Grilling Things

This time, for real! Remember a long time ago I made some burgers? And remember how I complained about having to make them inside because there was snow everywhere and I couldn't get to my barbecue? Now it's summer.

It's been summer for quite some time now, actually, and we've been using the grill a lot. We've grilled the standard burgers, but we've also branched out and tried pizzas on the grill, both rather successfully if I do say so myself. So here is the first of two posts about grilling!

First, burgers. You can pretty much do burgers with anything ground - beans, beef, turkey, chicken - as long as you bind it and flavour it well. These are beef burgers, but they have a special twist - caramelized onions. The onions are mixed into the burgers themselves, not just plopped on top like an afterthought. And the onions are not just boring old normal caramelized - they are caramelized in bacon fat. Mmmmm...

For 6 burgers, you need:

1.5 lbs ground beef
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp white sugar
6 slices of bacon, cut in half
1.5 cups breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 tsp powdered mustard
1 TBS Worcestershire sauce
1 TBS HP sauce
1 TBS finely minced chives
1 tsp finely minced basil
1/2 tsp cinnamon (trust me, it's good)

1. In a skillet, preferably cast iron, cook the bacon slowly over low heat until it is crispy and the fat is rendered. Remove the bacon and drain it on paper towels. Pour out all but 1 TBS of the fat and saute the onions over low with the sugar until they are golden brown and translucent - this takes a long time - like an hour - but it is worth it. Let the onions cool down until they are room temperature.

2. In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together including the onions but not the bacon - that's for putting on your burgers later. I find your hands work best for this - just remember to take off any rings before you get all up in the beefiness. If you find that the mixture is too loose, add some more breadcrumbs.

3. With a plate at the ready, form the mixture into 6 patties. Make sure they are of even thickness so the edges don't get dry while the insides stay raw.

4. Heat up your grill and slap those patties on there. After flipping them once, you can top the patties with a couple of slices of cheese and those bacon slices you cooked a while back. Or you can brush them with barbecue sauce, or both! Top as you like - we had fresh tomatoes from the garden, lettuce, and the other customary accoutrements of burger-eating, like ketchup, mayo and mustard. There may have even been some pickles involved.

Summer Bounty

This isn't a recipe at all. It is merely an opportunity to brag/blog (brlag?) about what I came home to after my lovely holiday in BC.

These are all things my boyfriend and I grew in pots on our back patio. Everything but the tomatoes and basil are from seed, which we haphazardly sprinkled over our dollar-store soil. We've got sugar snap peas, beets, tomatoes (two kinds!), basil, thyme, a lone green bean, and lovely rainbow swiss chard!

Now that we're back I can't wait to eat all the garden goodies and maybe even share some more recipes with everyone.

.

Pulled "Char Siu" with Scallion Pancakes

Well hello there... long time no see! Life kind of got away from me for a bit. Taught a summer course, sister moved to a different continent, tried (it's an ongoing battle) to write about my dissertation topic...

But enough about me: on to the food.

This is a slow cooker recipe. This is because it was actually three billion degrees here (five billion with the humidex) and I could not bear to turn on the stove, let alone the oven. We tried once, and it ended in tears. Tears and pizza, but tears none the less. If you don't have a slow cooker, just stick it in the oven on low for a few hours (have fun with the heat!) and it'll be fine.

These "Chinese Tacos", as they are now called in my house, have been so popular that we have made them twice in the past month -- something that doesn't happen that often, actually.

You need:
A slow cooker: mine was a wee little 1.5 litre one; 3 litres would do fine also
2 pounds of pork, the cheaper the better. Shoulder works really well.
1/4 c soy sauce
1/4 c hoisin sauce
2 tsps 5 spice powder
2 tsps minced ginger
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp sriracha chili sauce (optional)
1 tsp dark sesame oil

1. Put everything in the slow cooker (or covered baking dish) and stir it around so it gets all mixy. Mmmm mixy.
2. Turn the slow cooker on low for 8 hours. Go away.
3. Come back later. The pork will be all nice and shredable now. Take it out and shred it in a bowl, or shred it in the crock - your choice. If you shred it in a bowl, when it is all shreddy put it back in to soak up all the juices. YUM!
4. Serve with the scallion pancakes you find below, and maybe some Goose Island IPA you'd been saving from your trip to Chicago a while back.

Scallion Pancakes (makes 12):

3 c all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
6 green onions/scallions, white and light green parts only, finely sliced
2 tsp baking powder
2 TBS vegetable oil
1 TBS dark sesame oil
1 c water


1. Mix the dry ingredients together, except for 1 cup of  the flour. Make a well in the centre and stir in the wet ingredients. Add in the scallions.

2. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Add the rest of the flour if you need it.

3. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, covered with plastic wrap, then divide the dough into 12 pieces.

4. Form each piece into a ball, then flatten it and roll it out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface. Each dough piece should make an 8" circle when flat.

5. You can cook these in the frying pan with a bit of sesame oil over high heat for a minute or two on each side, but we did ours on the barbecue, because of that problem with the heat and the oven and the tears. A minute or two each side - til grilled and bubbly - worked really well.

6. Serve with the above pork recipe and the sliced green parts left over from the scallions!

.

Spatchcocked Chicken: A Grotesque Step-by-Step

The secret to delicious, perfectly cooked whole chicken is also a really fun word to say: Spatchcock. It either sounds like a sneeze or a foreign swear word. Or both. You do have to get a little down and dirty with your chicken, but look at the reward:

Look at all that delicious browned crispy chicken skin. Look at those roasted whole garlic cloves and red onions. Spy the roasty-toasty carrots hiding in the sides of the pan. You, too, can enjoy a roast chicken on a weeknight, and in about an hour from start to finish.

The secret is cutting out the backbone of the chicken and flattening it. This makes the chicken cook more quickly and more evenly, so you get a juicier breast without having underdone legs. That sounds like the cover of a glamour magazine. ANYWAYS. After you have spatchcocked your bird, the seasonings and accompanying vegetables are really up to you -- really, anything goes (within reason - I don't want any comments saying you tried it with chocolate sauce and marshmallow fluff and it didn't work and I'm a liar).

But if you want to make what I made, here's what you need:

One whole chicken
2 TBS olive oil
One red onion, cut into wedges
2 carrots, cut into sticks
One head of garlic, peeled but in whole cloves
1 lemon (or more if you like) cut in half
1 TBS honey
1 tsp coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper.

Your instructions and gruesome raw chicken photos are after the jump! But also some lovely roasty after shots - don't despair! Click here to keep reading.

Amazing Pita Bread

I had a bit of a problem with this pita bread. The problem wasn't in the kneading or rising or baking -- it was getting it photographed. I even made another batch the very next day and still - the pieces kept disappearing before I could get a decent photo! But really, I should just take that as a sign that this is some mighty fine pita. Once again, The Fresh Loaf comes to the rescue.

I know I keep saying how all my bread recipes that I post on here are soooo easy, but they are. And this one is no exception. If you can make cookies, you can make bread. If you can play with playdough, you can make bread. It's just measuring, mixing, a wee bit of kneading, some patience, and a hot oven.

You need:

3 cups of flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 Tablespoon of sugar or honey
2 teaspoons of yeast
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons of olive oil, vegetable oil, butter, or shortening. I used olive oil because it is delicious.

1. Mix the sugar in 1 1/4 c of the water and sprinkle the yeast on top. Let it sit for a few minutes until the yeast gets foamy.

2. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl together. When the yeast is ready, add the water-yeast-sugar mixture and the olive oil and mix. I used my KitchenAid so this was really easy.  If the dough seems really dry, add the rest of the water.

3. When the dough is more or less cohesive and/or your wooden spoon revolts, start kneading. Knead for about 10 minutes then put the dough in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel and let it sit and rise for about 90 minutes.

4. After it has risen divide the dough into 8 even pieces and shape into balls. Let these rest another 20 minutes, again covered with something. At this point, turn on your oven to 400º and make sure your baking stone is in there, or if you don't have a baking stone, a baking pan flipped upside-down. My baking stone BROKE during a tragic Tarte-Tatin accident and I have yet to replace it.

5. After 20 minutes, lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough into flat circles about 1/4 inch thick or a little thinner.

6. Bake them two at a time for about 3 minutes. They will get nice and puffy, making lovely pockets for you to stuff with delicious things later on.

These are great for stuffed pita sandwiches or you could try serving them with a delicious white bean dip!

.

Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yoghurt

If you are looking for a way to become friends with fish, this might be a good recipe for you. If you are already a fish enthusiast, then you're in luck too. The Indian spices, though not terribly hot, are so delicious - I'm sure there is a way to do this completely from scratch but I followed directions and bought a jar of Patak's Tandoori paste - if I hadn't made my own naan bread, this would have been a very quick, less than 30 minute meal. This recipe serves two.

You need:
- 1.5 c plain yoghurt
- 1/4 c minced red onion
- 1/2 c chopped cucumber
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 2 salmon fillets
- 3 TBS Patak's Tandoori paste
- 1 TBS oil
- 2 pieces of naan bread
- 1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro

First, prepare your yoghurt. This is a really nice, cool side that complements the spices on the fish really well. If you add some hot peppers to it, you will also get some bit. We are wimps though and don't abide by such things. Anyways, seed a half a cucumber, or a third if you have one of those giant long ones, and dice it finely. I left the skin on because I like it that way. Finely mince a about a quarter cup of red onion. Stir these, along with about a 1/2 tsp of ground cumin, into 1.5 cups of plain yoghurt. I used fat-free organic, but thick Greek style would be great too. Set this aside in the fridge.

If you are making your own naan, you want to start that well in advance, as the bread will have to rise etc. But if not, and you have purchased naan from your local Indian restaurant or from your grocery store, then you can move right on to the salmon portion of this dinner.

You need a couple of fillets of salmon - make sure the fish you are buying is sustainably fished in your part of the world. If you can't find salmon, red-fleshed trout works well too. Cut the fish into thirds lengthwise and leave the skin on. Brush the top and sides of each piece with the Tandoori paste - I used about 3 tablespoons total - maybe a little less. Don't put the brush back into the jar because you will get fishy things in your jar of paste and that is unsanitary.

At this point, bake your naan bread if you made your own, or start heating it up if you bought some. Heat up about a tablespoon of oil in a cast-iron pan, or other pan if you don't have a cast-iron one. But cast-iron is really the best. It should be on about medium or medium high depending on how hot your stove gets. Place the salmon pieces in the pan and cook for about 3 minutes on each side, until the salmon turns opaque.

Give each person a warm naan bread, dollop some of the yoghurt on it, top with the salmon, and with some chopped cilantro if you are into cilantro. If not, that is sad but not your fault. You can fold up the sides and munch on it like a taco, or use a sophisticated knife and fork. Either way, enjoy!

.

Lazy Saturday

If making that pasta was one of the more involved projects I've undertaken for this wee blog of mine, I think this post marks one of the simplest -- short of the soft-boiled eggs post, of course. Anyways pancakes.

I also wanted an excuse to show off my adorable plate and tea cup collection. My mom's friend Oona has these cups and I always loved them, so every Christmas and/or birthday, my mom scours eBay and antique stores for a piece for the collection and gives whatever she finds to me. I have four lunch (or pancake!) plates, about 8 tea cups and saucers, and few tiny tea plates for fancy sandwiches or cakes.

On a sunny Saturday they called out to be filled with sliced oranges, hot coffee, and steaming pancakes fresh from the pan.

Do you want to know my pancake recipe? I love this recipe because it is the perfect amount for two people. Four little pancakes each.




You need:
1/2 c flour
2 tsp wheat germ or flax (optional but healthy!)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 c milk or butter milk
1.5 tsp plain yogurt or oil or apple sauce

You just put all the ingredients into a shaker bottle (mine was $1 from the dollar store!) and shake them up. Then just pour out a bit into a heated and lightly buttered cast-iron pan (my fav!) and you're good to go! You can obviously add whatever you like to your pancakes - blueberries, raspberries, chopped apple - but we like ours plain.