Eat This while you Read That: Schlock Mercenary

Schlock in the Kitchen

Howard Tayler was good enough to give me several suggestions for cooking from the schlockiverse. There is a lot of food in the fifteen years of the daily Schlock Mercenary, and it was fun to figure out just which one I was going to do. I didn’t have time to do a whole feast, as I was planning to attend LTUE and finally meet Howard in person (and hopefully not fangirl at him). Below are the suggestions by Howard, and then by other fans, and finally, the recipe!

1) Saladupas. (Salad + Zupa) This is a soup & salad. I based it on a cold soup I had 26 years ago. Ice-cold vinegar & water, with lettuce, pickles, and other stuff. Russian, I think. Variants would be sweet, or lemony, or whatever. Better find that Russian recipe first, though.

2) Maple-bacon churros. I suspect this is a churro with a maple glaze and sizzling crumbled bacon. YMMV.

3) Pretzlcoatl (the name appeared in a billboard) serves “authentic Mayan blue corn pretzels” under a mole sauce. I think a regular baked, soft pretzel under a mole negro (cocoa-based mole) would be a good start. From there, try making pretzels with corn-meal in the recipe, and try a mole amarillo or mole almendras as a topping or dipping sauce. Those will even look like mustard!

Potato and Bacon Thingiespotato bacon thingies

Chupaquesochupaqueso

smutto Smutto and the video

Bacon-infused Churroschurros

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-06-07 Capybara mystery-meat sticks

I eventually settled on the Bacon-infused Churros from the October 28^th 2014 strip, as being quirky, relatively easy to tweak an existing recipe, and, well, bacon!

Bacon Infused Churros

• 1 cup water
•  1 tbsp white sugar
•  1/2 teaspoon salt
•  1 tbsp vegetable oil
•  1 cup all-purpose flour
• Zest of one orange, grated
• ¼ c very crispy (almost dry) cooked bacon

•  2 quarts oil for frying
•  1/2 cup white sugar, or to taste
•  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• brown paper lunch sack

Begin to heat the oil. I used a cast iron dutch oven for my frying. I added 3-4 tbsp bacon grease to the canola oil I started with. Boil the water with the sugar, salt, and oil, and zest. Whisk in the flour in small portions, and add the bacon with the last portion.

While the dough is hot, you could either use two spoons to make small portions, or you can pipe it into the oil in finger-length portions. Allow to fry until golden brown, then remove to a draining rack. Once you have the fresh portions in the oil, you can put the now slightly cooler churros in the brown paper sack with the sugar and cinnamon, then shake to coat.

Eat. They don’t last well, the ones we left overnight were not crispy any longer, but when fresh they are fluffy inside, crispy out, and the bacon is a lovely salty balance with the sugar crystals on the outside, and the touch of citrus really added something. The First Reader was dubious at first, and then announced this recipe is another we will do again, although he would prefer less orange zest, not being a big citrus fan.

All in all, a fun, simple recipe, and perhaps I will attempt others another time!

 Bonus Recipe! Ovalkwik

I have not attempted this, this is the brain child of Kevin Crowley, who offered it as an addition to the recipe round-up. Schlock’s drug of choice…

Related posts:

Schlock Mercenary I like Mondays… A word about comics Food Travels