Wendy’s Wonton Soup (Fancy Wendy’s Chicken Go Wraps)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

You don’t need to be in the People’s Republic of China to know that Chinese New Year is upon us; I mean, there’s at least one Chinese family in every American town running a take out joint who is celebrating. The Lunar New Year is the biggest celebration amongst the Chinese people wherever they are in the world, and it’s often observed with dancing lions, firecrackers, family time, and enough auspicious mandarin oranges to make more than a gallon of good luck orange juice.

We here in the Fancy Fast Food kitchen will honor Chinese New Year in the way we do best, not with a bag of oranges, but with a bag of Wendy’s fast food. We’ve already transformed Wendy’s fare into Jewish celebratory cuisine, but in this Year of the Dragon, we’ll be inspired by the Orient. Hope that dragon likes soup…

Ingredients (from Wendy’s):

• 6 Grilled Chicken Go Wraps
• 1 JBC (Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger)
• 1 bottle of water

First, go and unwrap each Go Wrap, and extract the chicken and all the additional fillings of shredded cheese, lettuce, and honey mustard. Take a few of the half chicken breasts, plus a few strands of lettuce, and grind them in a food processor to make our wontons’ filling.

You now have six sloppy tortilla wraps left over; rinse each of them under the sink to really wash off any residual honey mustard or cheese. Then lay one wrap flat on a cutting board, and cut out a square in the center of it, about 5”. Take the square and rinse it again on both sides. Then, hold it in one hand and use your other to grab a sizeable pinch of chicken filling to put it in the center of the square. Fold the square in half, and press the edges down as best you can so that they stick together. Fold the wrapper again, from the crease outwards, then flip the ends upwards so that a wonton shape is born, and seal it with a pinch. Do this with the five other tortilla wraps.

Next, the broth. Fill a pot with the entire bottle of water, and bring it to a boil. Add in some shreds of lettuce. Slice the bacon from the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger into little strips, and put them in the broth as well. Add Wendy’s sea salt to taste.

Lastly, the plating: ladle out the broth into a fancy bowl, and then delicately add the wontons to it. Finely chop the lettuce from the burger into small bits and use them as a garnish. And there you have it: Wendy’s Wonton Soup, fit enough for a dragon (or a snake next year). Happy Chinese New Year!

If you are viewing this recipe in an aggregator (like tumblr’s Dashboard), or as a reblogged post, please check out the real website at FancyFastFood.com.

Chripotle Christmas Tamales (Fancy Chipotle Mexican Grill II)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

Steve Ells and the folks at Chipotle Mexican Grill have been on a mission: to make “rapidly prepared food” (a.k.a. fast food) in the most socially responsible way possible for a nationwide chain of restaurants. While that’s respectable and all, Ells and his team forgot one thing: they’re claiming to be a Mexican grill, and they’ve done nothing to pay homage to Mexico — the country whose cuisine they’ve been inspired by. Perhaps this act of supposed cultural insensitivity is intentional, perhaps they just don’t care. Or maybe they’re just too busy enlisting Americans like Willie Nelson to cover Coldplay’s “The Scientist” for their anti-factory farm ad campaign, that they simply just forgot that “Mexican” is their middle name.

There are many customs in Mexico, particularly during the holidays. In terms of Christmas culinary tradition, tamales — that delicacy of meat wrapped in a corn flour dough and steamed in a corn husk — are traditionally prepared, served, and eaten during the season of Navidad. Why hasn’t Chipotle Mexican Grill embraced this?

Have no fear, Mr. Ells & Co., for here’s a Fancy Fast Food recipe that uses all your existing ingredients and repurposes them, so you don’t have to look like complete culturally-insensitive pricks. We here in the Fancy Fast Food kitchen will take care of the tamales; in the meantime, try and get Willie Nelson to sing “Feliz Navidad” for your next ad campaign.

Ingredients (from Chipotle Mexican Grill):

• 3 Burritos with nothing but Carnitas and Roasted Chili & Corn Salsa
• 3 bags of chips with Red Tomatillo Salsa
• 1 bottle of water

First, unwrap each of the burritos and separate the ingredients. Hand pick out the shreds of pork and collect them into a bowl, and then scoop out and pour all the corn salsa into another bowl. Take each of the remaining tortillas and rinse them off in the sink, being careful not to tear them. Place them flat and let them dry with paper towels.

Chipotle Mexican Grill already marinates and seasons their pork, but we’re going to make it a little spicier for the Mexican palate. Put all the carnitas in a small saucepan, stir in some of the tomatillo salsa (to your liking), and let the two fuse together for 5-10 minutes over a low heat.

The main ingredient of tamales is masa harina, a corn flour made from a variety of corns. We only have two kinds — corn kernel salsa and corn chips — so we’ll have to make do. First, take the chips and crush them down into a fine powder. There are many ways to do this; you could use a food processor or coffee been grinder, but if you really want to get the chips down to a fine powder, grind them yourself with a stone mortar and pestle. Start slowly so you don’t get chips all over your kitchen counter, and gradually grind them down to a fine flour. Collect it all into a bowl.

The other type of corn is wet, so we’ll purée that in a food processor. As the blade spins, gradually spoon in some of the ground corn flour, and pour in a little water as needed, until it becomes a mushy dough. Masa!

We don’t have corn husks to steam our tamales in, so we’ll have to improvise using the big tortillas. However, we can at least make them look a little bit more like corn husks, by adding a fibrous texture to them. After much experimentation, the best way to do this is to lightly roll a pizza cutter up and down each tortilla. Score — but don’t cut — in one direction until it starts resembling the texture of a corn husk.

If you’ve made tamales before, the rest is familiar. Spread some makeshift masa into the center of the “husk.” Add a strip of carnitas in the center, and then fold over the “husk” — one side and then the other, and then fold the ends in. A real corn husk can be folded in a way that you need not tie it together before steaming, but in this case, we’ll tie each with kitchen string — they make them look like three little Christmas gifts that way (for each of the three kings, if you will).



Steam the tamales in a steamer, and then unwrap each carefully. Inside you’ll find a surprisingly decent tamale — one that actually tastes like a tamale — ready to serve for Christmas, may it be in Mexico, or in your nearest Chipotle Mexican Grill. Add some tomatillo salsa for garnish and an extra kick of spice, and have a Feliz Navidad!

If you are viewing this recipe in an aggregator (like tumblr’s Dashboard), or as a reblogged post, please check out the real website at FancyFastFood.com.

Thanksribbing Dinner (Fancy McRib II) by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

This Thanksgiving, we have plenty to be thankful for, like the fact that for two years in a row now, McDonald’s has given us the limited-time bounty of America’s favorite processed pork sandwich, the McRib! (In the northeast anyway, where Thanksgiving was invented.) Last Thanksgiving, we fancified a McRib Hawaiian style, but this year, we’ll stick to a more traditional dinner, with sliced turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. Fortunately, the processed pork from the Golden Arches can be molded into anything — even a “rib” patty that has no rib bones — which gives us more reason to celebrate the mechanically-separated harvest again!

Ingredients (from McDonald’s):

• 4 McRib sandwiches
• 1 large French fries
• 1 Caesar Salad (with croutons)
• 10 packets of Sweet ‘n Sour sauce*
• 5 packets of Barbecue sauce*
• 1 Vitaminwater
• 1 bottle of water

You’ve probably never thought of doing this before, but take each of the McRib patties from its bun, scrape off the pickles and onions, and rinse it under the kitchen faucet. Wash away that messy barbecue sauce and what you’ll have left is a slab of pork product, with one side having a texture of faux ribs. There’s no reason why this is; it’s simply ribbed for your pleasure.

Along the edges of the pork patty, you’ll notice that one side is more “ribbed” than the other. Cut that edge off; turkey doesn’t have that texture. Then, slice the patty in half the long way, so you have two slabs of meat that you’ll carve like turkey breast. Carve the patties at an angle so the resulting texture similar to turkey pieces; don’t carve the meat all the way to the perfect cut you made or else it will look really fake and you’ll break the illusion. Continue carving all the McRibs until you have a nice pile of Thanksribbing “turkey.”

Sides are always important at a Thanksgiving dinner — even if it’s fake and made for show. For mashed potatoes, simply take all the fries and put them in a food processor with a little bit of water, and then purée. To make the “gravy,” scoop out all the Sweet ‘n Sour sauce packets into a saucepan, as well as enough of the Barbecue sauce packets to darken it to your liking. Add in a little water to thin out the blend so that it’s easy to pour when you put it in a gravy boat. Stir all the sauces and water together and let it simmer over a low heat for about five minutes.

For the other side dish, we’ll make a sausage stuffing. Thankfully the McRib is actually pork, not turkey (or at least some variation of it), so dice some of the extra McRib shavings down to a minced meat. To add to this, take the carrots and some greens from the caesar salad, and chop them finely. With the salad’s croutons, you now have all the ingredients to make a legitimate stuffing. Bring about a quarter cup of bottled water to boil in a small skillet, and then add in all the croutons. As they soak up the moisture, toss in the minced meat and vegetables and stir.

Finally, the Thanksgiving plating. Get out your nice tablecloth and bust out the fine China. Place slices of the faux McTurkey on fancy white plate, along with the mashed potatoes and stuffing. Ladle in some gravy into the potatoes, and garnish the top with some chopped greens from the salad. Transfer the McGravy into a gravy boat, and pour some over the meat slices. Garnish the stuffing by placing a couple of cherry tomatoes from the salad next to it for a bit of color. For a finishing touch, compliment the meal with faux wine by pouring some Vitaminwater into a fancy wine glass. Tada! Thanksribbing Dinner is served. Now say grace and give thanks for everything, especially the fact that while this turkey isn’t actually turkey, at least it’s not going to go dry.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you are viewing this recipe in an aggregator (like tumblr’s Dashboard), or as a reblogged post, please check out the real website at FancyFastFood.com.