17th October, 2007
Thought of the day
Hello everyone!
I’ve been out of town a lot recently (with the day job) as well as launching a new blog (MichaelValiant.com - warning, not food related at all!) so I apologize for not being around here much.
Thanks for the comments (that took me forever to moderate)!
I will re-kick things off with a thought for the day:
I try not to eat any veggies that have travelled more than I have!
Posted at 4:17 am | Comment (0)
21st July, 2007
Cooking Homemade Burgers…
Tip of the week:
It was BBQ time here in Barrie this weekend and we had a small BYO-BBQ gathering with family and friends…
One family member (who will remain nameless) brought a box of pre-formed pattys to cook.
Now, if you look at two burgers sizzling away on a grill, one store bought and the other homemade, it’s pretty easy to tell which is which.
I’ve never come across an out-of-the-box burger that doesn’t look like a thin slice off the end of a big ground-beef meat stick; and when you’re looking at the two burgers on a grill, that flat processed piece of meat looks about as appealing as it tastes, especially compared to it’s thicker hand-made counterpart.
But the mechanically flattened factory burger does have one advantage… and that’s, consistent heating (and cooking) across the entire burger.
Unfortunately the same is not always the case for the tastier (and usually larger) homemade burgers. Homemades tend to swell more when cooked and often end up with a much thicker center. Which means, if you want to serve burgers and not meatballs, you have to spend some of the burgers cooking time trying to flatten it out on the grill. The bigger problem is of course that, round burgers tend to have crispy outsides and barely cooked innards.
So what to do?
The rule of thumb here is to prepare the burger before it goes on the grill by making an indentation in the center of each patty about the size of a loonie (or a little bigger than a quarter for all you non-Canadians) and about 1/4 to 1/2 way deep.
The thinned out center means you will always be assured of a perfectly cooked burger, and one that won’t swell as much.
And don’t worry about anyone making comments about a thumb-print in their burger because it should swell just enough that the indent is no longer visible when it comes time to serve!
Posted at 3:29 am | Comment (0)
