Category: burger

Categories
beef burger food

ultimate burger stack

ultimate burger stack

There are some days when only burgers will do. Scratch that, there are some days when only an ultimate burger will do. Better than that, an ultimate triple-tier burger!

I must have made hundreds of burgers in my life of all shapes, sizes and different meats, but I’m reckon I’m proudest of this one. It’s got all my favourite bits and pieces in, full of meat flavour and lots of fun to eat to boot. Don’t get me wrong – this one’s for sharing! You could always make them a single lever, but where’s the fun in that?

It may surprise you but I don’t do much with the patty itself. Just use decent mince (or mince your own) and season generously. My top tip is to brush with oyster sauce as it finishes cooking – this lends it a delicious savoury flavour.

I took this one to another level and made my own brioche buns for this recipe, but feel free to use your own favourite buns for the purpose. If you have the time, why not try it too? I’m not the world’s biggest brioche as a burger bun fan but this was just perfect for this type of burger.

You might want to add bacon and cheese – and why not! – but I chose not to this time. It’s the garnishes that make that perfect burger.

So for a perfect weekend indulgence, treat yourself to a mega burger!

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ultimate burger stack

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the brioche buns (makes about 6):

  • 125 ml warm water
  • 2 tablespoons warm milk
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 sachet yeast
  • 300 g strong white flour
  • 2 tablespoons butter softened
  • 2 eggs

For the meat patties:

  • 400 g minced beef as good quality as you can get hold of
  • 1 tablespoon oyster sauce

For garnish:

  • 1 onion sliced
  • 1 beef tomato sliced
  • 2 - 3 gherkins chopped
  • leaves Iceberg lettuce

For the burger sauce:

  • 50 ml tomato ketchup
  • 25 ml mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon burger mustard

Instructions

  • For the buns, whisk the yeast and sugar into the water and milk and leave to sit while you get on with the next bit.
  • Add a teaspoon of sea salt to the flour and rub in the butter with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in one of the eggs and the yeasty mix.
  • Tip the mix on to a generously floured surface. The dough will be super sticky but bear with it and knead for 10 minutes. Add to an oiled bowl and leave to rise for 2 hours.
  • After two hours, knock it back then reform into your bun shapes. Cover loosely and allow to prove for a further hour. Preheat the oven to 200C.
  • Beat the other egg and glaze the top of the rolls. Bake for 20 minutes or until puffed up and brown, and cool on a wire rack before using.
  • For the burgers season the beef generously with salt and pepper, then form into patties (you should get 2 - 3). Allow to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes before using, this cools the fat down to keep them together while cooking.
  • For the burger sauce, mix the ingredients together and keep refrigerated until needed.
  • Lightly fry the onion slices in olive oil until softened and keep aside until needed.
  • Get a non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat. Cook the patties, flipping every minute until cooked to your liking. For the last minute of cooking brush the top side with oyster sauce for a beautiful shine and delicious savouriness.
  • Assemble your burger with tomato, lettuce, gherkins, onions and burger sauce in your bun. Devour messily with a dining companion.

After more delicious burger recipes?

Kavey describes the perfect burger

Dannii shows you how to make a cumin spiced lamb burger

Camilla goes Brazilian

Here’s Bintu’s chipotle venison burgers

Fancy a vegetarian option? Try quinoa burgers

Categories
burger cranberry sausages turkey

leftover turkey burgers with shredded sprouts and cranberry relish

Thinking about  all the leftover turkey you’re going to have real soon? Time to bookmark some ideas – try my leftover turkey burgers recipe.

Leftovers are (almost) my favourite bit – that doorstop turkey sandwich is a great thing. But what about if you fancy something a little different?

A burger can be a really obvious choice with leftover turkey from Christmas or Thanksgiving but there’s a bunch of twists in this recipe to lift it over the usual. There’s often nuts hanging around at Christmas time, so a handful will give these a bit of texture. Plus there’s a sneaky sausage centre that is not only tasty but keeps it moist.

Want to max out those leftovers? Top it with sauteed shredded Brussels Sprouts. Sweet and crunchy, these poor little things get cast aside too often. They really make it. Add cranberry sauce for the winning condiment.

Now I don’t usually care for a brioche bun in a regular beef burger, I think it’s too soft and slippery. But in a turkey burger the butteriness really helps add moisture.

So try these leftover turkey burgers and let me know what you think – or do you have a gold-plated recipe that works for you every time?

This recipe was commissioned by Sainsbury’s.

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leftover turkey burgers with shredded sprouts and cranberry relish

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 small onion diced
  • 200 g leftover turkey shredded
  • 1 tablespoon chopped nuts optional. I use pistachios
  • 1 teaspoon dried sage
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 100 g sausagemeat (or 4 sausages skinned)
  • 100 g Brussels Sprouts raw
  • 1/4 nutmeg grated
  • 4 tablespoons cranberry sauce
  • 25 g butter melted
  • 4 brioche buns
  • Salad to serve

Instructions

  • Fry the onion gently in a saucepan until soft. Scrape out on to a plate until cooled.
  • While the onion cools, shred the turkey in a food processor. Combine the turkey with the nuts, sage, onion and egg. Shape into 4 burgers and pop in the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up. Shred the Brussels in the food processor.
  • Take a 5cm circular cutter and remove the centre section of each patty. Replace this with sausagemeat (you can cook this turkey offcut ) Wipe out your frying pan from early and put over a high heat. Fry the burgers for 4 minutes each side, turning frequently until cooked through. Pop into a 100C oven while you cook the sprouts.
  • Fry the spouts for 3 minutes, tossing regularly, until starting to colour. Add the nutmeg and season to taste.
  • Toast the buns on the cut side and brush with melted butter. Add the turkey burger, a dollop of cranberry and finally the Brussels Sprouts. Serve with salad.

Looking for more leftovers recipes?

Jo’s mincemeat flapjacks

Emily’s turkey slice

Mince pie ice cream

Nazima’s turkey and cranberry spring roll

Jen’s chicken, ham and pecan crumble

Categories
burger curry food noodles pizza

recent rumblings: a round up

It’s been a while since I rolled up the latest stuff I’ve been up to, so here goes!

Weird Ingredients

I couldn’t resist rounding up 12 weird things Heston has cooked with and listed them over at Buzzfeed here. Includes Devil’s Penis. Go check it out!

Five Guys UK

Oh lordy. This was a burger. Five Guys invited me to their first UK restaurant outside of London, based in Essex Mecca Lakeside. Their menu is purposefully simple, offering not a lot beyond burger, hot dog and fries, but by simplifying things they can really focus on what they’re doing.

I opted for a bacon cheeseburger ‘all the way’ which is as you can see a burger with lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms and a bunch of sauces I can’t remember. And it was good. It smelled of grilled beef and tasted juicy and satisfying, packed with meaty goodness. By the way, you don’t ask for a double patty; it just comes like that. Also when you ask for a portion of fries it serves two. They like to make sure you get fed. The burger costs £8.25 but we compared it to a recent Frankie and Benny’s burger which costs c. £11 with fries and was decidedly frozen, limp and tasteless. This was night and day. You watch the guy grab a ball of meat over the counter, squish it then grill it.

Mrs. Spud and I were also really taken with the drinks machine, which boasts over 100 drinks from a single vending machine. I giggled like a child using it.

Chatting with the manager they’re looking to introduce milkshakes to the UK soon, which for me would set it off perfectly. If you like a burger, go find a Five Guys near you and try one.

Chinatown Walking Tour with Meemalee

I’m a noodle numpty so was keen to have an expert show me round Chinatown. Step forward noodle cookbook author MiMi Aye. It was a lot of fun! Read more about it here.

Kavey Meets the Bloggers

Speaking of other awesome bloggers, for some reason Kavey interviewed me about my blog. Find out a bit more about me here.

Peafs

I want to give a shout out to my local farm shop, Peafs. It’s exactly what I want; a knowledegable butcher (who told me he was out of ham because it needs another week to cure yet), great pies, fresh local veg and preserves by the bucket. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before, but I love it. It’s handy located next door to my daughter’s ballet class so I have a weekly excuse to browse there.

If you’re in the mid-Essex area, check out Peafs on Hullbridge Road, Rayleigh.

Curriza

I was asked to try some curry pizzas the other day – Currizzas, if you will. Combining two takeaway favourites, pizza and curry, what could go wrong?

I tried each of the varieties: Chicken Madras, Chicken Korma, Chicken Tikka Masala, and Spinach & Sweet Potato (pictured above). My son loves spicy food – he has a far higher tolerance of it than I do – and woofed down the Madras which I found outrageously hot. I was much happier with the Korma and Tikka Masala pizzas, which were gentle and enjoyable. These really do taste exactly as they sound so if you want a compromise between ordering Italian (!) or Indian, this would be a good one.  I will say that the £3 per pizza price tag puts them at the pricier end of the supermarket fresh pizza range.

Read an alternative review of Currizzas here. Find out more about Curry Dave and his Currizas here.

Pizza Express Christmas

Yes, more pizza. I went to Pizza Express’s unveiling of their Autumn and Winter menus. The Christmas fare included things like ‘Anatra’ (Peking duck) pizza which did taste like a duck pancake and ‘Festiva’ pizza which was a play on brie and cranberry.

But what stole the show for me and my fellow diner was the Mare Rossa.

Chunks of smoked salmon, prawn and tenderstem broccoli on a perfectly crisp base. The fish flavours on the tomato sauce was completely perfect. Loved it.

We were offered festive desserts such as mince pie cheesecake and chocolate tartufo but happily we were too stuffed on mare rossa pizza.

Check out the new Autumn menu at Pizza Express from 7th October, with the Christmas menu following on 11th November.

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Many thanks to Pizza Express, Curry Dave and Five Guys UK for their invites and samples. No-one asked for favourable reviews and I definitely don’t give them out lightly.

Categories
bagels burger food kitchen gadgets

february round-up

February’s a short month but there’s still lots of bits and bobs to catch up on. It was a disastrous month in the life of a food blogger, as both my Internet and my oven broke. Challenging times! Here’s a few light bites that saw me through:

New York Bakery Co. Mini bagels: oh man, I couldn’t get enough of these Duo 50 wholemeal / 50 white flour recipe. Super-savoury, very moreish and great with ham and cream cheese. I also had some lightly toasted with Marmite and it was a lovely breakfast.

These little cute bagels are perfect for keeping in the freezer. I’ll be looking out for the plain and cinnamon varieties too.

Roasted beef roasties: these little beef-glazed nuggets of gold are a must-make the next time you’re roasting beef. Drool-inducing stuff.

Sainsbury’s Basics Burgers

To promote their Basics burgers, Sainsbury’s asked me to showcase a few different burger recipes (and one with no burger!). It encouraged me to try a few different things too which I’ll be cranking out. The Salsa Dancer has a pepper and tomato chilli salsa (messy but tasty), the Skinny Mini has no bun (surprisingly satisfying), the Almost Veggie is Portobello mushroom and Halloumi (I’d forgotten all about Halloumi, so yummy), Carb Central was loaded (ordinary but good) while the Pizza burger had a tomato sauce with mushrooms and mozzarella (indulgent fun).

Sous-Vide Supreme: I took delivery of a sous-vide machine. I’ve been experimenting a lot with this in preparation for the Sous Vide Gourmet Cook-Off. Keep watching for plenty of sous-vide recipes.

Underground Cookery school: the Underground Cookery School invited a bunch of us food bloggery types to a special one-off evening to show themselves off. It was a mixed bag of evening really; but my expectations were slightly off. The tone was set when proprietor Matt Kemp explained that they usually hold team building evenings, hen and stag parties. Some of us expected a higher level so I guess that set the tone for the skill they expected. Compared to courses at Waitrose Cookery School or Food@52 then Underground’s are far more elementary. But if you’re catering to an amateur office-jolly crowd then the bar can be comfortably low.

Photo courtesy of Underground Cookery School

It was great to catch up with some old chums, and then we were split into two teams. We portioned a chicken (poulet au Bresse no less), chopped onions (yes, really), de-bearded mussels and made mini tartes tatins. We then all ate a three course meal together on a communal table: moules marinere, ballotine of chicken with mash, and a bitter tarte tatin. The food was all excellent and the quality of ingredients, as above, exceptional. But I have a couple of niggles that held it back for me.

So we chopped onions. I was given a blunt knife to use (dangerous if nothing else) and when I pointed it out I was greeted with a skeptical glance-over-the-glasses by the 20-year old tutor, then mocked for not chopping them fine enough. You really can’t have it both ways, and this isn’t some whinging rube blaming his tools, I’ve chopped enough onions to know that a razor-sharp knife is essential for fine dicing. One further blip is you sit down, and receive a portion of (very tasty) food. Did you cook it? No idea. There isn’t the same sense of achievement in enjoying the food if you can’t guarantee you made it.

It’s a great space, with great facilities and excellent sourcing. As long you’re expecting a fun night out then the Underground Cookery School will suit you down to the ground. The more advanced cook will find it a little unferwhelming.

Gyoza selection: by fluke I tried Sainsbury’s gyoza selection. I couldn’t resist sharing them with a colleague who’d spent time living in Japan. He thought they were really tasty, and the bright colours are a big hit. If you see them and you want something different for canapes, give them a try.

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