Saturday, May 7, 2011

Fresh Burger Fresh Fries Fresh Bun

So, a little while back, I got it into my head that it was really easy to make fresh cut fries, and that they would be good. I figured, clean a potato, or peel it, cut it into strips that looked like fries, shallow fry the "fries" in hot oil, then season them, and they'd be like fries. This was probably, coming up on three years ago now that I first did this. I don't really know why I started doing that, but I haven't bought frozen fries ever since. I don't shallow fry, or deep fry them anymore as it's not really necessary for a delicious finish unless using Heston Blumenthal's triple cooked method, which are extremely delicious. I now clean or peel the potato, usually Russet, cut it into fries, put them into a bowl with a bit of oil and spices and seasoning, toss them, then put them onto a baking sheet, and slide them into a 425F oven. It's alot easier, they still get really crispy, and I'd like to believe that they are also a great deal healthier than shallow or deep frying them in hot oil. For burger-ing, I only recently starting making burgers at home that my girl and I started to find attractive. Making burgers is pretty standard, it's about the same as making meatloaf or meatballs, but the spices can be different, and the shape is different as well. Or at least, that's the case for oven baking, pan frying, or grilling would be slightly different. One day, I decided to pour a tiny amount of molasses into the burger mix, and I felt that it really worked, it was delicious, helped bind the meat, and sort of helped retain more moisture. If anything though, burgers, like meatballs and meatloaf are wide open though in preparation style, and ingredients, and in the case of burgers above all, toppings are widely subjective and should be chosen to personal taste. I've embedded the fairly annoying video below because it really got me thinking about burgers when I first saw it a while back. If you take anything from the video, just take that you can put just about anything you want into a burger mix in terms of flavoring, and it will probably taste good. Also, watch as Hubert Keller magically turns a piece of chuck into mince, then makes a burger out of it.



Shaauurrt reeebs was a mystery to me for the longest time.




And lastly, fresh hamburger buns, that I'm still working on, I used a fairly simple bread dough recipe, but added some milk and sugar to it for more of a burger bun feel and taste. Next time I'm making buns though, I have to remember that buns, because they have a great deal less thermal mass requiring far less cooking time than a loaf of bread from the same ingredients, so as to say, the buns were severely over-baked, but otherwise, so I'm told by my girl, that it was a pretty tasty meal, but the bun was nearly inedible.


Buns

This yield about 4 buns of appropriate size.

200g Unbleached Bread Flour
4g Instant Yeast
75g Water
25g Milk
15g Sugar
2g Salt


1. Mix all ingredients and form into dough. Cover with bag and rest for 90 minutes.
2. Turn onto board, knead for 3 minutes, rest for two minutes. Repeat six times.
3. Form into balls 1/3 size of desired finished bun, rest for 30 minutes.
4. Bake at 425F in a lidded roasting pan for (probably) 8 minutes, then remove lid and continue baking for 7 minutes at 450F.
5. Allow to cool before serving. 


Burger

This recipe actually yielded enough to make two burgers, and a bunch of meatballs which I used for an unpublished sweet and sour meatball meal. Though the spices in the mix weren't quite right for the dish, but this would probably make about 4 burgers.

Feta (hiding under the sliding burger), tomato, pickle, and tartar sauce, as requested.

900g Lean Ground Beef
3 Eggs
1 Tbsp Molasses
1 Packet Onion Soup Powder (Ground Finely with Mortal and Pestle)
1 Tbsp ea Granulated Garlic Powder, Paprika.
1/2 Tbsp ea Dried Oregano, Salt, Pepper

1. Mix all ingredients then chill in fridge for 34 mins.
2. Pre-heat oven to 425F and form a lidless double layered box from aluminum foil.
3. Remove from fridge and form into patties, place into aluminum box, slide into oven.
4. If also making fries, give the fries a 7 min head start. Remove when burger looks good to you, flipping occasionally to brown evenly, remove any coagulated fat before serving.


Fries

The ingredients in this recipe are estimates only, I kind of make these different every time I make them.

1 Russet Potato per person (Washed or Peeled)
2 Tsp Ea, Granulated Garlic Powder, Paprika
1 Tsp Ea Dried Oregano, Salt, Pepper
2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1. Cut potatoes into fries.
2. Toss all ingredients in a mixing bowl until potatoes are evenly coated.
3. Pour potatoes and coating onto baking sheet and bake in a 425F oven until crispy, turning occasionally. 






Update: I made more buns, using the recipe above, and they came out more or less fine. I think I'll need to write them up again though, and actually measure everything instead of dumping stuff into a bowl and estimating what I think I used. But the reduced baking time is critical for buns.

May 7 Update bun with test burger version 1.1.























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