The

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December 10, 2007

Food Wrapped With Food: A Mind-Blowing Concept

It is fashionable these days to wrap one kind of food inside of another. This is taken as a sign of creativity, a devil-may-care, you-can’t-hem-me-in approach to eating.

We have foods that are stuffed, we have foods that are rolled, and we have foods that are wrapped.

We will add another one to the list, and we will do it in a way that perhaps blows your mind so completely that your children’s children will feel the rents in their own perceptions of reality. In fact, it is perhaps best to back into this by starting with what will become the stuffing.

Brown a chicken breast in olive oil until it is barely cooked. Chop it into strips that are short, yet thick. If we were to resort to geometry, they would be best if they resembled rectangles instead of squares.

In a different pan, sauté chopped mushrooms, hot peppers and onions in olive oil and garlic until they are soft.

Finally, in yet a different pan, create a thick sauce. Melt some butter, add a little flour, some milk, and finally some parmesan cheese. The entire thing, when finished, should flow with the speed and viscosity of molten lava.

Now, add the chicken and vegetables to it. All of your ingredients should cling together, and you now add some thyme and oregano to the mix. The end result should be less a sauce, and more like a grouping of ingredients coated in white stuff.

By now, unless you’ve skipped to the end, your head is perhaps about to explode with curiosity. This raises an interesting dilemma – blow your head with suspense, or blow your mind with reality.

A little of both would be preferable, to prevent a total inability to enjoy the end product. P.T. Barnum’s lessons have been well learned.

We now boil a pot of water, and into it slide some lasagna noodles. Once the noodles are softened, drain them and put them down. Lay over the middle of them a nice bed of shredded Colby jack cheese, and ladle on top of that some of your white-coated chicken and vegetables.

The cracking sound is your mind beginning to break apart in preparation for blowing.

Make sure you don’t over ladle, because you now fold in the ends of your noodles and roll all of it over. The end result should resemble a burrito made of pasta.

Cook all of them for a short time in the oven at 350 degrees – perhaps 10 minutes or so to make sure the cheese melts. Make sure you cover the pan with foil to prevent the noodles from drying in the heat. You may also consider misting the bottom of the pan with water to help keep the inside of your foil-topped pan moist.

Remove, allow to stand for a short time, and then put on a plate. Ponder your contribution to the concept of food stuffed into food.

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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