[TND] 9.18 Argentine-style burgers

Another recipe out of Fine Cooking (and on the web, apparently), this recipe went against my current thinking in terms of burger-crafting. It involves saute-ing garlic, onions and jalapenos, letting them cool, and combining that mixture, cilantro, oregano, salt and pepper with the ground beef. For most of the summer, I've been simply adding kosher salt as I make the patties, which both minimizes the amount of handling and gives it all the flavor it really needs. Especially if you use all natural, grain fed, additive free beef. Additional flavor and texture
can be added on top of the burger, so kosher salt is all you really need for burger qua burger. I used 90%, since it was what was on sale (and actually, the only ground beef I could find), but if I were to do this recipe again, I would definitely use at least 85%, and probably 80%. The charcoal grill requires a higher fat content, even if the additions serve to keep it a bit moister.

The burgers got put into pita pockets with sliced red onions and a chimichurri sauce, which is basically parsley, mint, oregano, lime juice, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper. The sauce I would definitely use again, probably with less mint. I think it'd be delightful on fish.

I also made sweet potato fries. Sliced them into 1/4" sticks, coated in oil, sprinkled with salt, turbinado sugar and pepper, and roasted at 450 for about 20 min. They were pretty good, and I learned an important lesson about aluminum foil and non stick pans. I would like a way to mass produce the fries, maybe frying them would actually be faster, since there's only two oven racks and you need to single layer them.

Not sure about next week. It may be cold enough for mac'n'cheese, or it may be time to start experimenting with shepherd's pie.

[TND] 9.11 Curried Skewers

Last Tuesday was an experimental recipe that I borrowed and modified from a link off the Fine Cooking web spam I occasionally get. It involved a modified curry powder made by adding ground cumin, coriander, white pepper, paprika and a touch of cinnamon to a store curry powder. Cubed a pork loin, sprinkled with the curry mixture and let it marinate in minced garlic, olive oil and orange juice. I did the same thing with some nice tuna steaks, but they didn't get to marinate, as I didn't want to bury the tuna in the curry, but next time I would definitely let them go the distance. Salmon might work too. After letting them marinate for a couple hours or overnight, skewered them with the biggest, roundest red grapes I could find. Grill until the meat is done, the grapes should have char marks and shriveled a bit. The tuna you can let be a bit rare if it's good enough quality.

It worked much much better than I thought it would. The raisin-y but still grape-y flavor of the grapes with the hint of curry was a great transition between the curried pieces of pork. Grilling the grapes alone was pretty tasty, which was not something I'd expected either.

I also used the curry mixture on some cauliflower, after applying oil and salt, which I then roasted. It was delicious, though I need to figure out how to better distribute the curry mixture, as I had a couple bites that were almost gritty because there was too much of it in one place.

Next week is Argentinian burgers and sweet potato oven fries, I think.

[TND] 9.4 Beer Brats

I'm trying to get the most of the grill while the weather is still permissive, so tonight we'll be doing beer brats. The premise is simple. Boil brats in beer, onions and peppercorns. Grill. I am going to take suggestions from those more familiar with it as to what beer I should use, I'm thinking some sort of lager might be best. I've used ales in the past, mostly because they're what Dave had.

While we're appreciating summer, we'll do some lovely corn on the cob and some summer vegetable, probably zucchini. I may use something other than cumin to season it, as I've been doing that all summer, but it's so good it's hard to argue with. Cumin doesn't seem to complement brats all that well, however, so I'll think about it today and see where I end up.

I've got the next couple TNDs tentatively planned, I'll post that later this week.

pizza for dessert

This evening a bunch of us went over to Carissa and Julian's house for dinner tonight. Our local supermarket chain makes some surprisingly decent pizza dough, and they had a ton. One of the tentative ideas was to make chocolate pizzas.

I'm not a big chocolate qua chocolate fan, so my first thoughts were to add peanut butter, and since there was one right in front of me, bananas. We rolled out a small test pizza and just spread a bit of peanut butter and sprinkled it with chocolate shavings. It was too thick, but still tasty. I am doomed to never be a chocolatier or pastry chef, as my hands are far too warm. It melts. A lot. Which makes it very hard to work with.

We made a larger version, layered peanut butter, bananas, and milk chocolate shavings. It was pretty amazing. We're now trying a goat cheese, strawberry slices, topped with dark chocolate. It was good, but the chocolate was much darker than I anticipated, so we're trying a refinement. I'm thinking about pears now, mostly 'cause they're sitting on the counter, and they'd be delicious.

Bacon

When I went to find bacon to go with the lovely tomatoes to make BLTs, I ran into a problem. It was all too thin. I went to a butcher, several grocery stores, and even the bacon labeled as thick cut was still about half the thickness I was looking for. The thinner cut works for wrapping things like asparagus or pork loin, but for a sandwich or even with eggs, I prefer about 1/4" thickness. It seems my options are buying a whole slab and cutting it myself, which I'm not quite sure I want to do, as that seems a bit much just to get it cut to what I think is a normal thickness. I think this may just be one of the downsides of living in a rural area.

[TND] 8.28 Simple Red Sauce

This worked out really well again. I used a bit of slurry since I didn't have time to let it reduce, and I think it didn't have an effect on the taste. I used three different types of tomatoes, and it seemed to be a little more depth of flavor, but the "paste" varieties I think make for a more classic sauce. Nigel got to compare it directly to the previous sauce, and said that last week's sauce was a bit sweeter. May have been the different basil, too.

I also made the garlic bread I've been making for the last little while. Roast the garlic, mix with butter, fresh oregano and cracked pepper. Spread it on lengthwise halved bread and top with either shredded mozzarella or sliced fresh mozzarella. Bake it until the cheese is just browning. Let it cool so the cheese doesn't go everywhere when you slice it. It has been and was amazing this time.

I cannot recommend fresh heirloom tomatoes enough. Go buy some before summer is over and you have to wait until next year.

[TND] 8.28 Fettucine with Red Sauce

It is the end of summer and thus it is time for tomatoes. At the Tolland farmer's market, I have found a stand which sells several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, all grown organically. These are beautiful tomatoes. They are large, usually about 1/2-1 pound, and have beautiful red color. One of these days I'll actually remember to write down the varieties. The variety he has most consistently is a duller red, and has a very high ratio of flesh to seeds. I've used them for many things, including simply eating them with a bit of kosher salt.

The plan is to make them into a very simple red sauce. I tried this earlier in the week with the ones from last week, and it was amazing. We'll see if it scales up and works with multiple varieties of tomatoes. The recipe is simple, it's onions and garlic (also organic and from the farmer's market) sautéd in olive oil, chop and add tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and reduce as much as possible. Add chopped basil off the heat, just before serving. Parmesan is optional.

I think if I make the garlic butter tomorrow night, I should be able to make cheesy garlic bread too, I just need to get garlic sometime tomorrow, or have someone pick it up for me.