Posts Tagged With: yogurt

Garlic Naan

Posted on January 11, 2024 by pauldelancey

Indian Appetizer

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GARLIC NAAN

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INGREDIENTS – NAAN
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1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons yeast (room temperature)
⅓ cup warm water
3⅓ cups flour
½ cup warm milk
¼ cup olive oil (a total of 6⅓ tablespoon more later)
½ cup plain yogurt
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (5⅓ tablespoons more later)
5⅓ tablespoons olive oil (16 times with 1 teaspoon each time)
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INGREDIENTS – GARLIC SAUCE
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2½ tablespoons ghee or butter
1½ tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
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Makes 8 naans. Takes 2 hours.
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PREPARATION – NAAN
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Add sugar, yeast, and warm water to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until sugar and yeast dissolve. Let sit for 10 minutes or until foamy. Add flour, warm milk, ¼ cup olive oil, yogurt, and salt. Mix with fork until well blended. Knead with hands until a smooth dough ball forms. Add 1 tablespoon oil. Rotate dough ball in oil until well coated. Cover and let sit for 1 hour or until dough ball doubles in size. Push down on dough.
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Add dough ball to flat surface. Divide dough ball into 8 mini-dough balls. Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour.) Roll out mini-dough balls until they are ⅛”-to-¼” thick and about 6″ wide. These are your naans. Add 1 teaspoon olive oil to pan. Warm at medium-high heat until a tiny bit of dough starts to dance. Add 1 mini-dough ball to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 1 minute or  until bubbles form on top. Carefully flip naan, add 1 teaspoon olive oil and sauté for another 1 minute.  Repeat for remaining naans. (Sauté tend to diminish with each naan.
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PREPARATION – GARLIC SAUCE
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Mince cilantro. Add ghee to small pan. Melt ghee at medium heat. Add garlic. Sauté at medium heat for 30 seconds. Stir frequently. Brush naans with equal amounts of ghee/garlic. Sprinkle with cilantro .
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TIDBITS
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1) It’s rainy outside. This makes people, like me, silly. So these tidbits will be devoted to naan sense.
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2) Q: What’s the IT’ crowd’s favorite food?
A: Naan o’ Bytes.
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3) Genghis Khan, a Haiku
Mongol Genghis Khan
Who conquered lands far and wide
Ate our Garlic Naan
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4) Naan
Nan’s Naan
Nun Nan’s Naan
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy named
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy named gnomes’ knowledge
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy named gnomes’ knowledge now
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5) Q: Can a naan become an American president?
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A: Yes, if was baked in America more than 35 years ago.
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6) Q: Doesn’t a president have to be alive?
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A: That’s why naans who want to become president get frozen.
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7) Q: Doesn’t the American Constitution say anything against cryogenically frozen people?
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A: No, it does not, but neither does it specifically rule out naans.
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So probably frozen naans are okay to preside over America.
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8) Q: But won’t the frozen naan will need to thaw when it’s time to run things? I mean, once it’s thawed, it will only last a few days if left out or at most a few weeks in the fridge?
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A) Yes indeed. This is why political parties try to pick a qualified candidate for vice president.
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9) Q: Couldn’t a progressively stale naan picked a fresh naan to be vice president? Then when that naan becomes president, select another naan to follow in its footsteps? Couldn’t we have one naan president after another until the next election?
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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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Digaag Qumbe (Coconut Yogurt Chicken)

Posted on August 12, 2023 by pauldelancey

Somali Entree

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DIGAAG QUMBE

­(Coconut Yogurt Chicken)

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INGREDIENTS­
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½ cup rice
2 garlic cloves
1 red onion
1 carrot
1 small potato
1 pound boneless chicken thighs
1 jalapeno
1 red bell pepper
2 tomatoes
¼ cup olive oil
2½ teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons Xawaash spice (See above recipe or buy online or at Middle Eastern stores.)
½ cup coconut yogurt or plain yogurt
1 tablespoon ghee or butter
2½ teaspoons tomato paste
¾ cup coconut milk
¼ cup fresh cilantro
6 bananas
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Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 25 minutes.
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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food processor
mandoline
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PREPARATION
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Cook rice according to instructions on package. Mince garlic and red onion. Use mandoline to cut carrot into circles ¼” thick. Cut potato into ½” cubes. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add jalapeno, bell pepper, and tomatoes to processor. Puree until smooth. Add olive oil, garlic, and red onion to large pot. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently.
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Add ginger, salt, Xawaash spice mix, and mixture from blender. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low-medium. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add coconut yogurt, ghee, and tomato paste. Simmer for 3 minutes. Add coconut milk, chicken, carrot, and potato. Simmer for 35 minutes or until chicken, carrot and potato are tender and sauce thickens. Stir occasionally. While chicken, carrot, and potato simmer, dice cilantro. Add rice to plates. Top with coconut yogurt/veggies/chicken. Garnish with cilantro. Serve alongside a peeled banana.
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TIDBITS
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1) According to Google Translate(tm). digaag, part of this entree’s name, translates into English as “digaag.”
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2) Digaag translates into French as “digaag.*”
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3) Digaag translates into Spanish as “digaag.”
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4) Tiny Luxembourg has its own language. It’s Luxembourgish. Digaag translates into Luxembourgish as “digaag.”
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5) Digaag even translates into Swahil as “digaag.”
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6) What can we conclude from this?
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7) That “digaag” is an important word to humanity.
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8) How important?
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9) So important that when humanity fractured into different group when they marched out from their common birthplace, Africa, they all hung onto a few common concepts. These common concepts remind us that we share common ground with our brothers and sisters all over the Earth.
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10) When an American man says, “digaag” to a French woman living in Paris, she will understand him just as clearly would any listener in Colorado, Columbia, or Germany.
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11) When we understand our foreign neighbors, we realize just how much we resemble them.
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12) When we know just how much other nations’ peoples resemble ours, our fears of them evaporate.
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13) When our fears evaporate, world peace breaks out.
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14) And that’s a good thing.
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15) So if you hear people speaking in a foreign tongue, go up to them and say, “Digaag.” They will appreciate your effort to communicate to them. They will even smile. You’ll smile back. And just like that, you’ll have new friends.
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16) And that’s a good thing, because one of your old friends still owes you money.
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17) Great news! Other words are the same* in other languages. They are: banana, coffee, computer, dollar, euro, film, gram, huh, internet, kilometer, mama, no, okay, papa, stool, sauna, sushi, and taxi.
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18) The possibilities for talking to people of other languages are endless. You could say, “banana, coffee, sauna, sush” or alternatively, “Internet, film, papa, taxi” and you’d be understood!
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19) You’d be taking one small step for new friends, one giant step for world peace. Yay!
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– 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.

Categories: history, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tzatziki Meatloaf

Posted on May 7, 2023 by pauldelancey

Greek Entree

TZATZIKI MEATLOAF

INGREDIENTS

⅔ cups plain yogurt (fat, not low-fat)
⅓ medium cucumber or ½ small or 1 tiny
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon sugar
4 teaspoons dill weed
1 garlic clove
2 teaspoon lemon juice
1½ pounds ground beef
3 large eggs
2 cups breadcrumbs
no-stick spray.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel the skin off the cucumber. It is optional to remove the seeds from the cucumber. This step, however, will make the sauce sweeter.

Peel the skin off the garlic clove. Cut up the cucumber into about eight pieces. Put the cucumber and garlic into a food chopper or food processor. Blend, chop, and process away until mixture is almost liquid.

Put the yogurt and cucumber-garlic mix into bowl. Add the salt, sugar, dill weed, lemon juice, ground beef, eggs, and breadcrumbs. Get a nine-year old to thoroughly mix this with his hands. (If you don’t have such a child in your house, knock on neighbors’ doors until you find such a kid.)

Spray baking pan with no-stick spray. Pour delightful meat mixture into baking pan. Put baking pan in oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until meat is no longer pink.

Place slice of meatloaf on plate. Take a ladle and pour liquid from the baking pan on top of the meatloaf.

TIDBITS

1) My nine-year old son is listening to a Pokemon(tm) episode on the laptop while I’m trying to think up tidbits.

2) I’m not thinking well with this distraction.

3) There’s no Pokemon on the moon, is there?

4) Is that why astronaut Neil Armstrong landed there on July 20, 1969? Did American rocket scientists have a vision of America’s Pokemon future?

 

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, international, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beef on Spiced Potatoes From Belize

Posted on December 17, 2022 by pauldelancey

Belizean Entree

BEEF ON SPICED POTATOES

INGREDIENTS

2 large unpeeled baking potatoes

BEEF MIXTURE
3 garlic cloves
1 pound lean ground beef
1 14.5 ounce can Mexican, or spicy, diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon Jamaican Jerk spice
½ teaspoon red recado (This Belizean spice is found online.)

POTATO SPICES
1 teaspoon Jamaican Jerk spice
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

TOPPING
½ cup plain yogurt
½ teaspoon Jamaican Jerk spice
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon diced tomatoes

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cut potatoes lengthwise into ¼-inch thick slices. Well, this is the ideal. You might end up with ½-inch thick slices. Whatever you do, don’t rush this part or use too big a knife or cleaver. (One big mistake and you won’t be able to use the expression, “I’m all thumbs” anymore.) Use fork to pierce each potato slice multiple times. Mince garlic cloves.

Cook ground beef in skillet on medium-high temperature until beef is no longer pink. Reserve 1 tablespoon of diced tomatoes. Add remaining diced tomatoes, minced garlic, Jerk seasoning and red recado to beef. Stir. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes. Stir this beef mixture occasionally.(I won’t be responsible for the burning of the mixture or the rending of the time-space continuum if you don’t stir at all.)

Meanwhile, back at the spuds. Dip potato slices in cold water. Sprinkle lightly with Jerk spice, sea salt, and black pepper. Place slices in a single layer on no-stick baking pan. Bake for 6 minutes then turn. Redo this baking for 6 minutes and turn until the slices are soft and lightly browned.

(There can be a huge variance in cooking time for this step due to the size and efficiency of your oven and the thickness of your potato slices.)

Mix yogurt, Jerk spice, garlic salt, and remaining diced tomatoes in bowl.

Spoon beef mixture over potato slices. Then add topping.

TIDBITS

1) Potatoes, or spuds, contain lots of calories.

2) So does beer.

3) Budweiser(tm) once used a dog named “Spuds McKenzie” to sell its beer.

4) The New York Yankees had a pitcher during the 1940s called Spud Chandler.

5) Other great baseball names are: Art “What A Man” Shires, Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove, Luke “Old Aches and Pains” Appling, Bob “Death to All Flying Things” Ferguson, Walter “Boom Boom” Beck, The Only Nolan, Walt “No Neck” Williams, Dave “Swish” Nicholson, and Harry “Suitcase” Simpson.

6) Even more great baseball names include: Bombo Rivera, Clarence “Choo Choo” Coleman, Dick “Dr. Strangeglove” Stuart, Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky, “Blue Moon” Odom, Mick “Killer” Kelleher, Dave “King Kong” Kingman, Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, Van Lingle Mungo, “Boileryard” Clarke, and perhaps my favorite, Bristol “The Human Eyeball” Lord.

7) And who can ever forget Joe Shlabotnik?

 

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bangladeshi Mango Lassi

Posted on January 16, 2022 by pauldelancey

Bangladeshi Dessert

MANGO LASSI

INGREDIENTS

2 cups fresh mango pulp (about 1 mango)
3⅓ cups milk
1 cup yogurt
⅔ cup sugar
½ teaspoon rose water (optional)

Serves 6. Takes 20 minutes plus up to 20 in the refrigerator.

PREPARATION

Put all ingredients in blender. Blend at high or smoothie setting until the mixture becomes as thick as a smoothie. Chill in refrigerator for 20 minutes or right away, if you prefer.

TIDBITS

1) The inside of a mango is orange. However, this drink is pale yellow. What is the scientific explanation for this shift in color?

2) Well, the only way to get to a mango’s innards is to cut it open with a knife.

3) Mangos don’t like that. The whole purpose of a mango’s life, it’s raison d’être if you will, is to produce a seed surrounded by pulp.

4) The new mango seed devours the pulp and arises as a new mango tree like a new phoenix arising from the flames of its mother.

5) When you cut open the mango, when you remove the orange pulp to make a Mango Lassi, the mango thinks you are deliberately disrupting its great circle of life.

6) Now, these thoughts take minutes to form, as the mango’s brain is pitifully small. But it will happen. When it does, the mango pulp will leap at you with the speed that’s frankly, astonishing.

7) Indeed, the mango’s jumps at you so fast that it’s wavelengths appear to shorten, making it appear to be yellow rather than orange. This is known in the scientific community as the Mango Yellow Shift.

8) What to do? What to do if you want to avoid an attack by a Speedy GonzalezTM mango? Simple, drink the mango lassi before it has had time to brood on what’s happened to it. Besides, how can you resist a mango lassi’s soothing flavor? Happy, safe drinking!

 

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Banitsa (Cheese Pie)

Posted on June 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

Bulgarian Entree

BANITSA
(Cheese Pie)

INGREDIENTS

¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup whole milk yogurt
½ pound Bulgarian white cheese, sirene, or feta
no-stick spray
½ pound phyllo sheets
1 tablespoon butter

SPECIAL UTENSIL

9″-pie pan

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add baking soda, eggs, cup vegetable oil, and yogurt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Crumble white cheese into bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Spray pie pan with no-stick spray.

Gently unroll phyllo dough. Drizzle 2 tablespoons yogurt/feta mixture onto phyllo sheet. Gently smooth mixture over entire phyllo sheet. Gently roll up the covered sheet into a log. Repeat for each phyllo sheet.

Place a phyllo log seam-side down along edge of pan. Gently shape phyllo log into a spiral. Place end of next phyllo log at the end of first log. Shape this phyllo log so as to continue to spiral started by the first one. Repeat until pie pan is completely filled with phyllo logs. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until pie turns golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) In 1946, Bulgaria came under the control of the Soviet Union. Culinary historians note that Russia pretended to let Bulgaria rule through a council known as the Karfeni Glavi. This, of course, translates to “Potato Heads.” So, you can see how little the average Bulgarian though of the council. But by the late 1980s the Soviet Union was teetering on collapse. A few Potato Heads, sensing independence, while not yet ready to challenge Russia directly, started abstaining. But not many. Few wanted to stick his neck out. Then in 1989, Potato Head Iliev, noted Bulgaria’s national dish “Banista” was, in English, an anagram for “abstain.” He’d bring banitsa every time he abstained saying, “I’m hungry.” He’d let his fellow Potato Heads in on his secret. Soon, all the Heads were bringing banitsa and abstaining. Russian rule collapsed in the face of such a united opposition. Yay.

 

Paul De Lancey, 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Chicken Kebabs from Lebanon

Posted on March 2, 2021 by pauldelancey

Lebanese Entree

CHICKEN KEBABS

INGREDIENTS

3 boneless chicken breasts
7 garlic cloves
1 green bell pepper
1 small onion
¼ cup lemon juice
6 tablespoon Greek or plain yogurt
3 tablespoons olive oil
¾ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon white pepper or pepper
2 tablespoons red vinegar or apple cider vinegar
¾ teaspoon tomato paste
6 pita loaves

SPECIAL UTENSILS

outdoor grill
6 skewers (If wooden, soak in water for 20 minutes.)

Serves 6. Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Crush garlic cloves. Seed and chop green bell pepper into 1″ squares. Chop onion into 1″ squares. Add all ingredients to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until chicken cubes are well coated. Cover and let marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours.

Thread chicken cubes, bell pepper squares, and onion squares onto skewers. Turn heat on grill to medium. Add skewers to grill. Heat all sides for 3 minutes each. Place skewers in large pot and cover. Let rest for 10 minutes. (This step helps keep the chicken cubes moist.) Serve on skewers or if using pita loaves, remove all ingredients from skewers and place on pita loaves.

TIDBITS

1) Kebabs have been around since Ancient Greece. See Herodotus’s History of Greek Kebabs. You might think it should have been called History of Ancient Greek Kebabs. However, he lived in ancient times only to us. He thought he was being quite modern. Anyway, Herodotus noticed the shape of the pita bread would make a nifty shield and the skewer would make a spiffo spear. Ancient Greek warriors, hoplites, adopted both ideas and would become their era’s fiercest warriors. 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beef, Herb, and Yogurt Soup (Aashe Mast)

Posted on April 12, 2017 by pauldelancey

Iranian Soup

BEEF, HERB, AND YOGURT SOUP
(Aashe Mast)

INGREDIENTS

2 garlic cloves
1 large onion
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ pound ground beef
⅓ cup long grain rice
4½ cups water
3 cups Greek yogurt or plain yogurt
¼ cup fresh chives*
¼ cup fresh cilantro*
¼ cup fresh parsley*
1 15-ounce can chickpeas (aka garbanzos beans)
¼ cup fresh mint*

* = Substitute 4 teaspoons dried herbs for 4 tablespoons fresh herbs.

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves and onion. Add onion, garlic, pepper, salt, turmeric, and ground beef to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Use hands to make ½” -to-1″ meatballs. Add rice, water, yogurt, chives, cilantro, and parsley to large pot. Simmer on low heat for 30 or until rice softens. Stir frequently. Add meatballs and chickpeas. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally and gently. Garnish with mint.

TIDBITS

1) Earth, Wind, and Fire, a superb American band (1969 to present.) has excelled in many genres including : R&B, soul, funk, disco, Latin, and African. It’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and has played for President Obama.

2) Alas, not all bands succeed . The Iranian group Beef, Herb, and Yogurt (1977-1979) rocked the musical genres of cuisine and bubble-gum love. Their song, “I give you my saffron and my heart” was the number-two Iranian song of 1978 . The shah of Iran even invited them to play for him in early 1979. The Iranian Revolution broke out a scant two weeks later. The Shah was deposed. The police hunted all supporters of the previous regime. Beef, Herb, and Yogurt, tied to the Shah by their command performance, fled to the U.S.. Stigmatized unfairly by Americans who blamed them for the storming of the American embassy, they never played again. The band members eventually opened up an Iranian restaurant in Dubuque, Iowa, where they have been trying to blend in.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Spaghetti Omelette From Cameroon

Posted on February 10, 2017 by pauldelancey

Cameroonian Breakfast

SPAGHETTI OMELETTE

INGREDIENTSspaghettiomelette

2 eggs
½ cup cooked spaghetti
1 stalk green onion
¼ small onion
1 small tomato
⅛ teaspoon white pepper or black pepper
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Makes 1 omelette. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat eggs with whisk until blended. Cut green onion into ¼” slices. Dice onion and tomato. Add spaghetti, green onion, onion, tomato, white pepper, salt, and oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until veggies soften and spaghetti starts getting crispy. Stir occasionally.

Pour beaten eggs over veggies. Cook at medium for 3 minutes or until eggs become hard enough to flip over. Flip egg mixture. Cook at medium heat for 2 minutes or until omelette is done to your desired level of doneness. Goes well inside ½ baguette as a sandwich filler.

Isn’t the very idea of a spaghetti omelette way cool?

TIDBITS

1) China invented spaghetti. They built Great Spaghetti Wall of China in 1155 to keep out the Mongol barbarians. It worked. The wall was too high to scale, too thick to batter through.

2) However, in the summer of 1213, Mongols under Genghis Khan approached the wall. Khan’s engineers studied and studied their obstacle. No use. The frustrated warriors threw tomatoes, one of their more non-lethal weapons, at the wall before turning away to head home. Suddenly hot rain, it was summer, deluged and penetrated the Great Spaghetti Wall for ten minutes. The pasta softened. So did the tomatoes. The Mongol horde, tired of endless yogurt meals, attacked the wall with two-tined forks. The cooked spaghetti was great. and so they ate their way through the wall. The Mongols poured into China and devastated the land.

3) The French built the Maginot Line in the 1930s to keep out the spaghetti-hating German army. Unfortunately, the French didn’t have enough pasta to build a wall along their entire northern border. The Germans, in 1940, simply sent their forces around the wall and defeated France. No nation has tried building a spaghetti wall since.

– 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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