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.

Brisket à la Caplansky

I will happily admit that while I completely approve of nose to tail eating, I myself, am not nearly brave enough to adopt it as practice at our house. My meat eating, when it happens, is generally limited to the better known and leaner cuts. I know that in the big picture of nose to tail that what this post is all about is not even close to brave, not even close to really even being considered nose to tail and for huge numbers of people, it is everyday meat. Not so for us. Even Stephen was concerned.

A while before American Thanksgiving, my near-vegetarian daughter, piped up and asked for brisket. I asked if if she knew what it was, she didn’t. I explained and asked if she still wanted to have it, she said she did. I realized I had never cooked it and, I am pretty sure, had never eaten it, at least not knowingly. I wasn’t sure where to start. 

I did set a date though. I couldn’t face the thought of turkey three months in a row, so we would have brisket for Thanksgiving Round #2.

When I was sure that at least one person was going to eat it, I started looking around and thinking about recipes. After realizing that the brisket recipe world was not for one as inexperienced as I am, I turned to the Master of All Things Brisket. If Zane couldn’t help me out, I was sure there would be no chance of pulling it off. Zane obligingly supplied the recipe and moral support for the endeavour.  I tried as hard as I could to stick to the recipe too, no minor feat.

I set about looking for a brisket which, low and behold, you can pretty much get at any butcher shop. I went searching a little further and found a place that sells as local as it gets, grass fed beef and they said they had a brisket. We walked into the butcher shop, the styliest I have ever been in, I asked for the brisket. He set about getting it from the fridge and Poppy noticed through the glass window that there was an entire deer, skinned but with head, antlers and face still intact hanging in the fridge. She asked whether it was alive. I told her it wasn’t. She asked why it still had its face on. I told her that all animals have a face. She asked why they hadn’t cut it off yet. I didn’t really have an answer. I did say that I thought it was nicer to look at the animal with its face still on and she agreed. The topic of conversation for the rest of the afternoon was set. And, she is still as interested in meat as she was before which isn’t a whole lot but she seems unaffected by the butcher shop experience.

I am not going to tell you how much I paid for this piece of meat, it was more than I imagined it could be. I don’t think you need to spend this much money on a brisket and I won’t again. I was happy with where it came from and what it ate and how it lived though. I think that any grass fed flavour was lost in the six hour braising though and, in hindsight, I should have thought of that.

I chose to do this in several steps. I cooked it. I removed it from the braising liquid. I refrigerated the brisket and the liquid separately overnight. I skimmed the fat off the top of the liquid before reducing it. I also sliced the brisket cold. I had read somewhere that it is much easier that way. Then, after reducing the braising liquid, I heated them up in the oven to serve. This certainly didn’t speed the process up any but everything was very easy. 

Was it worth the time? If anyone asks for more than it is worth the time. It hasn’t turned Poppy into a drooling carnivore but I didn’t really want it to. Stephen loved it.  He had firsts and seconds and leftovers and seconds and a brisket sandwich and seconds. It was after the first round of seconds that he admitted that he had not been looking forward to it but was pretty excited by it. Poppy was pretty happy with the meat but the sauce was too spicy, it wasn’t but she is four and was saving room for the Magnolia cupcakes we had for pudding. Tilly ate lots. She shares her father’s food preferences.

I am going to throw this out there, but I realize it is pretty obvious. This is not fast food. Plan ahead. You will be happy you did.

Barbecue Brisket adapted, just a little, from Zane Caplansky

5 pound brisket 

4 chopped white onions

A head of garlic chopped

Two large tins diced tomatoes

4 cups beef stock

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1teaspoon ground chipotle pepper

Fresh ground pepper

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

3/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 300º.

In a large pan sear the brisket on both sides. Put it in a large roasting pan, or baking dish or a huge dutch oven, if it fits.

Sauté the onions and garlic until soft. Pop them on top of the brisket. Add the tomatoes, stock and spices. Cover with a lid or foil and braise for about five hours, or up to six hours of your brisket is bigger. Zane says it should cook for about an hour per pound up to about six hours.

When it is nice and tender, remove the meat from the liquid and cool, if you want to, and slice. Here is where I put it in the fridge overnight, before slicing.

Put the liquid in a saucepan and add the vinegar and sugar. Reduce until it is barbecue sauce thick.

Pour the sauce over the sliced brisket and reheat in the oven, if necessary.

It's Getting a Whole Lot Meatier Around Here

We are back in the company of our husband/dad/carnivore figure, that would be for me/the girls/our borderline vegetarian tendencies in that order. That means there will be a couple of changes. The first is that I can reasonably expect someone else to share in the nappy changing duties. The second is that I will cook and eat more meat than I do in the absence of the aforementioned figure. I even start to think about meat I can cook and actively shop for it.

When I say actively shop for it, I should clarify. Now that I am in America, and away from home, I need to find new, safe and happy sources. I can’t rely on the usual market purveyors and our semi-annual trip to Windsor to stock the freezer. I need to ask questions and read labels and generally be less trustworthy than I am at home, in the familiar.

While that will, likely only temporarily, be a shopping hiccup, there are other things I don’t need to think of. I am in California. This is where lots of the unlocal produce that I am not supposed to buy at home comes from. I can buy avocados and tomatoes and broccoli and fresh fruit all year round. It grows here. Woot woot!

The little holiday complex we are staying in has a little courtyard full of barbecues, for those who want to use them. The idea of dragging the family down there and trying to quietly and civilly have supper is unthinkable, but the idea of getting it all ready and sending the husband/dad/carnivore down to cook his meat is entirely workable.

I found the meat, after a brief read of the butcher’s signs and only one question, at the very nice supermarket which is not nearly close to our little holiday flat, but it is around the corner from the more permanent neighbourhood we will be relocating to. The gorgeous heirloom tomato was, the sign told me, grown a mere five miles away. The onion just said local and I would expect nothing else, at this time of year, pretty much anywhere below the tree line.

The marinade was a little thrown together, with only one brief shopping trip worth of ingredients in the cupboard, but it worked really well. It provided a tiny bit of sweetness from the tomato sauce caramelizing which was nicely offset with a slight tang from the chipotle.

I kept the salsa mild, because of the children and all, but I would happily spice it up with some grilled hot pepper peeled and diced with the onions and tomatoes.

We cooked it to rare/medium rare and personally, I wouldn’t cook it much more. Once sliced, I could, and did, cut it with a spoon. And, I am not the one to rave about a bit of steak but this made me wonder why I don’t eat more.

Grilled Flank Steak with Grilled Onion and Heirloom Tomato Salsa

2lbs 4oz.(1.09kg) flank steak (let’s call it 2lbs or 1 kg)

Marinade

1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle 

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 tablespoons tomato sauce 

1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salsa

1 medium onion thickly sliced into rings

1 heirloom tomato thickly sliced

1 teaspoon (or so) of olive oil

Juice of 1 lime 

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Handful of cilantro/fresh coriander

Maldon sea salt to serve

Mix all the marinade ingredients together and rub it into the flank steak. Leave, covered, in a non-reactive dish in the fridge for at least four hours. Remove from fridge 30 minutes before cooking.

Toss the onion rings and the tomato slices with the olive oil and some ground black pepper.

Preheat your barbecue to a high heat. Place the meat and the vegetables on the grill. The barbecue will likely need to be turned down. After a minute or so, check the vegetables and turn them. The tomatoes will get soft very quickly. Don’t worry if they are about to fall apart but try to get them off the grill before they completely melt in. The onions will take a little longer. The flank steak will need about five minutes on each side for rare/medium rare.

Remove the steak from the barbecue when it is cooked to desired doneness. Cover and let rest for ten minutes. Meanwhile, chop the onions and tomatoes and mix with the remaining salsa ingredients and season.

After resting, slice the flank steak very thinly and across the grain. Pile it on a serving plate, sprinkle with a little finger-ground Maldon sea salt and top with the salsa, or serve it beside.