engine already had the bit between its teeth, giving me a link to the USPF’s website.

3) How did this happen? Last April, Lieutenant Amos Keeto of the USPF sent an email with the title, “Ghosts or Goats, Better Adjunct to the Potentially Revived Star Wars Defense Initiative?

4) Unfortunately, Keeto clicked on the “Send to All Option” Everyone who had a Yahoo account received this email. Fortunately, the sheer volume of recipients flagged this email as spam and never made it to your inbox. Unfortunately, you could have read it had you been scrutinizing every post in your trash folder before emptying it. Fortunately, none of you do. But the search engines did. And the search algorithms waited and waited until someone, me, asked for goat-meat substitute.

5) Military goats have a long and illustrious heritage. In 1775, a wild goat, apparently a Tory, carried the colors for a Welsh regiment during the British assault on Bunker Hill. Another Welsh goat, Taffy IV, fought in World War I, participating in four major battles. Taffy died in 1915 and was awarded the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

6) Clearly goats, especially Welsh ones, can be awesome instruments or war when properly led. So, the Air Force reasoned how much more fiercesome would flying goats would be dealing death from the sky. “Baa, baa,” would become a byword for terror.

7) However, the USAF eventually concluded that they would never get goats to fly at Mach 1, the speed of sound, much less fly at all.

8) Then in August, 1990, Major Keeto, feverish from drinking buttermilk past its expiration date, had a vision. He saw a friendly ghost change into a fiendish one able to make entire battalions retreat with blood-chilling baas or boos as they often seem to sound like.

9) The newly-formed USPF brass began recruiting local ghosts. At first the ghosts couldn’t do more than 300 miles an hour. But with a year of the training that makes America’s Paranomal Force the envy of the world, the ethereal specters could fly at Mach 1 and terrify the enemy with terrifying boos. Hence, Mach boos or Machboos.. In honor of this achievement, the cadets at Casper, Wyoming renamed their favorite chicken/rice dish to Machboos. Machboos has become a well-liked entree in Kuwait as well. Now you know.

Chef Paul

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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Codfish Cakes

Posted on August 17, 2016 by pauldelancey

British Entree

CODFISH CAKES

INGREDIENTSCodfishCakes-

1 pound cod fillets
2 large potatoes
½ teaspoon salt
1½ tablespoons butter
1 small egg
1½ tablespoons minced onion
1 teaspoon parsley
⅛ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon tarragon
1 large egg
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup breadcrumbs

Makes 6 codfish cakes. Takes 2¼ hours, more if you spill the bowl with beaten egg on yourself and you need to change clothes and beat another egg.

PREPARATION

Cut cod into 1″ squares. Peel potatoes and cut them into fourths. Add potato and salt to large pot. Add enough water to cover. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until potato fourths are almost tender. Drain water. Mash potato fourths with potato masher or fork. Remove from heat.

Add cod to pan and cover with water. Simmer on low heat for 5-to-10 minutes or until cod becomes soft and begins to flake. Stir frequently. Drain water.

While cod simmers, beat small egg. Add cod, potato, butter, beaten small egg, onion, parsley, pepper, and tarragon to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Form mixture into 6 round, flat cakes.

Add large egg to second mixing bowl. Beat with whisk. Add breadcrumbs to plate. Dredge codfish cakes through breadcrumbs until completely coated. Dip coated codfish cakes into beaten egg. Refrigerate codfish cakes for 45 minutes or until they are firm.

Add oil to pan. Heat on medium-high heat until a little breadcrumb starts to dance in the oil. Add as many codfish cakes as possible to pan. (You might need to cook the cakes in batches.) Sauté cakes for 3-to-5 minutes on each side or until golden brown. (The time needed to cook the codfish cakes tends to go down with successive batch.) Serve via catapult or, more traditionally, on a plate. Goes well with tartar sauce.
TIDBITS

1) The codpiece was a bag, or piece of clothing, that was sown into men’s pants. Men kept their lunch in it. Most of the time, the lunch was the ever popular cod. Hence, the codpiece.

2) Pause and reflect how amazing that tidbit 1) is true. I thought I had made something up but no, it’s all factual.

3) Renaissance women, having noses, objected to the foul smell emanating from their husbands’ fish-laden groins. It got so bad, that women went on a sex strike in 1454. This was a great opportunity for the porn industry to start. However, the lack of hand-held cameras, the internet with its downloading capabilities, and DVD daunted even the most entrepid entrepreneurs.

4) The DVD-deprived House of York favored giving into their spouses’s demands. The House of Not York favored keeping their fish lunch near their manhood. Tempers rose. Thing were said and soon civil war broke out between the two houses. From 1455 to 1485. Biff! Biff!

6) Thank goodness, that bloody civil war is over. The House of Not York won. Men everywhere cheered.

8) Not so, with their wives. Fishy groins still stank. Intimacy between spouses remained intermittent.

9) However, the husbands still wanted their bed dancing. This need proved to be an opening for enterprising prostitutes. And so, prostitution became a thriving industry along with chocolate chip cookies. Such cookies placed on the bordellos’s window sills lured customers in again and again. Kinda like S&H Green StampsTM during the 1950s and 1960s or even like frequent-flier miles now.

11) How did these horizontal entrepreneurs stand the codfish stench of their customers? By smoking tobacco. Smoking deadens the sense of smell.

12) The wives soon found out this secret and took up smoking as well. Men came back to their wives. Relations were resumed. Babies were born. The population soared. The supply of jobs didn’t. Men became restless and rioted. Monarchs fear revolutions. Monarchs feared losing their heads.

13) Kings everywhere enrolled angry, aimless youth into their military. Armies expanded. So, did the opportunities for conflict. Soon, vast armies of armed, cod-stuffing youths fought each other all over Europeans for centuries.

14) Refrigeration came to America in 1911. American men no longer needed to keep cod in their shorts. Men and women no longer need to deaden their noses with cigarettes. People could smell flowers again. Gardening became America’s national pastime. All was well in the USA.

15) Tragically, refrigeration did not come to Europe until 1915, too late to stop World War I. Nasally impaired leaders all over the continents sent an entire generation to its doom. If only they had been able to stop and smell the roses.

16) Thanks to refrigeration and the calming ability to smell roses there has not another major conflict to speak off aside from the Unpleasantness of 1939-1945 and a few other spats. 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Posted on January 7, 2016 by pauldelancey

New Zealander Dessert

HOKEY POKEY ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS – HOKEY POKEYHokeyPokey-

2 tablespoons golden syrup
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda

INGREDIENTS – ICE CREAM

1½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
4 egg yolks

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Waxed parchment paper or cookie sheet
No-stick spray
electric beater
1 gallon plastic container with tight lid

Makes 3 quarts. Takes 45 minutes plus about 6 hours in freezer.

PREPARATION – HOKEY POKEY

Put waxed parchment paper on cookie sheet. Spray waxed parchment paper with no-stick spray. Add golden syrup and sugar to pan. Cook at low-medium heat until mixture melts and then boils. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes. Stir constantly to avoid burning the sugar. Remove from heat. Add baking soda. Stir with fork until mixture becomes pale and frothy. Pour mixture onto waxed parchment paper. Let sit for 30 minutes or until mixture solidifies into hokey pokey. Break hokey pokey with hands, bash with kitchen mallet, or cut with kitchen scissors until you have chunks no longer than ½” long.

PREPARATION – ICE CREAM

While hokey pokey sets, add cream to large mixing bowl. Whip with electric beater set on cream, or high, until cream becomes thickens and soft peaks form. Add vanilla extract, confectioner’s sugar, and egg yolks to second mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on cream, or high, until creamy. Fold confectioner’s sugar/egg mixture from second mixing bowl into first mixing bowl with cream.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Add hokey pokey chunks and ice cream to plastic container. Stir gently with spoon until hokey pokey is evenly distributed. Cover and put in refrigerator for 6 hours or ice cream is firm.

TIDBITS

1) The hokey pokey is a dance where a leader names a part of the body. The participants then put that part in, take part out, put that part in, shake it all about, turn themselves around. That’s what it’s all about.

2) The hokey pokey was used to devastating effect by English forces in the battle of Waterloo in 1815. In a desperate gamble, the French Emperor Napoleon hurled his vaunted Old Guard at the center of the English infantry line. Onward, ever onward they marched, their jaws clenched tightly together by glue-like oatmeal. The English line buckled. One more push and the French would triumph. Napoleon would remain emperor. He would continue to march his armies all over Europe. Europe would continue to be drenched in blood as Napoleon engaged in ceaseless conquest and pursuit of La Gloire.

3) Private Henry Tavert of the English tenor-infantry brigade began to shake in terror. His sergeant growled. “Pull yourself together, man.”

4) “I can’t.” said Henry. “You must,” said the sergeant. “For God, king, and country.”

5) “I still can’t.” The sergeant rolled his eyes. “All right then, do it for your mum.”

6) Henry managed a weak smile. “I can do that. Me mum used to sing the hokey pokey to me whenever I got afraid. It gave me courage, it did.”

7) “Then private, sing the hokey pokey.”

8) And so Henry did, weakly at first, but with increasing conviction and volume with each successive word. The rest of the tenor brigade joined in. When they all got to the part about turning “yourself about,” the song could be heard by the bilingual sergeants of France’s Old Guard.

9) These bilingual sergeants upon hearing the words “turn yourself about,” turned themselves about. The privates taking their cue from their sergeants turned themselves about as well.

10) “D___ me,” shouted the sergeant, “The Frenchies are fleeing. Fix bayonets!” He pointed to the retreating French. “England, put your whole selves out.”

11) The tenor brigade charged. Brigades to their left and right advanced as well. Pretty soon, the entire English army rushed the French. The French retreat became a rout. Napoleon’s once mighty Grande Armée disintegrated never to reform. Europe was finally at peace.

12) Europe stayed at peace for another 99 years. Whenever a country poured it armies across its neighbor’s borders, the defenders would sing the hokey pokey and make the attackers turn themselves about. War became pointless and boring.

13) Until 1913, when countries issued ear plugs to their armies. Soldiers couldn’t hear the hokey pokey and so would no longer turn themselves about. World War I, a horrific bloodbath, commenced only one year later. We need to come up with a countermeasure to ear plugs.

– 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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Crispy Shredded Beef Tacos

Posted on August 11, 2014 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

CRISPY SHREDDED BEEF TACOS

INGREDIENTSCrispyShreddedBeefTacos-

1 medium yellow onion
2 pounds rump roast
½ tablespoon chili powder
½ tablespoon cumin
½ teaspoon salt
4 garlic cloves
4 ounces diced green chiles

5 green onion stalks
4 Roma tomatoes
¼ head lettuce
2 cups vegetable oil
12 corn tortillas
2 cups Four Mexican Cheeses
1 cup crema Mexicana
1 cup salsa

SPECIAL UTENSILS

crock pot or slow cooker
9″ loaf pan
electric skillet
Lazy Susan

takes about 7 hours

PREPARATION

Slice onion into thin rings. Rub rump roast with: chili powder, cumin, and salt. Dice garlic. Add ½ of onion slices to bottom of crock pot. Add rubbed rump roast, garlic, and green chiles. Top roast with remaining ½ onion slices. Add water to cover roast. Cover crock pot. Cook on low for about 7 hours or until roast is tender enough to be easily pulled apart by a pair of forks. Shred roast with forks. (Save liquid from crock pot, it makes a great broth.)

Dice green onion and tomatoes. Shred lettuce. Add vegetable oil to skillet. Heat oil to 375 degrees. The oil is hot enough if it sizzles when a tortilla is added. Add 1 tortilla at a time. Use tongs to sauté tortilla for 15 seconds on each side. The tortilla should be crispy but still flexible enough to be folded. Fold tortilla in half and place it upright in bread pan.. Put a paper towel on each side of tortilla to drain off grease. Repeat for 11 remaining tortillas.

Place tortillas, shredded beef, green onion, tomato, cheese, lettuce, cheese, crema Mexicana, and salsa in Lazy Susan. I love tacos. I always asked for it on my birthday. when I was a kid.

TIDBITS

1) Señor Pedro Lascuráin was president of Mexico for only fifteen minutes in 1913.

2) He did not accomplish much.

3) However, nearly all of Europe went to war in 1914. World War I lasted four years, involved many nations and resulted in millions of casualties. The unsettled conditions of World War I resulted in the Communist Revolution in Russia and the Nazi seizure of power in Germany. The communists shed much blood before and during World War II.

4) Makes Lascuráin’s administration look positively great in comparison.

5) I don’t think El Presidente Lascuráin shed much blood at all during his term in office, unless he gave himself a nasty paper cut while signing his acceptance or resignation papers.

6) Mexico has remained at peace ever since the end of the Mexican Revolution. I think it’s because of the peaceful example of President Lascuráin.

7) Poway, California, my fair town, has been at peace with all its neighbors even since I moved in.

8) My presidential term of office, zero minutes, is similar in length to President Lascuráin’s.

9) El Presidente Lascuráin probably had a paper cut. I’ve had paper cuts. Gentle reader, I’m guessing you’ve a paper cut as well. They hurt, don’t they?

10) Señor Lascuràin, the Great Man of Peace, often ate Mexican food. I love Mexican food. He had a Mexican grandmother. I had a Mexican grandmother. He was subject to the Laws of Physics. So am I.

11) It’s all uncanny. If Lascuràin had lived at the same time, people would have had trouble distinguishing between the two of us.

12) I wonder. I wonder.

13) I look at his picture on the internet. I run to the bathroom and look in the mirror.

14) Whew! Lascuràin and I are not the same person.

15) But Poway is at peace with all the neighboring towns. Can a Nobel Peace Prize for me be far behind?

16) I do hope I don’t get a paper cut while signing for my prize.

– 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 Pot Pie

Posted on March 6, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

CHICKEN POT PIE

INGREDIENTS – FILLINGChickenPotPie-

3 chicken breasts
3 medium carrots
2 stalks celery
1 onion
1 white potato
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup flour (6 more cups later)
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon marjoram
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt (3/4 more teaspoons later)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup milk (1 tablespoon more later)

INGREDIENTS – PASTRY

6 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter (softened)
1 pint water

1 tablespoon milk
1 egg

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Dutch oven
6 meat-pie pans (5″ diameter is best)

PREPARATION – FILLING

Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Dice carrots, celery, onion, and potato. Add onion and butter to Dutch oven. Sauté onion on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add 1/3 cup flour, celery seed, marjoram, pepper, salt, and thyme. Stir until well blended. Add broth and 1 cup milk. Bring to boil on high heat. Stir frequently. Add chicken, carrot, celery, and potato. Reduce heat to lower and simmer for 40 minutes or until carrots are soft. Stir occasionally. Remove.

PREPARATION – PASTRY

While filling is simmering, add 6 cups flour, salt, and butter to a second mixing bowl. Blend ingredients with whisk. Add water. Remove dough and knead on surface dusted with flour.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Let dough sit for 20 minutes. Divide dough into 12 balls. Use rolling pin on dough balls–A large can of soup will do. A stick of dynamite is way too risky–to make 6 circles with 8″ inch diameters. Flatten the remaining dough balls to make 6″ wide circles.

PREPARATION – PIE

Line each pie pan with an 8″ dough circle. Add filling to each pan. Moisten rims of pies with 1 tablespoon milk. (This helps to tops stick with the bottom pastry.) Place a 6″ dough circle on top of each pie. Trim away the excess puff pastry. Press edges of puff pastry onto rims of bottom pastry with fork. Beat egg with whisk or fork. Glaze tops evenly with egg.

Put pies in over. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-to-20 minutes or until golden brown. Spread ketchup over each pie. Have a nice cooling refreshment and enjoy. Press gang the least appreciative guest into cleaning up.

TIDBITS

1) H. G. Wells wrote the culinary-sci fi novel, The Thyme Machine, in 1903. It fared poorly, selling only three copies. Two of those copies were used to keep open windows during London’s August heat weaves. Some historians believe the third copy was placed under the short leg of an otherwise unstable table at a pub called The Copper Penny. The pub’s owner allowed customers to read The Thyme Machine with the understanding they replaced it before leaving the establishment.

2) The distraught novelist chucked his writing career and went to culinary school. He thrived there. He became a spice-using genius. In 1905, he opened up an upscale restaurant in one of London’s ritzy districts. It specialized in French cuisine and was called, Food of the Gods.

3) The wealthy soon flocked to the Food of the Gods. Everyone had to taste its scrumptious entrees, its divine desserts. It became so renowned that giant lines formed outside the restaurant’s doors. In 1907, Chef H.G. instituted a reservations only policy. This left thousands of aristocratic food lovers out in the culinary cold, to subsist on fish and chips. Just getting a reservation provided immense social prestige. In 1911, Charles Witherham garned a baronetcy from George V when he gave his time to the British monarch.

4) Tragedy struck in June, 1914, when the German nobleman, Hans von Frikadellen, stole the French ambassador’s 8 o’clock reservation at The Food of the Gods. The ambassador said German food was one boring pork dish after another. Frikadellen said the French didn’t know how to spice. Things went downhill after that and by July the two nations were at war.

5) Lots of nations joined in the kerfuffle. Millions perished during World War I . Naturally, H.G. Wells felt bad about that and invented a time machine and went back to 1895 long before his havoc creating restaurant opened.

6) Wells renounced cooking and went back to writing. He excised all culinary references in The Thyme Machine which became the more tighter, page-turning masterpiece, The Time Machine. The world would still go to war in 1914, but it wouldn’t be his fault.

– 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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Potato Ham Soup

Posted on December 22, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Soup

POTATO HAM SOUP

INGREDIENTSPotatoHamSoup-

6 Russet potatoes
1 pound ham
1 onion
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream

PREPARATION

Cut potatoes and ham into 1/2″ cubes. Dice onion. Put potato, ham, and onion into large pot. Add just enough water to pot to cover potato, ham, and onion. Add mustard, paprika, pepper, and salt. Cook on high heat until water boils. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to warm. Add butter, milk, and sour cream. Cook for 2 minutes or until soup is heated through. Stir frequently.

TIDBITS

1) Dom DeLuise starred in a movie called Silence of the Hams. It parodied the movie Silence of the Lambs. Silence of the Hams did not do well at the box office. So I’ll discuss potatoes instead..

2) The Inca Indians of Peru were the first known cultivators of potatoes. They harvested the first spud somewhere between 8,000 BC and 5,000 BC. That’s quite a wide range of years. It’s the same thing as saying your federal-income-tax check will be in the mail sometime from now until the year 5014. See how well the folks at the IRS accept that statement.

3) In 1536, the Spanish conquered the Incan Empire for its potatoes and gold. There are thousands of varieties of potato. There is only type of gold. Gold is an element. The potato is not; it is a tuber. Sure there are such things as white gold but that comes from mixing gold from something, well um, whitish. But just think of the dozens of herbs and spices that can be added to potatoes. Moreover, the mighty tuber is truly tasty, gold not so much. Potatoes beat gold by a technical knockout.

4) Many people believe the first real French fries were actually made in Belgium. If Belgium had thought of patenting French fries, it could have ruled the world and become fabulously wealthy. However, it’s doubtful Belgium’s powerful and envious neighbors: Germany, Britain, and France would have let tiny Belgium continue with this monopoly. It’s certain a long and bloody European war would have erupted. Thank good Belgians shared the recipe. The Great Global French Fry Peace broke out, marred only the interruptions of World War I and World War II. Yay, spuds.

– 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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Simple Corned Beef Recipe

Posted on February 22, 2013 by pauldelancey

Irish Entree

SIMPLE CORNED BEEF

INGREDIENTSCornBee-

1 4-to-5 pound ready-to-cook corned beef brisket
6 russet potatoes
3 large carrots
1 large white onion
1/2 head cabbage
water

SPECIALTY UTENSIL

crock pot

PREPARATION

At the crock pot’s low setting, the brisket can take 10-to-14 hours to become tender. The high setting will cut this time by about half.

Put ready-to-cook corned beef brisket in crock pot. Add water to crock pot until it covers the brisket. You may need to cut the brisket into smaller pieces depending on the size of your crock pot. Cook for 10-to-14, possibly overnight, or until brisket is tender.

Clean potatoes and carrots. Cut potatoes carrots, onions, and cabbages in slices no thicker than 1/2″ inch and add them to the crock pot. and vegetables. Add water until it covers the brisket and vegetables. Cook on low setting for about 2 hours or until vegetables are tender. Serve to adoring guests.

This is an astoundingly versatile dish. See the following two recipes for delightful meals made out of this recipe’s leftovers.

Tell your spellbound guests corned-beef takes 10 days to prepare. This, of course, is the do-it-yourself corned-beef version. You used ready-to-eat corned beef brisket. But you needn’t tell them that.

TIDBITS

1) Potatoes make great French fries.

2) They’re nutritious and a great source of calories too.

3) They grow in the ground where they can’t be seen by hungry, foraging armies marching back and forth across peasants’ fields.

4) On July 14, 1689 Madame Farine du Blé of Poulet sur Marne noticed invading Bavarians ransacking the granary of her neighbors, the Herbes, while leaving her own field of potatoes completely untouched.

5) This fact kinda excited the peasantry of France who relied almost exclusively on food for eating.

6) Frederick the Great of Prussia noticed this fact as well. He insisted that all the Prussian peasants plant potatoes.

7) And boy, those peasants were glad they did. Massive French, Austrian, and Russian armies crisscrossed the Prussian kingdom from 1756 to 1763 carting off all the wheat they could find. But the Prussian peasants didn’t starve.

8) Why? These farmers simply waited for the invading soldiers to leave, dug up their potatoes, and cooked them. And if the peasants also had the proper spices and deep fryers, they dined on papas rellena, Peruvian stuffed potatoes.

9) When individual peasants don’t starve, the country as a whole doesn’t starve. A well-fed nation can afford to feed it armies in the field. And those Prussian armies did really well earning both victory and survival at the end of the Seven Years War.

10) Prussia united Germany in 1871. A united Germany caused World War I. A united Germany caused World War II. Both wars were unarguably unpleasant.

11) So think about that when you are asked, “Do you want fries with that?”

– 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

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