Fancy Fast Food (a food humor blog)

The pop culture satirical cookbook, Fancy Fast Food: Ironic...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:36:00 -0500

The pop culture satirical cookbook, Fancy Fast Food: Ironic Recipes with No Bun Intended, is finally here! Buy it on Amazon, or at FancyFastFoodBook.com at 25% off! (Enter the secret Animal Style code “NFAZL9WC”.)

Sublebration Cake! (Fancy Subway II)
by Erik Trinidad of Fancy Fast Food (with support from Mark Trinidad and Cristina Frank)

It’s been long overdue, but the Fancy Fast Food book is finally here… it’s time to celebrate! For the occasion, we here in the Fancy Fast Food kitchen have baked a cake — err, made a cake without baking — in the only way we do things around here. You guessed it, we’ve styled a Subway footlong sub into petit fours, those bite-sized confections you eat as a final course, along with espresso served in fancy cups that you hold with your pinkies up in the air. (Oh you fancy, huh?)

Sure, you can get pocket sized desserts at fast food chains (i.e. cookies, little apple pies), but where’s the gross out factor in that? We’re going to take fast food fancification to a new level (down, that is), by using mayo for “chocolate frosting,” and bologna as a “fondant.” Disgusting? You bet. But look how fancy it is! And you thought Subway called their employees “sandwich artists.” Pfft.

Ingredients (from Subway):

1 footlong Cold Cut Combo, on Italian bread with cucumbers and a ton of mayonnaise (ask that they don’t cut it in half)
1 cup of Coca-Cola

First things first; we’re going to need Coke reduction to use as a food coloring, so pour all the Coke in a non-stick skillet. Bring it to an aggressive boil, so all the water starts evaporating. Next, open the submarine sandwich. Hopefully your Subway “sandwich artist” put the layer of cold cuts with the salami and ham on top, so the mayonnaise doesn’t get all over the bologna, which we want to remain clean. Either way, scrape off all the mayonnaise and put it in a little prep bowl (and rinse of the bologna if there’s mayo on it). We really don’t need the textured slices of the ham and salami, so go ahead and eat them, feed them to your dog, or throw them against a window for fun.

Next, the bread. Using a sharp knife, cut about 3” off the end. Start sculpting this piece by cutting and shaving off pieces so that what you have left are little, even square slabs of bread, about 2” wide. If you mess up, you have the rest of the bread to use. In the end, you should end up with six pieces — two sets of three pieces for the two petit fours shown in this recipe. (Go ahead and cut out more bread if you want; there’s enough bologna to make four.)

Hopefully by now the Coke has reduced down to a thick syrup, which we are going to use as a food dye to make the mayonnaise look more chocolatey. Spoon Coke reduction into the prep bowl with the mayonnaise a little at a time as you mix it thoroughly. As soon as it starts to look the color of chocolate pudding, you’ve done enough. Take this “pudding” and spread it in between the three layers of bread for each of the petit fours you are going to make. Then stack them up, and clean off any extra “pudding” oozing out.

Now it’s time to be the disgusting “cake boss” you never thought you could be. Using bologna as a “fondant,” drape a slice over each of the little stacks of bread — make sure you do this evenly, so each side will get coverage. Fold over the corners towards one side, and fasten them in place with toothpicks broken in half. Do this again to the other side, and repeat the process for each of the petit fours you are going to make.

The little “cake” doesn’t look too fancy, so we’re going to decorate it. Unfortunately, we’ve used up all our mayonnaise, so we’re going to make the cucumbers look like icing. Using a sharp paring knife, cut off the green skin of a cucumber slice. Then, cut out a long strip of cucumber in a spiral fashion, so you can get the longest strand possible. Trim this strip down so it’s as thin as you can get it without falling apart. Repeat this process for as many cucubmer slices as you need.

Lastly, the plating. Meticulously place the cucumber “icing” onto each petit four so it looks like it was applied naturally. Then place the petit fours on a fancy plate. Cut one open to show off the inside layers. Let it sit out for a while; you’ll be amazed at what prolonged exposure to oxygen can do to it aesthetically; the sides of the bologna start to dry and form interesting shades of pink, and the “chocolate mayonnaise” will appear more thick. And there you have it: Sublebration Cake from Subway. It’s celebration time! Now go get yourself a Fancy Fast Food book!

Can’t get enough of Fancy Subway? Check out our Fancy Five-Dollar Farfalle.

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.

Wendy’s Wonton Soup (Fancy Wendy’s Chicken Go Wraps)...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:51:32 -0500

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...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:43:32 -0500

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...

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:00:05 -0500

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 may need to pay extra for this.

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.

Mock Gỏi Mực (Fancy BK Onion Rings) by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:00:20 -0400

Mock Gỏi Mực (Fancy BK Onion Rings) by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

Despite Burger King’s new ad campaign that aims to highlight fresher ingredients — so fresh that they move in slow motion in TV spots, because that’s what fresh items apparently do — the onion rings are the same as they’ve been for decades. I’m not talking about the onions you may find in the Whopper; I mean the onion rings you can substitute for fries for — an option that has always kept BK unique against its French fry toting competitors. But have you ever peeled away the breading from one of those things? There’s not a ring of real onion inside; it’s this weird extrusion of oniony pulp, molded into a ring shape that sort of feels like squid. With that said, let’s play with our food and pretend they are, while being inspired by Vietnamese cuisine. Why not? As they say at BK, have it your way.

Ingredients (from Burger King):

1 large order of Onion Rings
1 Garden Salad with lite Italian dressing
packets of ketchup
PLUS: a banana leaf (for a presentation bed of irony)

To make this mock gỏi mực, or Vietnamese squid salad, we need our mock squid first. Using your fingers, peel away the breading from each of the rings, being careful not to tear the ring apart. It’s okay if you do though (it’s inevitable), but that’s okay; squid, fake or not, can be cut in different ways. Pile all the mock calamari rings and pieces and lightly rinse them in a strainer to clean off any residual crumbs. Don’t wet it too much or they’ll fall apart.

Next, pick apart the salad. Take the darkest of the greens and coarsely chop them. Slice the carrots sticks the long way until you have many more of them. Chop the tomatoes and the red cabbage. Toss all those ingredients, along with the mock squid, in a big mixing bowl with a little bit of dressing.

Finally, the plating: cut the banana leaf to the size of a fancy plate, and simply transfer the mock gỏi mực on top. Serve with a squeeze of chili paste-looking ketchup. Ăn ngon nhé!

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.

Kitschy Galantine of Chicken (Fancy KGC) by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:59:46 -0400

Kitschy Galantine of Chicken (Fancy KGC) by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

In recent years, KFC — Kentucky Fried Chicken — has jumped on the healthier fast food bandwagon by grilling their chicken — which is quite a feat knowing that the Colonel already has a lot on his To Do list, let alone getting his white suit all dirty with marinade. KFC blatantly promotes their Kentucky Grilled Chicken so much they have even come up with the acronym, KGC, which isn’t just three letters for conversation; it’s printed on all their paper cups, boxes, and buckets. However, the name of the fast food chain is still KFC, and any KFV (Kentucky Fried Virgin) may wonder what all this KGC business is about — it can stand for anything, like so many acronyms on the Internet. How about a fancy, yet Kitschy Galantine of Chicken? LOL

Ingredients (from KFC):

3 Kentucky Grilled Chicken breasts
1 small Coleslaw
PLUS: organic watercress (for an added touch of irony)

The French preparation of a galantine is similar to that of a roulade, in that it is meat, stuffed, rolled up and then sliced into servings like slices of bologna. The main distinction that a galantine has over a roulade is that all the fillings and poultry meat are stuffed into the skin of the bird of which it came — which IMHO sounds like a twisted mad scientist joke, but hey, if it’s good enough for Jacques Pépin, than we can at least improvise with what we have to work with at KGC.

First, use a paring knife to carefully cut and peel away the skin from each of the chicken breasts. You’ll find that you may not get a full slab of skin, but as long as you can still extract a narrow piece that is the full length of the chicken piece, you should be okay.

Next, debone the rest of the chicken breasts, and put all the white meat in a food processor. Add in all of the coleslaw, including the liquid, and then chop it all until it becomes a smooth paté.

If we had a whole bird to play with, we’d be stuffing this mix into a bigger slab of chicken skin, but we’ll just have to scoop out enough for each of the strips of breast skin we cut off. Roll the mixture in the skin, and encase it all. Then use a sharp knife to cut even slices out of the makeshift galantine.

Typically, the slices that come out of a proper galantine are bigger, so what you can do is press in some more of the paté into each of the slices until is expands outwards. Use your fingers maintain the circular formation while keeping the skin around the edge. After you’ve made enough to serve, stick it in the fridge for a while; galantines are typically served cold. BRB

Arrange your slices of Kitschy Gallantine of Chicken onto a fancy white plate, and then garnish with some ironic watercress. Voilà! KGC, meet FFF. OMG! WTF?

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.

McBibimbap (Fancy McDonald’s VI) by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 09:34:00 -0400

McBibimbap (Fancy McDonald’s VI)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with support from Emily Feinberg and some assistance from Hong Choi)

On a trip to Seoul, my Korean friend pointed out that many young Korean women are obsessed with taking pictures of “food porn.” Wherever we went out to eat, I saw evidence of this; in every restaurant, at least one Korean girl would have a big SLR camera and shoot pictures of her food, like some sort of paparazzo. Granted, the food in front of the lens was something of a stylish meal; Korean food, like Japanese food, has a certain aesthetic in its presentation — only it takes a lot more table space because those assortment of little banchan side dishes seem to take up every available bit of room.

Here’s a meal that Korean women would probably dare not take a photo of: a McDonald’s combo number 6, with a couple of salads, and two breakfast sandwiches — unless it was transformed into a mock bibimbap (a bowl of meat and mixed vegetables over rice, topped with a fried egg) the Fancy Fast Food way. Here’s how:

Ingredients (from McDonald’s):

1 Angus Mushroom & Swiss Burger
1 Egg McMuffin
1 Bacon Egg & Cheese Biscuit
2 Premium Caesar Salads
1 large fries
1 bottle of water
1 soft drink of your choice
packets of Hot Picante Sauce
packets of ketchup

First, shave off all the sesame seeds of the burger’s bun; we’ll use that for garnish later. Take apart the burger and scrape off all the mushrooms into a strainer or colander. Rinse them all under a sink to wash out the mayonnaise. Peel away the Swiss cheese — we don’t need it — and take a knife to the burger patty. Bias cut it into diagonal slices and set it aside.

McDonald’s doesn’t exactly serve rice, but they have plenty of starch in their famous fries. Chop the fries into small, rice grain-like pieces, and pile them up. Mince them down a little more to reduce their hard corners and then put them in a steamer and steam them for about 10-15 minutes. This will soften it up and give it a surprising texture of brown rice.

To make a mock kimchi (Korean spicy pickled cabbage), pick out all the lighter leaves of lettuce in the salads. Pour in a tiny bit of water, plus packets of the hot sauce and a couple of ketchups. Stir it all up until it looks like kimchi, complete with the occasional speck of red.

There are only so many carrot shreds found in a single salad, so pick out all the carrots from both salads. Slice them into strips the long way, so you have a nice pile for the dish when we plate it.

Scoop all the fake McRice into a fancy black bowl. Then place your items on top in a aesthetically pleasing way, in sections: the slices of beef, the mushrooms, the sliced carrots, the mock kimchi, and some of the darker greens from the salads. No bibimbap — fake or otherwise — is complete without a fried egg on top, and with McDonald’s lack of one on their menu, we’ll have to improvise.

Take the cooked egg from the Egg McMuffin and slice it in half along its side; it is mostly white and we’ll use that part for the egg white of our fake fried egg. To make the yolk, take the yellow scrambled egg from the breakfast biscuit. It’s not exactly the same hue of a yolk — but the cheese is, so pile that on top. Microwave it for 15 seconds so it melts down, and spread a layer over the egg. Then take a tablespoon to cut and carve out an almost perfect yolk-looking semi-bubble. Place that on the egg white and it’s a bit convincing — those Korean girls might not even be able to tell the difference!

Finally, garnish the top with some spicy gochujang-looking ketchup and the sesame seeds from the bun. Serve with the remaining mock kimchi on the side and your beverage of choice. 잘 먹겠습니다!

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.

NASAlmon Soufflé (Fancy Space Food)by Erik of Fancy Fast Food...

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:00:05 -0400

NASAlmon Soufflé (Fancy Space Food)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with support from Maurice Murdock, plus Sara Mitchell, Maggie Masetti, Lynn Chandler, and Vickie Kloeris of NASA)

For the milestone 50th “recipe” on FancyFastFood.com, we’ve gone beyond the realms of fast food, to make food fancification boldly go where no bun has gone before! Now that the U.S. manned space program is going on hiatus, we’ve teamed up with some folks at NASA to try and convert some “leftover” freeze-dried astronaut food and make it look fancy — but not before having fun touring around NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, as seen in this video:

Ingredients (from NASA’s Johnson Space Center):

1 pack of chipotle snack bread
1 pouch of outer-space-ready Chicken Of The Sea pink salmon
1 package of freeze-dried asparagus
1 package of freeze-dried vegetable quiche
water

First, make sure you turn on the gravity if you’re in Zero G; otherwise keep your items from floating away with the velcro patches that are found on all the unopened space food packets. (You can stick it to your socks if you want.) Next, open the packet of freeze-dried asparagus and put the contents in a sealable container; add in 50 ml of hot water and cover it to let it hydrate for five minutes. Do the same with the freeze-dried vegetable quiche, but with 100 ml of hot water.

The chipotle snack bread needs no hydration, so tear it into smaller pieces and put it in a food processor. Add in the contents of the Chicken of the Sea pouch, followed by the hydrated asparagus — saving 3-4 pieces for garnish — and the vegetable quiche. A proper soufflé on Earth uses eggs, so the quiche suffices for that, even though it’s not going to rise properly — although it might in Zero G.

Blend everything down to a consistent dough and then scoop it into a fancy ramekin. Bake the faux space soufflé in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes at 477.594 Kelvin (400°F), and then let it cool.

Garnish the top with the extra pieces of green asparagus for a touch of color, and then 3… 2… 1… blast off! (Note: May not necessarily taste good on Earth, but may taste better in orbit.)

Check out a funny DELETED SCENE from the Fancy Space Food shoot here.

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.

Papa Delle’s Puttanesca (Fancy Papa John’s) by Erik...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:02:50 -0400

Papa Delle’s Puttanesca (Fancy Papa John’s)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

Pizza is a versatile “ingredient” in the Fancy Fast Food kitchen. Thus far, we’ve fancified Domino’s into a Chinese-inspired Dao Mi Noh Chow Mein and Pizza Hut into an Indian-esque Chicken Pizza Masala. This time we’re turning to national pizza chain Papa John’s to make an Italian-inspired dish: pappardelle alla puttanesca. This may not seem like a stretch (Italian pasta from pizza?), but let’s not forget that Papa John’s roots aren’t in Italy but in Indiana, home of Ball State University.

Speaking of balls (how’s that for a stretch?), you’ve got to have a pretty big set of them to take Papa John’s “better ingredients” for a “better pizza”, and repurpose them to make a “better sauce” fit for… a whore. That’s what puttanesca is literally derived from Italian, anyway. Thankfully, Papa John has olives, onions, anchovies, tomatoes, and other toppings for us to improvise with, so you can bend over and sell yourself for a bowl of fake pasta:

Ingredients (from Papa John’s):

1 large thin crust pizza with light sauce and no cheese, topped with anchovies, onions, jalapeños, banana peppers, olives, and double tomatoes (request that it not be sliced)
1 little cup of Papa John’s Garlic Dipping Sauce
PLUS: organic basil (for an extra touch of irony)

First, take off all the toppings: the tomatoes, the banana peppers, the jalapeños, the olives, the anchovies, and the onions. Then use a fork and scrape off the sauce and any residual toppings left on the crust, and save it for later.

We ordered the pizza unsliced, but now it’s time to take a knife or pizza slicer to the empty thin crust. Slice it into strips — each about an inch in width — and then cut off the hard crusty edges on the ends. Rinse your newly formed mock pappardelle noodles in a colander.

Next, the sauce. In lieu of fresh garlic and olive oil, start with the cup of Papa John’s Garlic Dipping Sauce; it’s full of oil anyway. Pour it into a skillet over a medium heat, add in some onions, toss in the anchovies, and sauté. To substitute a proper puttanesca’s chilies, dice some banana peppers; to substitute the capers, dice some caper-colored jalapeños. Add them to the pan, along with the olives. Dice the tomato slices and add them to the mix as well, along with the extra sauce you scraped from the crust. Stir and sauté it all until it’s all blended together.

Finally, the plating. Place the mock pappardelle noodles into a fancy pasta bowl, and then top it with the “whore sauce” you just made. Garnish with an ironic basil leaf, and presto: a mock bowl of pappardelle alla puttanesca fit for a whore, or your papa, or whomever has the balls to try it.

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.

Quiznoa Salad (Fancy Quiznos) by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with...

Fri, 20 May 2011 10:44:00 -0400

Quiznoa Salad (Fancy Quiznos)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with support from Susannah Masur)

In our recent food obsessed culture, foodies strive to find new foods that they enjoy, mostly so that they can blog or tweet about it later. One of these recently “discovered” foods is quinoa (pronounced KEE-noaah), a grain-like vegetable from the Andean countries of South America so great in flavor, texture, and above all nutrients, that vegans just won’t shut up about it. And although it looks like a grain similar to couscous, it is technically not a grain — an ambiguity that even some rabbis exploit, deeming it an acceptable food to eat during the grain-abstaining days of Passover. Truly, quinoa is one exceptional food, and you don’t even need to be a vegan, an observant Jew (or both) to partake in its goodness.

However, according to a New York Times article, the problem with quinoa is that due to its increasing popularity in rich North American and European countries, the prices have driven up the cost in the poorer nations they come from, like Bolivia. Richer nations’ hunger for quinoa is actually stripping away the nutritious food that Bolivians have been consuming for centuries. So what is a socially-conscious person to do? One suggestion: fake the quinoa using fast food. Here’s how:

Ingredients (from Quiznos):

1 Veggie Sub without guacamole or cheese on Italian white bread
1 cup of water
condiment cups of banana peppers and pickles

First, scoop off all the vegetables off the bread and put them in a mixing bowl. We’ll deal with that later. For now, we are going to transform the bread into our grain-like super vegetable. We here in the Fancy Fast Food kitchen have tried doing this using a food processor with different blades, and even a hand grinder, but nothing quite gave the bread the proper round shape of quinoa. The only method that works — as tedious as it is — is to roll each individual piece by hand.

Because Quiznos prides itself on toasting their subs, we’ll have to moisten the bread. Pour all the water into a skillet and bring it to a boil. Place the pieces of bread — toastier side down — in a steam basket, and let them moisten and soften up before handling them. Then, pinch off a little bit of the bread’s insides, and simply roll it around with your finger until it becomes a small ball. Now repeat this process about a hundred times (or as long as you can stand it).

Dice the sliced tomatoes and put them in the mixing bowl with the rest of the vegetables. Add in the banana peppers and pickles. Then fold in the faux quinoa, and toss it all together with a big fork or rubber spatula.

Voilà! Quiznoa Salad! (pronounced KEEZ-noaah SA-lad) Now try and substitute this for quinoa in either a rich or poor country, so that the food demands can be met!

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.

Chicken Mock Pie (Fancy Raising Cane’s) by Erik of Fancy...

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:13:00 -0400

Chicken Mock Pie (Fancy Raising Cane’s)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with support from Cheryl Triviño)

Raising Cane’s, a nationwide albeit lesser known fast food joint with locations from Vegas to Boston, doesn’t have a varied menu like McDonald’s or Wendy’s; they stick to the one thing they do best: chicken fingers. While this may be common knowledge to those who live near a Raising Cane’s, what one may not know is that the establishment is named after the founder’s dog, “Raising Cane” (both words, not just Cane).

With a dog having so much influence on this chicken finger chain, we here in the Fancy Fast Food kitchen left it up to our canine friends to help envision a fancy meal derived from Raising Canes — they barked at us in a very Lassie-like way.

What’s that boy? Uh huh… You say we have enough ingredients to make a mock chicken pot pie? But is that really that fancy? (more barking) What’s that boy? Uh huh… Yeah? Uh huh… You say chicken pot pie is in sophisticated food magazines and that the only people who would look down upon it are chichi elitist food snobs? Okay, good boy… Thatzha got boy…”

Ingredients (from Raising Cane’s):

1 Box Combo with:
4 chicken fingers
1 order of crinkle cut fries
1 piece of Texas toast
1 side of coleslaw
1 cup of water

First, peel the breading off the chicken fingers to expose the meat inside. Cube them with a knife and put them aside. Do the same to half of the fries. Combined with the coleslaw, you now have the basic ingredients for the mock pot pie filling — there may not be peas, but at least there’s some green in there for color, plus carrots. The only thing we need to fake is the gravy that blends everything within the pie, so we’ll have to improvise as always.

First, put the remaining uncut fries in a food processor and add some water. Blend it to a pulp. Next, strain the coleslaw over a skillet so that you extract all the watery mayonnaise. Add the potato pulp and some more water, cover it, and simmer on a low heat until it all blends together to a starchy “gravy.”

Put the cubed chicken, potatoes, and coleslaw into a mixing bowl. Fold in the “gravy” with these ingredients until they are blended well, and then scoop it into a ramekin.

As for the crust, we’ll also have to improvise. Break apart the Texas toast and blend it down with a little bit of water in a food processor. Knead the resulting “dough” and then roll it flat on a piece of wax paper with a rolling pin. Cover the ramekin with his mock crust, pinching the edges to seal in the moisture. Add textures to the edges with a fork.

Bake this “chicken mock pie” in a pre-heated oven at 400°F for 10 minutes, then use a fork to break through the crust to get to the filling inside. Be careful; it may not be a real chicken pot pie, but it sure steams up like one! (Woof!)

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.

Chinese Cheemai Cheemai (Fancy Cheeburger Cheeburger) by Erik of...

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:02:53 -0500

Chinese Cheemai Cheemai (Fancy Cheeburger Cheeburger)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with support from Melissa Roach)

In Hong Kong and the Cantonese regions of southern China, food trolleys piled with steamy bamboo trays make their way around the tables at dim sum restaurants, serving everything from tripe to chicken feet. However, unadventurous Westerners who’d rather not put feet in their mouths usually favor one particular delicacy: the little dumpling known as shumai, usually filled with a filling of ground pork, shrimp, mushrooms, and/or chives.

You don’t have to travel halfway across the world to have shumai though; you only have to go as far as a selected airport, where the nationwide burger chain Cheeburger Cheeburger usually has a location. (Alternatively, you could just go to your local Chinese restaurant, but where’s the fun in that?) Just make sure you pack a good set of chopsticks, along with some creativity and culinary imagination — it’s going to take a little make-believe for this Fancy Fast Food mock recipe to seem passable for the real thing.

Ingredients (from Cheeburger Cheeburger):

2 Semi-Serious Cheeburgers (with onions, bell peppers, chopped garlic, and sautéed mushrooms, plus the signature olives on top)
1 small order of onion rings
1 medium Sierra Mist

It’s fitting that Cheeburger Cheeburger, that burger joint with the repetitive silly name, has a mid-sized burger called “The Semi-Serious” because we’re only going to be semi-serious about this mock recipe. Fancy Fast Food is all about styling food for looks over taste after all, and we’re going to make a couple of silly hamburgers look like shumai.

First, disassemble the burgers, saving the insides for later, and rip apart the buns into pieces. Put them in a food processor and add about 3 tablespoons of Sierra Mist so that it blends down to a semi-dry doughy mass that can be kneaded. Knead the dough and divide it into three equal parts for the three dumplings we’ll make. Using a rolling pin, roll one part of dough flat over a piece of wax paper. It should be spread out enough to cut out a circle using a bowl five inches in diameter. Then use a sharp knife to cut the perfect circle into an imperfect decagon; make sure you slice through the wax paper as well. Do this process two more times with the other two pieces of dough.

For the filling, take the remaining burgers and all the toppings (minus the olives a few pieces of green peppers) and put them in the food processor, along with some extra onions you extract out of the fried breading of the onion rings. Push the button and grind it all together.

Hold one of the faux, 10-sided shumai wrappings in your hand, and spoon in a small amount of the ground filling. Bring your fingers in to wrap the filling, creating a dumpling shape — the wax paper should keep the outsides from clumping together so you can make a nice folded texture. Peel away the wax paper when you have a decent looking “cheemai.” Repeat this process for the other two wrappings.

For garnish, mince the leftover green peppers to put on top of each of the “cheemai,” then serve them on a fancy white plate. And since each Cheeburger comes with an olive in a toothpick, you might as well put that in a martini glass and pour in some Sierra Mist to complement your faux meal with a faux cocktail. Now use your imagination, and find your inner Chee!

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.

Valentine Culvoutis (Fancy Culver’s) by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:29:56 -0500

Valentine Culvoutis (Fancy Culver’s)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with help from Allison Jaffe and Stephanie Etkin)

Centuries ago, when the French came up with the baked dessert called clafoutis, little did they know that at a glance, the word looks like it might be a venereal disease. (“Merde! J’ai la clafoutis!”) However, the word actually refers to a sweet and buttery pastry baked with black cherries on top, originally from the Limousin region. Traditionally, clafoutis is baked and served in a round pan, but you can always improvise by using a heart-shaped one — so that you can make this V.D.-sounding treat for another V.D. (Valentine’s Day). You can further improvise à la Fancy Fast Food and make the entire thing from items from Midwestern fast food chain, Culver’s.

Ingredients (from Culver’s):

3 Original ButterBurgers
1 dish of frozen vanilla custard with cherries
2 extra cups of cherry topping
1 cup of water

First, remove all the cherries from the top of the custard. We won’t need the custard for the rest of the recipe, so go ahead and eat it before it melts. When you’re done, take those cherries, plus all the extra ones, and cut them into halves. Then rinse off all the sticky syrup using a colander.

For the buttery batter, we’ll use the buns from the ButterBurgers. Break them apart with your hands and put them in a food processor. Add a little water and blend it down until it becomes a nice doughy substance. Mold this dough into the bottom and sides of heart-shaped baking pans; add in cherries as you fill the inside. Bake them in a pre-heated oven for twenty minutes at 400°F, then let them cool before serving under candlelight for your special Valentine. And when V Day is over and your special someone wants more — even begging, “Pretty please with a cherry on top” — you’ll know just what to give them: indigestion.

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.

Tacoliatelle con Pesto di Frito (Fancy Beefy Crunch Burrito) by...

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:00:00 -0500

Tacoliatelle con Pesto di Frito (Fancy Beefy Crunch Burrito)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with some assistance from Alexandra Jamieson)

It’s been twenty whole months since we here in the Fancy Fast Food kitchen have fancified something from Taco Bell, and now that 2011 is well under way, we’re going to party like it’s 2009. We’re going to make another pasta dish out of burrito, this time with inspiration from a recipe we found on the internet for Tagliatelle with Corn Pesto — a recipe which “re-imagines” pesto sauce by substituting corn for basil. Well, we are going to “re-re-imagine” this corn pesto sauce by using corn chips instead of actual corn. Never mind the recent news reports that question Taco Bell’s beef; what’s more important is that they now put spicy Fritos in their latest burrito offering! Let’s head for the border…

Ingredients (from Taco Bell):

1 Beefy Crunch Burrito (combo with:)
2 crunchy beef tacos
1 fountain drink with blend of Sierra Mist, Mountain Dew, and Tropicana Fruit Punch
packets of Border Salsa Verde sauce
PLUS: whole organic basil leaves (for an extra touch of irony)

Before you leave the borders of Taco Bell, be sure you make your fountain drink look like the faux white wine you will be serving with your dish at the end. Pour in about three-quarters clear Sierra Mist and then squirt in some Mountain Dew. The color may be too florescent, so offset the hue’s intensity with a splash of red Tropicana Fruit Punch. Go back and forth with the Mountain Dew and fruit punch as needed. If the color doesn’t turn out just right by the time the cup is full, just pour it all out and start over (preferably without a stingy manager looking over).

Once you’re in your kitchen, unwrap the Beefy Crunch Burrito. You won’t really need the rice for this pasta dish, so discard it (or eat it away), and then put the rest of the filling — including those Flamin’ Hot Fritos — in a mixing bowl (minus half of the beef since you won’t need it all). Now that the tortilla is empty, rinse it in the sink and pat it dry with a paper towel.

Slice the tortilla in two and then crank each half through a pasta cutter with the broad noodle attachment. In the end, you’ll have perfectly formed faux tagliatelle pasta. Collect it all in a big mixing bowl.

Next, the sauce. Cut open 15-20 packets of the Border Salsa Verde, squeeze them into a small skillet, and warm it up over a low heat. Meanwhile, take the lettuce and cheese from the two tacos and chop them into smaller pieces. While you’re at it, you might as well chop up some of the corn taco shells so our re-re-imagined corn pesto is extra corny. Add all of this to the bowl with the burrito filling and mix well.

Fold in the Border Salsa Verde into the big mixing bowl with the pasta. Then add in the filling mixture. Toss the pasta in the added ingredients until it is smothered.

Finally, the plating. Don’t scoop the pasta out in one heap and transfer it onto a plate (it will look like a messy glop); instead, transfer the pasta to the plate one or two noodles at a time with a pair of tongs. Garnish with ironic basil leaves to give homage to the pesto gods, and serve with your fountain drink blend in a wine glass! Buon appetito!

Fancy Fast Food creator Erik Trinidad partnered up with vegan chef and cookbook author Alex Jamieson (Morgan Spurlock’s vegan girlfriend-turned-wife in Super Size Me) in this pilot episode of the Fancy Fast Food web series, produced by AOL Slashfood:

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.

Santa’s McStrudel & Cookies (Fancy Happy Meals) by...

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:00:00 -0500

Santa’s McStrudel & Cookies (Fancy Happy Meals)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with some assistance from Phil Langer, Mark Trinidad, Amanda Albergo, Megan Quinn, and Jarrod Spillers)

It’s that time of the year again, when that jolly old fat guy sweeps down chimneys around the world, bearing gifts to those who are not naughty, but nice. And for some, it’s a Christmas tradition to leave an offering for Santa Claus — typically a sweet treat of cookies and milk — in an attempt to bribe him for the really good toys, like Mattel’s Sing-A-Ma-Jigs and XBox Kinects, which elves apparently know how to make. This season, unless you’re in an area were the local government has banned Happy Meals like stuffy, mean grinches stealing Christmas, you can follow this Fancy Fast Food mock recipe derived from McDonald’s popular kids meal, for a Christmas treat for Saint Nick made entirely out of fast food items. (Why not? He’s obese anyway.)

Ingredients (from McDonald’s):

2 Happy Meals with:
- a hamburger (x2)
- a pack of Apple Dippers and caramel dip sauce (x2)
- a bottle of milk (x2)
- a toy (x2)
1 extra hamburger
1 fruit and walnut salad
1 bottle of water

Santa Claus’ origins come from the Germanic peoples of northern Europe, so it’s only fitting that we make him a Germanic treat from that region: apple strudel. Sure we could just easily buy him McDonald’s strudel-like apple pie (or their baked cookies for that matter), but where’s the artistic integrity or fun in that?

First, take all the buns from the hamburgers and wipe away the ketchup with a paper towel. (Save the burger patties for later.) Then break apart the bread into small pieces and put them in a food processor. Add a tiny bit of water and blend it down to a solid, yet flexible dough. Knead the dough and roll it flat with a rolling pin. Trim the edges off so you have a straight edge when you fold it.

Before folding the strudel, we’ll have to fill the strudel with sweet goodness, i.e. sugar and spice and everything nice. Use a rubber spatula to evenly spread the caramel dip sauce on the top third of your dough sheet. Chop some walnuts from the fruit and walnut salad and spread them over the caramel. Then take some apple slices and lay them in a row across the width of the dough. It’s so easy, even an elf could do it!

Roll the strudel carefully until the filling is completely wrapped. Pinch the sides to encase it and then cut out some steam vents on top. Then bake the McStrudel on a cookie sheet in a pre-heated oven for 30 minutes at 400°F. When it’s done, let it cool for ten minutes.

For the icing, scoop out the yogurt from the fruit and walnut salad and place it into a cake decorating bag. There’s no need to add sugar to the yogurt to make it sweet like icing because McDonald’s elves have done that for you already. Squeeze the icing over the strudel into a decorative zig-zag pattern.

If you’re an American traditionalist, you could still leave out cookies for Santa too — or at least things that look like cookies: burger patties! (Rinse them first.) McDonald’s hamburgers already have the size, texture, and shape of actual cookies, but to take it a step further, push in some chopped walnuts into the meat so they look like chips or nuts. Voila! Beefy McCookies!

Lastly, the most important part: the plating. Santa isn’t going to give up the good stuff if you don’t present his treat in a nice way. Place the McStrudel on a plate and cut in the middle to expose the steaming apple goodness inside. This will definitey put you on The Nice List. Put the cookies behind the McStrudel to downplay them; one bite into those and you’ll be put on The Naughty List. Don’t forget to serve your treats with milk on the side! And while you’re by the tree, go ahead and fasten the Happy Meal toys as ornaments. Now get ready… because Santa Claus is coming to town!

Erik Trinidad, creator of this offbeat Fancy Fast Food blog, hosted an event (along with Zync from American Express) in celebration of the offbeat secular holiday, Festivus. Check out his Airing of Grievances from The Fancy Fast Food Festivus: A Holiday Happy Hour For The Rest Of Us from Cowgirl in NYC:

More Airing of Grievances from the party can be viewed HERE.

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.

Hawaiian Thanksgiving (Fancy McRib and Filet-O-Fish) by Erik of...

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:55:00 -0500

Hawaiian Thanksgiving (Fancy McRib and Filet-O-Fish)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with some support from Miz Stacecoaster)

Ah, another Thanksgiving is here, and this year we have plenty to be thankful for — most notably the return of the McRib! Yes, America’s favorite processed pork rib sandwich is back! No need to wander the different corners of the country looking for it, like in that Simpsons episode where Homer and a band of “Ribheads” go on tour following their favorite pork sandwich’s limited regional availability; the McRib is now available nationwide after a hiatus of a long sixteen years! Let’s celebrate the mechanically-separated Thanksgiving harvest!

Last Thanksgiving, we here at the Fancy Fast Food kitchen teamed up with Wired to reshape a corn dog and sides into a traditional “Franksgiving Dinner.” This year, we’re going to celebrate our beloved national holiday in these United States by being inspired by the last, but certainly not least state to enter the union, Hawaii.

Ingredients (from McDonald’s):

1 McRib sandwich (with extra onions)
1 Filet-O-Fish sandwich
2 side salads
1 large fries
1 McCafé Wild Berry Smoothie
1 bottle of water
packets of salt
PLUS: a natural banana leaf (for presentation and a touch of irony)

The centerpiece of any Hawaiian luau — other than the girls dancing in hula skirts — is the Kalua pig, traditionally prepared in an underground oven until the pork is slow-roasted to juicy, tender perfection. While that is ideal, we just have the McRib as our pork source so we’ll have to improvise. First, remove all the onions from the sandwich and set those aside for later. Then take the processed pork patty and run it under a faucet to rinse off all the barbecue sauce. What you’ll have left is an oddly-shaped pork product with fake rib shapes that you can use for your imagination to pretend that there once might have been bones there. (It’s supposed to simulate ribs after all.)

No matter about the lack of bones; bones always get in the way anyway, and really, who needs them? You should be thanking McDonald’s for getting rid of the most annoying part about eating ribs: the actual ribs. In fact, take it a step further and use a knife to get rid of the ribbed texture by slicing off the top layer of the pork patty. Then flip the patty over and slice off the upper layer as well until you have a completely exposed slab of the other “other white meat.”

Cutting the long way, thinly slice the sides of the pork patty so you have strands of what should start resembling shredded pork. We need to do this because the McRib isn’t pork in its natural form (surprise surprise), so the meat isn’t going to shred naturally along lines of muscle tissue fibers. Slice the patty until you have long thin strips of “rib meat,” and then slice those into thinner and thinner strips so that the collective pile looks like a nice serving of shredded roasted pork.

Kalua pig will be the main dish, but another traditional Hawaiian recipe is lomi-lomi salmon, which we’ll make in a more realistic way, substituting the pollock in the Filet-O-Fish for salmon. First, scrape off the tartar sauce and slice off all the breading of the Filet-O-Fish square, and then crumble the resulting fish filet into a mixing bowl. Add a packet of salt since a real lomi-lomi recipe calls for salted salmon. Then, take the four cherry tomatoes from the two side salads and dice them into small pieces. Take all the onions from the McRib sandwich, rinse them in a strainer, and then chop them along with some greens from the salad — another improvisation for the original recipe’s call for green onions. Put the tomatoes, greens and onions into the bowl of salted pollock and mix everything together in the traditional way: with your hands.

So we have Kalua pork and lomi-lomi-o-fish, but what’s a luau without poi, that pasty, starchy purple dip made from taro? Of course we don’t have taro, but plenty of starch in our box of french fries. Put those fries in a food processor, add some water, and give it a purple hue by way of 2-3 big spoonfuls of the Wild Berry Smoothie. Blend it down until it’s the consistency of yogurt, and tada… McPoi!

Lastly, the plating: serve the “shredded” Kalua pork on a banana leaf, the lomi-lomi-o-fish on a fancy bamboo plate, and the McPoi in a small wooden bowl. Pour the rest of the Wild Berry Smoothie in a tropical cocktail glass, and then decorate with cocktail umbrellas, leis, and a dashboard hula girl if you have one — and the Fancy Fast Food Hawaiian Thanksgiving is served! Aloha!

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.

Chicken Pizza Masala (Fancy Pizza Hut) by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:23:00 -0400

Chicken Pizza Masala (Fancy Pizza Hut) by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

With the overwhelming success of Slumdog Millionaire a couple of years ago, Indian entertainers are no longer constrained to Bollywood. Indians are becoming more prominent in the American entertainment scene, from director M. Night Shyamalan to comedian Aziz Ansari, and of course Apu from The Simpsons. Nowadays, NBC even has a sitcom that takes place in an Indian call center, and let’s not forget about those wacky MetroPCS commercials with those two Indian dudes.

With more and more Indians in the American pop culture landscape, it only makes sense to reciprocate and take something from the American pop culture and make it Indian — from a fast food perspective of course. White Castle already has associations with Harold & Kumar, so let’s go get a pizza.

Ingredients (from Pizza Hut):

1 medium Hand-Tossed Style Pizza with chicken, onions, and tomatoes; extra sauce, but easy on the cheese (unsliced)
1 order of buffalo wings (6) with blue cheese dressing (2)
3 orders of mariana sauce
1 bottle of water
organic coriander (for garnish and an extra touch of irony)

First, pick the chicken, tomatoes, and onions off the pizza pie with your hands, and then scrape off the cheese or any extra topping pieces with a fork. Put all the toppings into a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Stir in all the marinara sauce, followed by all the blue cheese dressing. Pour in water as needed to give it a smoother texture. When it’s all mixed together, it should start to resemble the orange hue of a masala sauce. Add in the chicken wings and smother them so they are well-coated. Let it simmer for about ten minutes on a low heat.

Hopefully you ordered the pizza unsliced so that we can make some fake naan. Take the empty crust, flip it over, and flatten it further with a rolling pin. Then fold it in half, and then into a quarter; when you fold it, it sort of looks like naan, which is the perfect accompaniment for the dish.

Finally, the plating: spoon the chicken pizza masala in a small serving dish and garnish it with some chopped ironic coriander. Serve it with your fake naan, and enjoy. Namaste!

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.

Beef C’Arbysscio (Fancy Arby’s)by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:01:31 -0400

Beef C’Arbysscio (Fancy Arby’s)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with some support from Lana Price)

The Raw Foods Movement may be getting plenty of attention these days in our modern food-obsessed culture, but it’s actually been practiced by people for millennia — from the first caveman who bit into an uncooked, prehistoric McRib before fire was invented, to celebrity raw food diet-endorsing Demi Moore, who has been munching on raw vegetables since before Ashton Kutcher was invented.

The fast food chains haven’t really embraced raw foods (other than their salad offerings) but that doesn’t mean you can’t pretend things are raw. For this mock recipe, we are going to close our eyes and pretend beef is raw when making a beef carpaccio — and what classier place to get our freshly sliced beef than the fast food home of roast beef sandwiches.

Ingredients (from Arby’s):

1 Super Roast Beef Sandwich
1 Roast Turkey and Swiss Sandwich
1 order of Jalapeño Bites
1 side salad
1 medium fruit punch
packets of Arby’s Sauce and Horsey Sauce

First, take apart the roast beef sandwich and discover what we already know: that the roast beef isn’t raw; it’s roasted after all, and it’s brown-colored. Raw beef is supposed to be red, so we’re going to have to dye the beef. This is where the fruit punch comes in. Pour the fruit punch in a non-stick skillet and bring it to a boil so that it starts reducing. We want the red syrupy goodness to thicken before putting in slices of the roast beef. Coat both sides of the meat until it soaks up the red liquid, and then place the meat on a fancy white platter.

The red syrup will almost immediately start to dry out, so use a pastry brush to reapply the syrup as needed. For extra redness, you can brush on some packets of the reddish Arby’s sauce as well.

Meanwhile, skin the jalapeño bites, and slice them the long way into strips; then use it to garnish the plate. While you’re at the cutting board, cut the Swiss cheese from the turkey sandwich into smaller pieces; use this for garnish too. For added flair, drizzle some Horsey sauce on top with a squeeze bottle. Finally, top the meat with some greens from the side salad and, if you want, slice the bread and buns into smaller pieces to serve it on the side. Presto! It’s so easy, even a caveman could do it — or Demi Moore, if she ever felt like it.

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.

Baja Bouillabaisse (Fancy Baja Fresh)by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:45:00 -0400

Baja Bouillabaisse (Fancy Baja Fresh)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

Bouillabaisse is a traditional (and inherently fancy-sounding) fish and seafood stew prominent in the Provençal province of southern France, a culinary classic from the seaside city of Marseille. The best bouillabaisse is made with only the freshest seafood, but since we are going to play by our own rules and only source ingredients from the realm of fast food, we’ll go to the chain that labels their food as such (even if it’s inspired by Mexico and not France): Baja Fresh. With their available sea-faring fast food fare, we’re going to boil up a “Baja Bouillabaisse” that will not only appease the Fancy Fast Food kitchen’s penchant for alliterations, but be candy for the eyes — and maybe even tantalize a taste bud or two, if you can believe that.

Ingredients (from Baja Fresh Mexican Grill):

1 BFF Fire-grilled Burrito (with langostino lobster)
3 MahiMahi Tacos (grilled)
3 Original Baja Tacos (with grilled shrimp)
1 Garden Salad
1 Chicken Tortilla Soup (without charbroiled chicken)
4 condiment cups of Pico de Gallo
1 condiment cup of chopped cilantro

First, pour the chicken tortilla soup into a medium saucepan; this will be the savory stock of our seafood stew, even if it’s based on terrestrial poultry. Add tomatoes and onions to this base via the pico de gallo — but don’t throw away the condiment cups just yet since we’ll get creative with them later. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer over a low heat.

Next, the main ingredients: the seafood. For fish, we have the strips of grilled mahi-mahi from the tacos; add those to the saucepan and let them stew until they are tender enough to cut into smaller chunks with a mixing spoon. Also add in the grilled shrimp from the other tacos. That leaves just one seafood item left, the shellfish from your BFF (“Big & Full of Flavor”) burrito: lobster. Take note that it’s not “lobster” but “langostino lobster,” that controversial crustacean in the restaurant industry that isn’t a part of the true lobster family at all; it’s actually more related to hermit crabs. This langostino lobster may be labeled by copywriters as such for its ambiguity (and perhaps its appealing alliteration), but it’s all we have to work with. Pick the pieces of “lobster” meat out of the burrito and add it to the saucepan. Cover and let it simmer for a few minutes.

Sally may sell seashells by the seashore, but we’ll get by with our Baja Bouillabaisse without her business on the beach. Images of a real bouillabaisse often include the shells of clams or mussels, but we’ll improvise with a little creativity and the empty condiment cups. Using a pair of kitchen shears, cut the black condiment cups along the sides to make long oval shapes. When they curl, they will resemble mussel shells — especially when you cleverly position them in a serving bowl. But first, add them to the saucepan so they get immersed in the stock; this will help prevent them from looking like plastic.

Finally, the plating: use a ladle to transfer the seafood stew into a fancy bowl. Place the mock mussel shells in and around the morsels of fish and seafood, and then garnish the top with the chopped cilantro. Voila! You’ve just made Baja Bouillabaisse, a fun, fancy, and French-inspired feast formed from fresh fast food!

Fancy Fast Food creator Erik Trinidad mentioned this mock recipe on an episode of Masterclash, a guy-centric web talk show on AOL’s Asylum.com, discussing the world of fast food. (This is the second segment out of a three-segment episode about fast food.):

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.

Osso BuKko (Fancy BK Fire-Grilled Ribs)by Erik of Fancy Fast...

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:14:00 -0400

Osso BuKko (Fancy BK Fire-Grilled Ribs)
by Erik of Fancy Fast Food (with some support from Lana Price)

Let’s face it: as authentic as Burger King claimed their limited-time-only “Fire-Grilled Ribs” to be, they didn’t exactly look pretty. Sure they looked amazing on the commercial with the magic of television, and on the posters with the magic of photography, but out of the box they just looked sloppy, like they were defective rawhide dog bone chew treats. (No offense to companies out there that make rawhide dog bone chew treats.)

We here at the Fancy Fast Food kitchen wanted to work a little magic of our own and transform the King’s legitimate ribs into something more legit-looking. Given that these fast food ribs did in fact come on the bone (unlike that on-again/off-again limited-time-only sandwich at the Golden Arches), we decided to make an osso bucco, that Italian dish where bones — and the marrow inside — are a part of the recipe, if not the most significant ingredient since the Italian name literally translates to “bone hole.” How much marrow we would actually get out of these “B-holes” was indeterminable, but the ending visual sure looked fancy — in the end, it’s all about how good it looks, remember?

Ingredients (from Burger King):

1 order of BK Fire-Grilled Ribs (6)
1 order of Onion Rings
1 order of French Fries
1 Garden Salad
1 medium Dr. Pepper (with ice)
packets of barbecue sauce and ketchup

First things first: strain the Dr. Pepper into a saucepan, saving the ice for a later use. Bring the Dr. Pepper to a boil so that it starts reducing; that carbonated prune juice flavor will be the base of our makeshift osso bucco sauce.

While that’s going, prepare the other ingredients: debread the onion rings and expose them for their onion mush extrusion; these will be the onions in the sauce. Chop the baby carrots and the stalky parts of the lettuce from the salad. Slice the cherry tomatoes into halves.

Once the Dr. P has reduced to a syrupy consistency, add in the barbecue sauce and ketchup and stir. Add in the onions, carrots, and chopped greens, followed by all the ribs. Reduce the saucepan to a low heat and let the whole stew simmer covered for 10-20 minutes. It is during this time that some of the marrow in the ribs’ bones should magically ooze out into the sauce; how much really depends on how stubborn those bone holes want to be. B-holes!

Melt some ice back into water and use it in the magic food processor to blend the french fries into a mashed potato consistency. Scoop some potato onto the center of a fancy plate; this will be the bed for your stewed ribs. Finish the plating by garnishing the dish with some sauce, cherry tomatoes, and some finely-chopped lettuce from the salad (the darker leaves). Presto! The King’s ribs are now “Osso BuKko” and they look better than they did on television! How’s that for magic?

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.