What Makes Your Burger a Beautiful Thing?

Despite appearances here in Nova Scotia, the calendar reliably informs me that it is summer. What do we do when it is summer? We get reluctant to turn our ovens on or to use our stoves. We fill up our propane tanks or stock up on charcoal and wood chips. We turn to our barbecues, fire pits and smokers to prepare the sustenance our families need after a hard day of playing, swimming and sun basking.

Accordingly, it was to the barbecue that I turned the other day.  The weekend before, after witnessing a wine-fuelled debate over what was the best burger in the city, I was promised the best burger in Toronto but it was Sunday and, granted it is the subject of great debate, the best burger in Toronto place was closed for church. I am no crazy burger lover but I now officially had a hankering, a hankering so severe that I bought some ground beef from Rocky Top Meats at the market on Saturday.

The girls and I mixed ours up with some finely chopped onion, grated carrot because you have got to get the veggies in wherever you can, chopped parsley, cooked quinoa and a pinch of salt. My friend, Jen, had made some burgers with quinoa and I loved it. I know lots of folk who think that a burger is ground meat and salt only. I also know folk with secret recipes containing everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. All I know is that neither of my girls has ever shown a great love for the grilled meat and, while it may have been the free hand she had with the ketchup, Poppy ate three generous slider sized burgers and Tilly ate one and a half. They were that good.

It all got me to thinking about how some foods we keep pretty generic and about how some foods we personalize. The burger must be one of the most personalized foods we eat.

From the patty itself to the toppings, we get it or make it how we want it. Some people are firmly of the belief that less is more while some believe that more is more and that is all there is to it. I believe that the burger needs to be very good but it is secondary to the toppings, structure be damned. Stephen thinks that anything other than a dollop of mayonnaise and a slice of cheese is a ruined burger.

Some people think that the bun, and its structural integrity is of great importance. Eating on the go, I can see how this would be a deciding factor. Who wants a greasy mustard blop on your top. I usually have so many toppings that portability is not an option and the bun is in tatters, left on the side of the plate.

Lots of people feel that things like chipotle mayo and grilled pineapple rings and foie gras are perfect burger toppings. Australians have a love of fried eggs and sliced beetroot. On the other hand, there are those who think the secret sauce is sacrilege.

What I want to know is what makes your perfect burger. Do you like beef or veggie? Small and simple or sky high? Do you have the secret menus memorized or do you just order what you see? Will you go out of your way to get the burger you want? How do you make them at home or do you? Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.

Rhubarb Chutney - Rhubarb Trilogy 2011 Part III

This post could easily have been called God’s Gift to Grilled Cheese. It isn’t though. That would mean that I think that chutney is just for grilled cheese sandwiches. I don’t. However, I do believe that grilled cheese sandwiches with chutney are one of the best things ever.

It is rhubarb time, as you know. It gets to the end of rhubarb season and, while I really, really love rhubarb, I start to wonder what to do with it besides making ice cream, crumble, sorbet, roasting it, making cheesecake with it, chopping it up and putting it in the freezer and so on.

This recipe makes just four cups but you could easily double or triple it if your canning and preserving sense has kicked in this early in the green season. If, like me, your’s hasn’t, this will keep in the fridge for at least a month. And, since it is barbecue season as well, you should have it used up in no time since you will need something for all those chops and sausages.

This is very uncomplicated and I wanted to keep the rhubarb taste there, as much as you can in a chutney anyway. I almost started adding some orange zest and cinnamon and stopped myself because this is summer chutney. We can talk about heavier, spicier chutneys at the end of the green season, right? 

This has a tiny bit of heat and a decent ginger kick. You could nicely freshen it up with some fresh cilantro/coriander and a little squeeze of lime just as you put it on the table with your grilled offering. With cheese, or grilled cheese, is it good just as it is.

Rhubarb Chutney

5 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups diced onion

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

1 teaspoon ground coriander seed

1/4 teaspoon dried chili 

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 cup cider vinegar

Put all ingredients in a large pot. Slowly bring to a boil.

Reduce to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has thickened and the liquid stops running in to the spoon tracks when you stir. This should take about 40 minutes.

Towards the end of the cooking, as the chutney thicken, you will need to stir more often.

Remove from heat and transfer to clean, dry jars. If you are ‘putting it up,’ you should process the jars in your canner for about ten minutes.

Your grilled cheese will never be the same again.

Seeded Brown Irish Soda Bread

While at work, my husband has the privilege of being cooked for and cleaned up after. There is a lovely Irish girl who keeps him from withering away. Her name is Janine.

From time to time, the girls and I are lucky enough to share the privilege with him. Janine puts up with my children under foot and the forty-six questions that get fired at her about exactly what ingredients are going where and why the stove moves and why the fridge doors are so heavy and why the galley is called the galley and how come she has to cook for the boys and why the bread needs to cook for an hour and why she chose to paint her toenails that colour and if she is going to wear a pretty dress later on and well, you get the idea. She not only puts up with them, she does so patiently and calmly and sweetly in moments when I would have lost any shred of cool I may possess by question four.

She made us some soda bread for lunch one day. Poppy and I decided we would try and reproduce her delicious loaf. We tried and it was good but I am thinking it may need an Irish hand to be as delicious as hers was. For the rest of us this will do just fine to be sure.

I toasted the sesame seeds and pine nuts and cooled them before adding because they taste even better that way.  The seed/nut combination is up to you. You could add pumpkin seeds or chopped nuts or whatever you feel like.

Don’t forget to cut a cross in the top which is not a religious symbol - I had thought it was. Janine says it just helps it rise evenly.

Seeded Brown Irish Soda Bread (adapted from Janine’s adaptation of Rachel Allen’s Brown Soda Bread in Bake)

225 grams (8 ounces) whole wheat flour

225 grams (8 ounces) all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

100 grams mixed seeds (I used sunflower, poppy, pine nuts and sesame seeds)

25 grams (1 ounce) butter

1 egg beaten

375-400 mL buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425º (220ºc). 

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Rub the butter in to the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center.

Whisk the egg and buttermilk together and pour most of the liquid into the dry ingredients. Using your hand like a scoop, bring the flour and liquid together, adding more liquid if necessary. The dough should be soft an not too sticky.

Turn out and bring dough into a round on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Cut a deep cross in the top of round.

Bake for 15 minutes. Turn heat down to about 390º (200ºc) and bake for another 30 minutes. The loaf will sound hollow when it is done.

Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream - Rhubarb Trilogy 2011 - Part II

Encouraged by David Lebovitz and his The Perfect Scoop, I have been making ice cream recently. I don’t love ice cream but I do have an ice cream maker which caused no small amount of post purchase depression. Consequently, I have fits and spurts of determination to use said machine.

Turning the pages and looking at perfectly scooped bowls of creamy indulgence, some beautifully swirled with bright fruit purées, I got to thinking about how uncommercial rhubarb is. Why is there no rhubarb ice cream next to the Black Raspberry Cheesecake and the Rum Raisin? I would stand up for the humble rhubarb and create the next ice cream sensation, Rhubarb Ripple.  

Instead of using the same recipe I have used for years for vanilla ice cream, I thought, since I was already reading it, I would use one from The Perfect Scoop. I followed the ingredient list perfectly and then forgot or didn’t bother to read the recipe instructions and carried on my way, happily ignoring the published directions and making it the way I would have made it anyhow. Regardless, it is perfect and delicious and not crazy sweet and the perfect foil for the rhubarb compote I was going to swirl through.

I would recommend, if you are really caught up in appearances, or taking pictures of your work for your blog, that while you split your vanilla bean, you watch what you are doing. Don’t watch your toddler scaling the kitchen cupboards or you will wind up with something like this.

Or, better yet, put down your knife and rescue your toddler from her tenuous toe hold on the edge of the drawer. In hindsight, you and your kitchen units will be happy you did.

Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream (with some help from David Lebovitz and The Perfect Scoop)

Vanilla Ice Cream Base

1 cup (250 mL) whole milk

2 cups (500 mL) whipping cream

3/4 cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

6 large egg yolks

Pinch of salt

Rhubarb Ripple

4 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) lemon juice

Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla bean and add to a large saucepan with the milk, cream and sugar. Gently bring to a boil. Immediately remove from heat.

Beat egg yolks and pinch of salt in a bowl and slowly pour about a third of the hot cream mixture into the yolks, whisking all the time. 

Slowly pour the yolk mixture back into the pan with the remaining cream whisking all the time.

Return to the stove and over a low heat, stirring constantly, cook until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. You can test by running a finger through the mixture on the back of the spoon. It should hold the path left by your finger.

Pour the mixture into a bowl and chill.

Put the rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice in another medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thick enough to hold a track in the bottom of the pan when you run a spoon through it. As the mixture thickens, you will need to stir it more frequently to prevent burning. It will be thick and syrupy and will measure just shy of 1 1/2 cups when it is properly cooked down.

Pour into a bowl and chill.

Freeze the ice cream base in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. If you don’t have an ice cream maker you can try it the way I explained here.

Put a large metal mixing bowl in the freezer to chill while the ice cream is freezing.

When the ice cream is frozen, transfer it to chilled bowl and quickly fold/swirl/gently stir about 1 cup of the rhubarb mixture in. You don’t want to fully incorporate it it, you want to keep the rhubarb in swirl or ripples. You also want to do this as quickly as possible to prevent as much melting as you can.

Immediately transfer to the freezer to set up again.

Commercial, it may not be but delicious, there is no question.

Toasted Fregola and Tomatoes

Shortly before we left San Diego, I discovered the wonders of Little Italy. I knew it was there and had briefly strolled down India Street but, with two hooligan girls in tow, you don’t go in to shops. 

The farmers’ market on Saturday was incredible and, if we hadn’t had the Hillcrest Market around the corner, I would have made more trips to Little Italy on Saturdays. Sadly, Stephen is a less then avid market goer, and I can’t bring myself to cajole him into going on his all too short weekends.

Finally though, taunted by the sight of fresh pastas and cheeses and all the way from Italy dry goods, I started taking my bribed-into-good-behaviour girls into the little shops and our grocery bill took a little leap.

The Sardinians make a type of couscous called fregola. It is usually shaped like Israeli couscous but is toasted. Sometimes it is a little rougher in texture which, I think, is great as it holds any sauce better. It is available at any good Italian market and best of all, there are often recipes like this one on the back of the packet.

Like all good Italian cooking, this is about simplicity and excellent ingredients. It is a great step away from the spaghetti rut. The fact that it is toasted lends a little toasty nuttiness and depth but not so obvious that your children are going to turn their noses up.

I used tinned cherry tomatoes for this. I was lucky enough to find them. I would recommend using diced tinned tomatoes but try and use the best you can afford, and try for San Marzano if you can find them, you will be happy you did. If tomatoes are in season, you could use chopped fresh but you may need some extra stock. I would also suggest that you use a fairly large pan, otherwise you will stir and wind up with something like this.

Toasted Fregola with Tomatoes (adapted from the back of the packet)

1 large onion finely chopped

4 large cloves garlic minced

250 grams toasted fregola

3 tablespoons olive oil

4 cups stock (I used chicken, you can use vegetable)

1 large (28 ounce) tin tomatoes

Chopped fresh parsley

Basil pesto to serve (if desired)

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onions and garlic with olive oil in a large pan. 

Add tomatoes and stock and bring to a boil.

Stir in fregola and return to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the desired tenderness is reached.

Stir in some chopped parsley and season to taste.

Serve with a drizzle of pesto or extra virgin olive oil or some shaved parmesan.

Roasted Rhubarb - Rhubarb Trilogy 2011 Part I

As I mentioned here, what seems like only a few days ago but in reality is nearly a month, rhubarb and strawberry season was underway on a recent visit to England.

It was on this trip that Poppy re-discovered Eton Mess and labelled it as the best thing in the world. So good, it was, and is still, requested at the faintest whiff of a strawberry.  

After our first Cornish lane experience in a good two years, following signs promising the first fresh strawberries of the year, I was a little shaky. We unbuckled and made our way up the path. I was worried the berries would be sold out or, even worse, Spanish. Poppy was worried the farmer would be in the fields, unable to be found to sell his or her goods. Tilly was just happy to be unbuckled from the sick making journey to get there.

Lucky day, the farmer was in her shop and had flats of huge, juicy strawberries just in from their very own tunnels, flanked by stalks and stalks of ruby red rhubarb, begging to join our berries.

Normally, without the prospect of Eton Mess, Poppy would be all over a nice bunch of rhubarb. The berries and thoughts of cream and meringue were too much though and she made me promise, promise, promise that if we got rhubarb too, I could not mix it in thereby destroying everything an Eton Mess is supposed to be.

I didn’t mix it in, but I did put it on top. And, then I put it on top of muesli and yogurt in the morning and then on top of ice cream and then, I thought some pork, roast or chops, would benefit hugely from a few bits of this on top and a sprinkling of sea salt. Or, I thought, maybe a nice wedge of camembert or a bit of goat cheese and some oat cakes would be a nice medium. What I am trying to say is that there isn’t a whole lot that I don’t think this would be really good with. 

When you roast these, you’ll find they start to look a ‘little splody’, meaning they have almost burst their skins. That is fine. As the rhubarb cools, it will firm up and then you can move it around gently.

Roasted Rhubarb

7 big stalks of rhubarb washed and cut into 3-inch pieces

3/4 cups sugar

Preheat oven to 375ºF. If you have a convection oven, or fan in your oven, I would use it. If not, you may need to increase the cooking time. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Toss the pieces of rhubarb in the sugar and arrange them on the baking sheet. Sprinkle the sugar that is left behind over them.

Bake for about 20 minutes, checking often, until they look like they are bursting and the edges have started to brown.

Remove from oven and cool. Transfer to a container or plate, reserving any juices for drizzling.

Use them to top Eton Mess, or muesli or yogurt or cheese or meat. You get the idea.

Sorrel Pesto - a.k.a Sour Duck Sauce

When I was little, I was a pretty good little forager. My folks fed me, I just liked to find things to eat in the ditch, on the lawn, in the woods or anywhere other than the conventional.

I ate, what we called, tea berries, fiddleheads (I am sure I likely ate some other ferns as well), blueberries from wherever I could find them, blackberries and wild raspberries, with scratches and scars to prove it and carefully guarded patches of wild strawberries spared the blades of the lawnmower. One of my greatest discoveries was sour ducks. I have no idea who introduced me to them or what possesses a fairly functional eight year old to eat sour weeds from the lawn but I would walk, head down, looking for the tell tale wispy red heads of the plant, all summer long. 

I tried to figure out what these things were, I was sure that it wasn’t really called sour duck. I asked lots of people, none seemed to have a clue what I was talking about and would raise an eyebrow. I, while by no means searching relentlessly, never gave up, my curiosity was still there.

Imagine my excitement and joy to be alive, when I finally realized what it was. It is actually an edible plant, in small quantities. Large quantities are apparently poisonous. A plant used, more and more, in food created by master chefs, not just hedgerow foragers. It is sorrel. 

While I am sure that what I ate, and what grows in my lawn, is a different variety to what grows, somewhat wildly and accidentally, in my garden, there is no mistaking the sour grassy taste of what is properly called sour dock, not sour duck.

While I like to make a chiffonade and add it to a salad, I understand that the raw, unadulterated flavour may not be to everyone’s taste. My girls seem to enjoy eating it straight out of the garden. Poppy put a few leaves on her lobster sandwich the other day and I realized that, mixed into some mayonnaise, it would be delicious with cold fish or seafood.

Sorrel has become popular as a cream sauce or butter flavour, especially in Europe, which is delicious when executed properly. In our CSA this past winter, we had bunches of the stuff and decided a pesto would be a great way to diversify its uses.

If you don’t have sorrel in your herb garden yet, I want to suggest you get a little pot and pop it in there. I did this last year and had a pretty unsuccessful crop, the bugs ate far more than we did. I didn’t expect it to survive the winter but I now have a big patch of limey green spinach like leaves which the bigs don’t even seem to be able to keep up with. 

I have used this to stuff salmon or spread it on top as a crust. It makes a delish primavera style pasta too. If you find the taste too sour, add an equal amount of fresh parsley and adjust the seasoning.

Sorrel Pesto

Large handful sorrel leaves (plus large handful of parsley if you are using)

1/2 cup slivered almonds (substitute pine nuts if you want to)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup olive oil

3 cloves garlic 

Tear or chop sorrel leaves. In the bowl of your food processor, purée all the ingredients until smooth. 

Place in clean container and refrigerate until ready to use.

This is what I did with the latest batch.

Sun, Sun, Beautiful Sun - Fresh Lemonade Syrup

We all ran around in shock on Sunday afternoon. A previously shy sun shone and we revelled in the joy/bedlam/disaster and noise of a dozen near five year olds.

In preparation for this moment, the sun shining for the first time in a month, I needed something delicious and thirst-quenching. Something a little sweet but not teeth-rotting. Something that tastes like sunny days, and I don't mean sunscreen and sandy hand mauled sandwiches. Pimm's No. 1 Cup, while perfectly fitting the delicious and thirst-quenching order, isn't perfectly suited to five year olds for obvious reasons. While the non-heavy machinery operating adults quaffed their Pimm's, those in charge of vehicles and the children would need to drink something else.

My grandmother used to make a lemonade syrup, the recipe was handed down and my mother made it for us. That was back in the day when I thought that a certain powdered beverage, often electric blue, to which you add sugar and water was the ultimate in cool person drinks. So, something as homemade as lemonade made from a syrup, which didn't get squeezed from a plastic container, was not something high on my street cred growing list.

Years pass and then the very same lemonade syrup, or one very similar, shows up at the summer market and it lights a little fire in the back of my brain and I get to thinking, this is probably much easier than summer market chappy is making it out to be with his 'secret recipe' and 'even more secret ingredient' chatter.

Turns out that it really is and after wading around on the internet in a 'there is how much sugar in that' eye-bulging anxiety attack, and with a very little experimentation, I came up with this and I think it is pretty good.

 

I like it to have the pulp left in, so I did. You could strain it but, I think, you'll be sacrificing lemony goodness. I suggest, if you don't have a self-straining juicer, to juice everything into a measuring cup and then strain the seeds out, you can push the pulp through with the juice.

This is just as delicious with some club soda and muddled mint leaves and heck, while you're there you may as well just chuck a little white rum or vodka in and celebrate the sunshine with a lemon mojito. Not that I would ever do anything like that.

Lemonade Syrup (makes about three pints)

3 cups sugar

1 cup water

1/4 cup lemon zest  

juice of 18 lemons (about 3 1/2 cups)

Bring sugar, water and lemon zest to a boil and let cool.

When cool, stir in lemon juice. Transfer to a clean bottle and refrigerate. 

Mix to taste.

Drink.