Saturday, September 17, 2011

A lot of hamburger!


Yesterday was Annette's art show. We decided to eat dinner with a friend after the show, but nobody wanted to go out. So, our friend said he'd bring some ground beef. He did. Three pounds of it. We already had one pound. The expiration date on this stuff comes up fast, so it's time to be creative.

Today after running errands, I checked the expiration date on one pack of ground beef. Sell by today. Joy! Hamburger again! No time to make buns, since we were already hungry. So what if I made an arepa heavily spiced with pimentón pepper and a bit of salt... fry it off, slice it in two and use it instead of a bun. Then some of that Australian blue cheese, some uncured bacon, some sautéd onions, a bit of arugula from the garden. The result: something thinner and easier to eat than a bun, with a great crunch factor. Lots of umami richness from the cheese, smokiness from the bacon and pimentón and a bitter counterpoint from the arugula.

We were more or less traditional yesterday with our friend. 140g patties made into maxi-sliders, with sesame seed mini-buns, garlic aioli, fresh tomato relish, lettuce. The meat was really a tower of beef mixed with bacon and garlic and char-grilled. The buns got sliced in thirds, the burgers in half, the tomato and aioli sauces slathered on, everything stacked and held together somewhat tenuously with toothpicks.

Now we only have about 1-1/2 pounds left to go. This pack has a later sell-by date, so it looks like we'll be able to take a burger break and eat something else. Not that I'm getting really tired of burgers... yet.

No comments:

Post a Comment