Food for Body and Soul

[Thunder Chicken]

Oscar Wilde once said "After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relatives". How true.

Being someone who tries to embrace the Slow ethic, I had an opportunity to exercise my personal culinary beliefs today as my busy-body wife left for a ski trip this weekend. At last, peace is restored in my kingdom.

In this silence, I developed a recipe for a spectacular burger. Here it is:

Ingredients

An empty kitchen (too many cooks spoil the pot)
2-4 (who is counting?) beers or beverages of your choosing
1 lb of ground sirloin, found in the freezer (my wife hates meat and freezes any meat that I bring home from the store and buries it at the back of the freezer)
Fresh garlic
Cracked pepper
A pinch of sea salt
A pinch or so of red pepper
A fresh sourdough roll (my wife makes bread - she really is OK sometimes)
Baby portabella mushrooms

Instructions (Preparation time ~ 2-3 hrs).

1. Have a beer and breathe deep.
2. Enjoy the silence.
3. Silence is punctuated by a rumbling from the stomach region. Have another beer and begin preliminary exploration of refrigerator and freezer.
4. Assemble all ingredients (it feels like the end of a very interesting scavenger hunt).
5. Thaw the meat. Preheat outside grill (clear and -7 C, perfect outdoor grilling weather)
6. Mince garlic.
7. Mix all dry spices, garlic, and salt with meat, form into patty.
8. Throw meat on grill and turn grill to medium heat. Have another beer.
9. When done with beer, flip meat.
10. Have another beer, go inside and saute mushrooms.
11. When mushrooms are done, put roll on plate, run outside and get your burger, cover burger in sauteed mushrooms.
12. Enjoy slowly.

Any other memorable meal stories out there?

 

[jedidia]

first a philosophical introduction, and then... A burger! Americans! :lol:

 

[n72.75]

first a philosophical introduction, and then... A burger! Americans! :lol:

It's how we roll.

 

[Ghostrider]

What's wrong with burgers? Any food prepared well is tasty, and consumed with moderation it's healthy as well.

 

[Notebook]

Nice recipe,


do you like to live dangerously...?

I had an opportunity to exercise my personal culinary beliefs today as my busy-body wife left for a ski trip this weekend.

N.

 

[Ghostrider]

Aw. Stepping into the kitchen when the Significant Culinary-adept One is away is BAD. I hope you erase any evidence of your intrusion into her territory before she comes back or woe to you!

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Both my wife and I are good cooks, just at different things. Meat and fish are my specialties, as is anything that needs to go on the grill. She is a distance runner and doesn't eat a lot of meat, but she will happily tuck into a steak after a run if I make it for her. She is fantastic at making breads, baked goods in general, and ice cream. And she makes sure that I eat my vegetables.

As to the burger - a burger can be something other than a charred black puck in a calcium peroxide flavored bun from McDonalds. It is a pretty flexible basis for a meal, as you can spice it and accompany it to suit your tastes.

There are some chain restaurants here in the U.S. that have a burger menu 5 pages long. Their portions are ridiculously large and they tend to be loud and annoying places though, and the waitstaff is always rushing you. You can't go with friends and have a quiet meal and conversation at these places - you have to shout at each other like you are at a concert.

 

[Urwumpe]

Nothing beats a good freshly grilled burger with enough friends. The only problem is, that you can't eat enough of them in the long time that the coal is hot.

Interesting recipe, I didn't yet think about having mushrooms on the burger.

I currently plan to produce the same baguettes as a small restaurant did in the university quarter... really long, really tasty, and for 6 Euro, you had effectively two meals.

Would be a nice thing for work, since you can prepare most of them at the evening and just need to put them into the oven during breakfast so they just need some short microwaving at work.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Interesting recipe, I didn't yet think about having mushrooms on the burger.

Putting cheese on the burgers is pretty common here in the U.S. The chain restaurants usually offer some caloric monstrosity involving beef, 8 types of cheese, ham or bacon, and drowned in some sort of barbecue sauce or mayonnaise. This is then usually buried in about 2 lbs of fried potatoes.

There are several grades of ground beef available, with the cheaper grades usually containing more fat. I use higher grade meat, locally grown if available. Most meat found in supermarkets has traveled from the Midwest, and so it is advisable to always cook the meat, which is a shame as I like my meat rare. Mett and steak tartare are bad ideas in the U.S. unless you happen to get your meat from a local farm.

I actually like to taste the meat, and try to use spices and toppings that accentuate the flavor. Fresh sauteed mushrooms are a favorite of mine, as are sauteed onions. A little minced garlic mixed in with the meat always goes well, with a pinch of salt and cracked pepper. I experiment with cumin, paprika, cayanne pepper, other spices. In summer, a plain burger with a slice of fresh tomato and a slice of raw sweet onion, with a little sharp mustard, is fantastic.

The roll is critical. Hamburger buns sold in the store are worthless pieces of fluff. You need to find a good bakery that sells crusty rolls. Baguettes are an excellent option.

 

[Urwumpe]

The roll is critical. Hamburger buns sold in the store are worthless pieces of fluff. You need to find a good bakery that sells crusty rolls. Baguettes are an excellent option.

We also have a recipe here for quickly making Bavarian-style Burgers from ingredients you can get in most supermarkets here.

You need raw Leberkäse/meat loaf* (you can also use already baked one, but that is less tasty, freshly baked Leberkäse is not compareable)

Next you need a pack of Krautsalat/cole slaw (you can also use warm sauerkraut but that takes more kitchen resources) and some Laugenbrötchen/pretzel rolls.

Bake the Leberkäse and stack it with the Krautsalat between the Laugenbrötchen. Serve with cold beer.



* I write the German names first of it, the English translations are not accurate enough.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

The Krautsalat idea sounds good. I assume this refers to pickled shredded red cabbage or something similar. In the U.S. "coleslaw" is usually prepared with mayonnaise or a cream dressing.

Is this what you are referring to by Leberkäse?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leberkäse

If so, wow - this sounds really good. I am not aware of anything exactly like Leberkäse in the U.S., but there is stuff called pimento loaf that is ground beef and pork with olives and pimento peppers. It isn't popular but it is cheap if you need something for a sandwich.

My family is from Pennsylvania - they have a pork hash loaf there called scrapple, also called ponhaus or panhas (spelling varies, probably not pure German but derived from German). It is very hard to find, only a few places around Eastern Pennsylvania make it. When our family comes up from Philadelphia we ask them to bring some along. You slice it and fry it in a pan until crisp - very delicious with breakfast eggs.

I'm getting hungry again :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

The Krautsalat idea sounds good. I assume this refers to pickled shredded red cabbage or something similar. In the U.S. "coleslaw" is usually prepared with mayonnaise or a cream dressing.

White cabbage is better suited there, but you can also use red cabbage, either cold or hot (both variations common here), but I prefer the sharper taste of white cabbage.

Is this what you are referring to by Leberkäse?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leberkäse

Exactly that.

My family is from Pennsylvania - they have a pork hash loaf there called scrapple, also called ponhaus or panhas (spelling varies, probably not pure German but derived from German). It is very hard to find, only a few places around Eastern Pennsylvania make it. When our family comes up from Philadelphia we ask them to bring some along. You slice it and fry it in a pan until crisp - very delicious with breakfast eggs.

Yes, "Pannas", it is pretty uncommon even in Germany, you mostly find it in the western end of Germany. But the preparation in the USA seems to be significant different to the German form, here you just use the stew that results from cooking different sausages after butchering a pig as base and add a bit of minced meat to it, chop it into slices and put them into a pan. In the USA, the style seems to be more around "throwing everything that can't be turned into sausage into a pot and cook it"

I remember such butcherings of a pig by my family, my grandfather was butcher before becoming crane driver, but we didn't do such Westphalian recipes, we had been from an Eastphalian subculture. Meant really lots of sausage and freshest minced meat. It is really hard today to get such Bratwurst as my grandmother used to make. Had been comparable to Nuremburg style Bratwurst, but was bigger and breaded.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Yes, "Pannas", it is pretty uncommon even in Germany, you mostly find it in the western end of Germany. But the preparation in the USA seems to be significant different to the German form, here you just use the stew that results from cooking different sausages after butchering a pig as base and add a bit of minced meat to it, chop it into slices and put them into a pan. In the USA, the style seems to be more around "throwing everything that can't be turned into sausage into a pot and cook it"

Pannas or scrapple also goes by "Everything except the oink" :lol: They add cornmeal to it so it is not quite all meat. My family (and many of those in Eastern Pennsylvania) came from Western Germany in the 1600s. The family name was Umstadt, later Americanized to Umstead.

 

[Urwumpe]

Pannas or scrapple also goes by "Everything except the oink" :lol: They add cornmeal to it so it is not quite all meat. My family (and many of those in Eastern Pennsylvania) came from Western Germany in the 1600s. The family name was Umstadt, later Americanized to Umstead.

Yeah, some went to the US pretty early already there, had been hard economic times in Germany back then. Umstadt is still a major wine region in Germany, in southern Hesse.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

My simple recipe for awesome food comes from 11 years of experience cooking in the outdoors with Boy Scouts.

Take as many boneless, skinless chicken breasts as you want, or will fit in the bottom of a foil-lined Dutch Oven in a single layer, whichever comes first. () Sprinkle with salt, pepper, seasoned salt, garlic salt, and any additional spices you want. You can even have customized orders if you're careful.

Cook in Dutch oven at 350*F until done, rotating the lid and oven body 180* every 15 minutes to ensure even cooking.

Enjoy!