Estonian burger recipe

Posted on January 23, 2012 by linda

Bacon Cheeseburger with Hard-Boiled Eggs and Horseradish Mustard Sauce

Keeping things interesting, we’re heading to Estonia now.  The Republic of Estonia is located in Eastern Europe between Latvia and Russia and across the Gulf of Finland from, well, Finland of course!  It’s a small country with a population a little less than 1.3 million.  But Estonians take their history and their culture seriously.  Despite having been occupied/ruled by Denmark, Sweden, Russia, USSR and Germany, Estonians have held on to their culture and heritage and even their unusual language.  And through it all, they’ve built up a strong economy with an emphasis on modern technology.  In fact Skype was created by Estonians – pretty cool.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Before we move on, I highly recommend you do a Google image search on Tallinn – go ahead, I’ll wait…Tallinn is (according to several sources) one of the most intact medieval cities in Europe.  The Old Town of Tallinn is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The original layout of the city is unchanged, many of the houses and major buildings are intact and restored consistent with the original designs from the 13th and 14th centuries.  It is beautiful, picturesque, quaint, just pick and adjective.  I’m a fan of any group of people who keep their old buildings and maintain them, so I’m now officially an Estonia fan.

So…cool town center, interesting history and funky language – now how about the food?  Traditional Estonian cuisine is based on seasonal foods (aren’t most traditional cuisines?).  Because their growing season isn’t all that long, Estonians have become fans of pickling as a way to preserve vegetables for the long winter.  So far, I was with them – I love pickled stuff.  Then I discover that in addition to pickled veggies, they like to eat pickled herring and pickled eel.  Now, I’ve never had either, but I’ve smelled pickled herring and that was reason enough to never eat it.  I know, there will be comments extolling the virtues of pickled herring, but you can forget about me incorporating it into a recipe.  At the end of the day, there won’t be a single recipe in this collection that I can’t honestly say I enjoyed eating.  They may not all be burgers that I crave, but they’ll all be burgers I like, and so far many of them are burgers I love.  So no pickled fish.

What about meats?  A classic favorite in Estonia is blood sausage.  I have tried blood sausage (in Cologne on a rather dreadful business trip – imagine hanging out in Germany with a bunch of drunk co-workers while you’re allergic to beer and it’s 90 degrees, not fun), and I’m not a fan.  I also don’t have a local source for blood sausage (Americans are a little squeamish about their food, so it isn’t a popular item here).  So regrettably, no blood sausage.

There’s also a traditional Estonian dish that involves boiling down pork bones and making a jelled substance out of it – can we just say yuck and move on?  I have to admit, I was beginning to despair at this point.  So far I had a pretty gross list of possible ingredients.  But, never one to give up hope, I kept researching.  Luckily Estonians like pork, so do I, they like horseradish sauces, so do I, they like bacon, dark rye bread and hard boiled eggs…wait a minute, hard boiled eggs?  That’s right folks, hard-boiled eggs.  What a riot, I thought that the eggs were kind of gimmicky, but man they made a really nice counterpoint for the pickles and pickled beets.  I also finally conquered my inability to make perfect hard-boiled eggs.  I always over cook my eggs and end up with that green-ish color to the egg yolk.  This time I put four eggs into cold water, enough to have an extra inch of water above the eggs.  I turned on the heat and got it to boiling, then boiled for 6 minutes, let sit in the hot water for 4 minutes, then I immersed the eggs in ice water until they were completely cooled.  It worked like a charm.

So the final burger is a bit of a hot mess, lettuce, pickles, pickled beets, onion, Gruyere, egg, bacon and horseradish sauce.  It is a pain to eat, very messy, sauce and stuff dripping everywhere.  But the flavor is so worth the mess.  Somehow all of these ingredients come together in a rich, tangy scrumptious feast.  My mother suggested I make my father’s burger without pickles or beets because he generally doesn’t like those things – but that would kind of thwart the whole idea of the project don’t you think?  We all ate the burgers as is in the recipe and I wrote down my father’s comment “it isn’t spectacular” that was all he would say.  But, he ate the whole burger and didn’t pick off any of the ingredients, so I’m calling it a win!  Paul and I loved this burger and my mother did too – I hope you’ll try it out and let me know what you think.

Estonian Burger
4 slices of bacon
1 pound ground pork
Kosher salt
Ground black pepper
¼ cup diced onion
Gruyere cheese sliced
8 slices of dark rye bread
1 clove of garlic sliced in half
Olive oil
Bib lettuce
1 whole dill pickle sliced into thin rounds
Pickled beets
2 hard-boiled eggs sliced
Horseradish Mustard Sauce (recipe below)

Cut the bacon slices in half and cook in a medium pan until crispy.  Set aside on paper towels until ready to use.  Do not clean the pan.

Form the pork into four patties.  Generously salt and pepper each side of the patty.  Heat the bacon grease over medium high heat.  Press the onions into one side of each patty and place onion side down in the hot bacon grease.  Cook until browned then flip over.  Cook until pork is almost cooked through then add slices of Gruyere and cover until cheese melts.

While the burgers are cooking, rub the garlic over one side of each piece of bread, then brush that same side with olive oil.  In a large dry pan, grill each piece of bread until lightly toasted (you’ll probably have to work in batches unless you have a large grill pan).

To assemble your burger start with a piece of grilled bread, grilled side up.  Add a piece of lettuce, slices of dill pickle, pickled beets, the cooked burger, the cooked bacon and a couple slices of hard boiled egg.  Put a nice dollop of the Horseradish Mustard Sauce on the grilled slice of the second piece of bread and serve the extra sauce on the side.  As I said in the intro, it’s a messy burger – here’s a picture of what you get when you add the sauce – YUMMY!

Horseradish Mustard Sauce
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
2 teaspoons horseradish
1 teaspoon coarse mustard
4 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

 

©Copyright 2012 Linda Monach

Estonian burger recipe

Posted in european recipes, pork burgers | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Eritrean burger recipe

Posted on January 16, 2012 by linda

Spicy burger with Berbere ketchup on sourdough toast
So now we return to the Horn of Africa.  Our next stop is Eritrea.  I’ll admit again that I wasn’t familiar with Eritrea before starting this adventure, and frankly, the name sounds like a made up name from a Marx brothers’ movie (I know, that was Fredonia, but same basic concept).  I think it’s a lovely name for a country – makes me think of princesses and dragons…”Once upon a time, in the enchanted land of Eritrea…” But that’s just my silliness.  It’s not clear to me who named Eritrea – Wikipedia claims the name comes from the Greek for “red land” and was given to the land by the Italians (who ruled from the late 1800’s to the early 1940’s).  But the history of Eritrea is much older, one of the oldest on Earth, with humans showing up around the 8th century B.C., and pre-human evidence from before that.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

But all that is somewhat beside the point.  Eritrea is, as mentioned already, in the Horn of Africa.  It’s bordered by Djibouti, Sudan and Ethiopia.  It’s a little bigger than Pennsylvania and is home to over 6 million people.  There’s a long history of conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.  They were once part of the same federation, but that didn’t work out too well – in fact there was a 30-year war involved before finally in 1993 Eritrea achieved independence.

Today the country is run by a single political party and suffers from an extremely poor human rights record…lack of freedom of speech and press and poor prison conditions, you get the idea.  Approximately 80% of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture.  Which still doesn’t create enough food for everyone to live comfortably.

So that leads us to the food.  Eritrean food is either extremely similar or identical to Ethiopian food.  Which created a serious problem for me.  Ethiopian cuisine is the only food I’ve ever had that I really didn’t like.  I tried it when I was in college in DC.  We went to the Red Sea restaurant in Adam’s Morgan – at the time we were told it was the best Ethiopian restaurant in D.C.  I’ll save the details for my write up on Ethiopia, but suffice it to say, I hated the food and have never ventured to try the cuisine since.

Which means I wrestled with this one, wrestled a lot.  I started with trying to make injera, the traditional bread of Eritrea.  It’s a spongy pancake with a sour flavor, made from teff flour.  I got me some teff and looked up a bunch of recipes for injera and decided to try the most traditional sounding one that I could find.  This involved making a starter dough by fermenting the flour for 3-5 days.  I ended up with a moldy mess.  Which led me to reevaluate my options.  Rather than take a traditional approach to the recipe, I decided to interpret the flavors and create something that I would enjoy eating.

The sour flavors of injera became sourdough bread instead.  The spicy stews of Eritrean cooking became a spicy ketchup instead, and it all tied together with a wonderful seasoned butter that is typical of regional cooking in the part of the world.  The result was a really tasty burger that probably isn’t all that true to Eritrean food.  The ketchup ended up with not as much spice as I had expected and a little too much fenugreek, making it taste more like a medium spice curry than I intended.  But I like curries, and so does my family, so we were all happy.  Even my father ate the burger and pronounced it “not terrible.”  High praise from a man who hates anything curry flavored.  This is one of the heavier flavored burgers, so definitely come hungry for this one.  It’s spicy and richly flavored with unbelievably complex flavors.  Enjoy!

Eritrean Burger
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon Berbere Seasoning (recipe below)
1 small onion sliced
8 slices of bakery fresh sour dough bread
Seasoned Butter (recipe below)
Berbere Ketchup (recipe below)
Green onions chopped (for garnish)

Combine the ground beef, salt, pepper and Berbere Seasoning.  Form into four patties.  Press raw onion into one side of each patty.  Brush one side of each piece of bread with the seasoned butter.  Heat a large non-stick skillet and lightly grill each piece of bread (buttered side down).  Remove bread and set aside.  In the same skillet, heat about 1 Tablespoon of Seasoned Butter until melted, then grill the fry the burger patties (starting with the onion side) until done.

To serve, place each patty on a grilled piece of bread, add a generous dollop of Berbere Ketchup and sprinkle some green onions and top with a second piece of the grilled bread.

Berbere Seasoning
There are a million different recipes for Berbere, so I wanted to create another recipe myself – this is a little heavy on the fenugreek, but I love the flavor.  It’s a little less spicy than it should be for this part of the world, but you can adjust to your tastes.  Have fun, create your own Berbere!

1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
½ teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon ground dried ginger
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon turmeric
3 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Mix spices together and toast in a dry pan for 1-2 minutes until fragrant.  Set aside and cool until ready to use.

Seasoned Butter
4 Tablespoons salted butter
2 slices of fresh ginger (about ¼ inch each)
6 green cardamom pods
2 whole cloves

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and heat over low heat until butter melts and foams.  Remove from heat and skim off foam.  Pour the clear part of the butter into a glass bowl straining off any of the spices.  Set aside until ready to use.

Berbere Ketchup
¼ cup diced onion
1 Tablespoon peanut oil
6 ounces tomato paste
½ to 1 cup water
2 Tablespoons Berbere Seasoning

In a small saucepan, heat the oil and add the onions.  Cook over medium heat until soft.  Add the tomato paste and water, stir until evenly mixed.  Add the Berbere and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.  Add more water if the mixture gets too thick.  Serve warm or room temperature.

 

©Copyright 2012 Linda Monach

Eritrean burger recipe

Posted in african recipes, beef burgers | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Equatorial Guinea burger recipe

Posted on January 7, 2012 by linda

Chicken Burger with Spicy Peanut Sauce and Creamy Avocado
From the beaches of El Salvador to the beaches of Equatorial Guinea, the scenery in the part of the alphabet is fantastic!  Luckily the food has been really good too 🙂  Equatorial Guinea is located on the west coast of central Africa.  It’s comprised of 5 inhabited islands and continental lands (along with some small uninhabited islands).  Total land mass is a bit smaller than Maryland.  It is bordered by Cameroon and Gabon.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Equatorial Guinea is fortunate to have large stores of gas and oil, so they are much wealthier than many of the other countries we’ve visited in Africa.  In fact, according to CIA World Factbook, they rank 29th in GPP per capita.  Unfortunately distribution of wealth is not very even amongst the 650,000 people.  Equatorial Guineans have endured corruption and extremely poor human rights for many years.  There are some signs of improvement and attempts at reform underway, but so far it sounds like they’ve gone from absolutely “atrocious human rights” to “pretty bad human rights”, but at least it’s moving in the right direction, right?

The food and flavors of Equatorial Guinea are familiar regional flavors.  Lots of spice, cassava, peanut butter sauces, etc…  In deference to the average Equatorial Guinean, I decided to stick with chicken as being more achievable for everyday eating.  I marinated chicken breast in lemon juice and cayenne to give it both a tang and a bite, then I ground the breast to make the burgers.  As I’ve mentioned before, with chicken, I’ve found this technique makes a huge difference both in texture and flavor – I don’t think I’ll ever go back to store bought ground chicken.  Try it out, you’ll love it.

Because we’ve done the cassava and the sweet potato starch options multiple times, I went with a simple rice base (I think I’m rebelling against the heavy, complicated holiday foods because I’ve been more drawn to simple flavors than ever lately).  Of course with African food there’s usually some stewed greens, I cleaned this up and simplified it and just use fresh spinach.

The clean flavors of the rice, spinach and chicken then needed a little pizzazz – enter our spicy peanut butter sauce and some decadent avocado.  The end result is the perfect antidote for the holiday overeating: just enough fat and richness to satisfy, but lots of fresh bright elements to balance it out.  We served the burgers with a nice crisp Sauvignon Blanc (I like Kendall Jackson), it complimented the burger beautifully.

Equatorial Guinea Burger
1¼ pound boneless skinless chicken breasts but in chunks
Juice of 1 lemon
¼ teaspoon cayenne (more or less depending on how spicy you like it)
1 Tablespoon peanut oil
2 cups cooked white rice
Baby spinach
Spicy Peanut Sauce (recipe below)
1 avocado roughly mashed

In a glass bowl, combine the chicken, lemon juice and cayenne and let sit at room temperature for 30-60 minutes.  Drain off the excess marinade and grind the chicken on fine-grind setting.  Form four patties.  Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet.  Cook the chicken patties in the hot oil until cooked through.

To serve, start with ½ cup of cooked rice, a few leaves of baby spinach, cooked chicken patties, Spicy Peanut Sauce and top with ¼ of the mashed avocado.

Spicy Peanut Sauce
1 small onion diced (about ½ cup)
1 Tablespoon peanut oil
1 habenero pepper seeded and cut into quarters
1 Maggi brand chicken bouillon cube
1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic minced
Juice of 1 lemon
½ cup natural peanut butter
½ cup water

In a small saucepan, heat the peanut oil and sauté the onion for 2 minutes over medium heat.  Add the habenero pepper and sauté for another two minutes (you can remove the habenero at any time depending on hot spicy you like it – I left it in until the end, but you can adjust to your taste – Africans would probably just mince the peppers and leave them in the final sauce).

Turn heat to low, crumble the Maggi cube and add to the mixture along with the bay leaf and the garlic.  Sauté for another 2 minutes.  Add the lemon juice, peanut butter and water.  Turn the heat up to medium low and dimmer for 5 minutes.  Serve hot or luke warm.

 

©Copyright 2012 Linda Monach

Equatorial Guinea burger recipe

 

Posted in african recipes, chicken burgers | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

El Salvadorian burger recipe

Posted on December 30, 2011 by linda

Burger with chorizo and cheese filled pupusas (tortillas), refried beans and pickled slaw
Goodness, time certainly flies this time of year!  I can’t believe I’ve been silent for so long here – I am sorry for all of you who are desperate for the next burger.  On top of the holidays, my entire family has a nasty flu/cold that currently is making me feel like sleeping for a week.  My 20 month old has recovered from her virus and has tons of energy and is currently trying to help me type this (so please excuse the typos).  But none of that has anything to do with what we’re here for – so let’s move on.

Our next stop is El Salvador.  Located in Central America with the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala and Honduras as it’s neighbors, it’s a beautiful country loaded with rivers and lakes and a giant coast line.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

It is the smallest of the Central American countries, but boasts the third largest economy in the region and over six million citizens.  Interestingly it is about the size of Massachusetts with a similar population (we have about 6.5 million).  So, it’s close by, beautiful, lots of beaches, should we add it to the vacation list?  Well, maybe not just yet.

Unfortunately, El Salvador struggles with an extremely high crime rate.  Just a couple of days ago the National Police issued a statement that the murder rate was the highest since the end of the civil war in 1992.  In 2011 4,308 people have been killed.  (Just for reference, we looked it up and Massachusetts had around 1,700 murders last year.)  From what I’ve read, it’s primarily gangs with the murders associated with robberies and/or drug trafficking.  It’s become so dangerous in El Salvador that the Peace Corps just announced that they won’t be sending any recruits there in the next round of trainee placements due to “safety and security” concerns.  They are doing the same thing in Guatemala and are, in fact, pulling people out of Honduras.  The violence in this part of the region is out of control.  For now, I’ll keep it off the vacation list but add El Salvador to the list of countries to keep in my thoughts and to talk about with people in the hopes that the international community and the people of El Salvador can rally and bring peace to the region.

And if they do, you’re going to want to visit because the food is wonderful.  The first thing you discover right away when researching El Salvador is pupusas.  Pupusas are a thick tortilla filled with cheese or meat or just about anything else you can imagine.  I keep getting El Salvador and Ecuador confused in my head because one has filled tortillas, the other filled potato pancakes, I think I’m in heaven.  The big problem I encountered (from a timely recipe creation standpoint) was that pupusas are made with masa flour, and I couldn’t find masa flour at any of my local regular grocery stores.  I could find it online, but it’s kind of heavy, so you really pay too much for shipping.  So, I went to my local Latin market.  I know, it breaks my rule, but if you want to pay extra to have it shipped, feel free, I’d rather break my own rules and get a big bag for $4.  I used Maseca brand instant corn masa flour as that was the brand that almost everyone recommended (and it was the brand they had at the market).

I can’t claim that the pupusa is a truly original recipe – you really just follow the package directions on the masa then add your filling of choice – no sense re-inventing the wheel.  I filled mine with a really sharp cheddar and some chorizo (out of casing and browned, then chopped fine).  I tried other cheeses, but the pupusa is strongly corn flour flavored so you need a strong cheese to break through.  It took some adjusting and trial and error, but with the masa costing only $4 for 4.4 pounds, I could play around until I got it right.  Give yourself a little extra time to experiment and see what works for you.  I’m not giving exact measurements because I found that the amount of filling depended on the exact size of the ball you formed and there was so much variation from one to the next that I couldn’t get an exact and consistent measurement.  Don’t worry, if you overfill, you just get some of the filling leaking out and it might caramelize a bit in the cooking process – better to over fill than under.  An under filled pupusa is far too dry and boring.

The next key flavor/ingredient is refried beans.  These are extremely popular in El Salvador and I love them too!  I made my own and compared side by side with the canned version.  Homemade was better – the texture was better and there was more flavor, but you could easily doctor the canned version, add some onions and green chilies and you’d be good to go.  I didn’t go as far as to use dried beans – I didn’t want that much texture anyway.  So they really were easy to whip up.

I wanted to top the burger off with something unique and less salsa-ish than some of the other burgers I’ve done, so I decided to go with a traditional picked slaw that is commonly served with pupusas in El Salvador.  El Salvadorian cooking usually tries to balance vegetables along with meats and starches, so this was a great opportunity to honor that tradition.  The slaw is light and crispy – gives great texture with a little bit of acidic tang that works perfectly with the heaviness of the beans and the pupusa.  The tomato also gives moisture and some acidity that make a good counterpoint to the starches.  The final touch was a little bit of lemon aioli that gave the perfect balance to the whole dish.

Overall the El Salvador burger is rich treat that can easily be a bit too dry, so don’t skimp on the toppings, or the cheese in the filling of the pupusa, it makes all the difference.  We served with one of our favorite Zins and the flavors were definitely able to stand up to the big wine.  Enjoy!

El Salvador Burger
1 pound ground beef
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
4 Pupusas (recipe below)
Refried beans (recipe below)
Lemon Aioli (recipe below)
Pickled Slaw (recipe below)
Pepitas (optional for garnish)

In a large bowl, mix ground beef, salt and pepper.  Form four patties.  Cook burgers to desired temperature.  To serve start with the pupusa, smooth some refried beans on top, then the burger, a dollop of lemon aioli, a generous helping of pickled slaw then top with pepitas (if you want – they’re fun, but don’t add a ton to the dish).

Pupusas
Follow directions from package to make batter for 8 tortillas.  Form four balls out of the batter, then poke a hole in the ball and stuff as much grated cheese as you can (you can also use chorizo browned and out of casing if you want).  Close up the hole then mash the tortilla with your hands until it is relatively flat.  I did a final pass over with a rolling pin to get even thickness – at the end of the day you want the tortilla to be about ¼ inch thick.  Cook the pupusas in a dry cast iron skillet until lightly browned on each side.  Serve hot.

Refried Beans
1 small onion diced (about ½ cup)
1 can pinto beans (15 ounces) drained and rinsed
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt

Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium/high heat.  Add onions and cook about 3 minutes.  Add beans and mash with a potato masher.  Add ½ cup water and heat through.  Add salt to taste.  Serve hot or room temperature.

Lemon Aioli
½ cup mayonnaise
2 Tablespoons lemon juice (or more to taste)

Combine ingredients in a glass bowl and whip until smooth.  Adjust to taste.  Refrigerate until ready to use

Pickled Slaw
1 small head cabbage shredded
1-2 carrots grated
¾ cup white wine
1 jalapeno minced
6 small scallions chopped
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ cup water

Bring a pot of water to boil and add cabbage.  Blanch the cabbage (boil it for a minute or so) then remove it from the hot water and soak in ice water.  When cabbage is cooled completely, drain and add carrots.  You want about a 50/50 visual split between cabbage and carrots.  In a glass bowl, place the cabbage/carrot mixture along with all of the other ingredients except the water.  Let it sit at room temperature for ½ hour.  Add the water, then refrigerate until ready to use.  Longer refrigeration gives you more flavor, but takes away the color.  When you serve, drain the liquid and just use the vegetables.

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

El Salvadorian burger recipe

 

Posted in beef burgers, central american recipes | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Egyptian burger recipe

Posted on December 14, 2011 by linda

Vegetarian Falafel Burger on Homemade Pita (Eish Masri) with Garlic Mashed Beans (Ful Medames) and Yogurt Sauce

I admit that I’ve been dragging my fee a bit on typing up Egypt, not because the burger caused me any problems or because I have any doubts about the recipe, but because of the write up about the country.  There is so much going on in Egypt right now, it’s hard to know where to start.  But let’s get the basics down…

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Egypt is located mainly in Northern Africa with an additional land bridge into Southwest Asia.  With 82 million inhabitants and a civilization dating back to 3200 BC, there is so much that can be said about Egypt, it boggles the mind.  So I’m going to “pick my choose” as my mother-in-law would say.  Personally I’ve always been fascinated by Egypt.  My father, had he grown up in a different environment, would probably have been an archeologist.  He’s always been interested in history and ancient treasures.  Because of that, I grew up watching documentaries on Egypt and hearing lots of stories about ancient Pharaohs.  I used to dream of exploring the pyramids and discovering ancient tombs – then I found out that you don’t get to keep the treasures and discovered that I hate desert climates, and decided archeology wasn’t for me.

Now, fast forward to modern times and things get complicated.  The New York Times has a great online article that they update regularly with information about the happenings in Egypt.  Just a note, if the New York Times sets up an ongoing article about your country, things might be a little too interesting where you live.  My information comes from that article and from the CIA World Factbook and I’m going to just cover the highlights.

In January of this year, the turmoil in Tunisia inspired protests in Egypt.  Egyptians were protesting the rule of Hosni Mubarak and the lack of free speech, police brutality, lack of free elections, and high unemployment among other things.  Mubarak addressed the country twice with pledges to change and reform, but no one believed him (well, maybe a few people did, but most people didn’t), and amazingly on February 11th (day before my birthday), Mubarak’s resignation was announced.

More than ten months later, elections were finally held (after violence and protests erupted over the summer and early fall).  As of today, final elections are taking place and it looks like Islamists will be ruling Egypt for a while.  Let’s just hope that the people of Egypt find peace, freedom and prosperity with their new government.

So, enough of the politics, what about the food?  Food in Egypt is richly spiced and flavored, whether it’s garlic or spices, the food is super flavorful.  While clearly meat is available in Egypt, they also have a rich tradition of vegetarian cooking.  Since I’m a huge falafel fan, I decided this was a great opportunity to try my hand at falafel making.  For some crazy reason I also decided to try making a home pita bread.  The falafel was easier than I thought and the texture and taste turned out perfect.  Egyptians use fava beans rather than garbanzo beans in most of their dishes – the texture is different, less dry and meatier, and the flavor is beanier and a little less nutty.  Unfortunately, I had trouble finding fava beans for this dish, so I used small lima beans for the falafel and butter beans for the Ful Mesdames – both are pretty similar to fava beans.  For the falafel, you’ve got to use dried beans, I know, what a pain, but it makes a huge textural difference.  I tried a falafel mix just to see how good the mixes are, and I was pleasantly surprised.  The color of the mix was horrible and the texture was a bit mealy, but the flavor was pretty good.  If you don’t care much about texture or appearance and are desperate for a quick falafel, try a mix, they don’t stink.

Ful Mesdames is an extremely common dish in Egypt – its basically mashed beans with garlic.  For this, I used canned beans because I wanted the softer texture.  They worked perfectly.   What didn’t work quite as perfectly was the home made pita.  Egyptians eat a thick pita type bread called Eish Masri.  It’s a really simple bread to make.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get mine to brown, so it doesn’t look as nice as I’d like, but it tasted a lot better than store bought pita, so I stuck with it.  If you don’t want to try making Eish Masri at home, use store bought naan, it’s so much better than the store bought pita and closer to the flavor texture that you’ll want for this dish.

I thought between the falafel, Ful Mesdames and pita that this dish would end up way to starchy, but the lemon, garlic and olive oil balanced it out and the result was a very fresh and flavorful “burger”.  I love falafel and I’m so glad that now I’m not intimidated by it.  All of the elements of this dish were even better the next day – mix everything up, then let it sit in the fridge overnight, then all you have to do is fry up your falafel and you’re all set.

Egyptian burger
½ pound dried small lima beans
1 small onion chopped
½ leek stalk chopped (white and light green parts only)
4 cloves garlic chopped
½ cup chopped flat leaf parsley
3 Tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons salt
Peanut oil for frying
4 Eish Masri (recipe below)
Ful Mesdames (recipe below)
Sliced tomato
Yogurt sauce (recipe below)

Rehydrate the beans using the package directions (I use the stovetop method because I never remember to set them up ahead of time).  You want the beans to still have some texture to them; so don’t cook them to death.  Drain the beans and place them in a food processor with the onion, leek, garlic and parsley.    Pulse until you get an even texture.  Add flour and salt and mix until combined.   Check your mixture and make sure that it sticks together when you squish it in your hand.

I have no idea why my hand looks so pink in this photo – the food looks fine, that’s what counts.

Cover the mixture and refrigerate until ready to use.  Form four balls from the bean mixture and smoosh them down into patty shape.  In a large non-stick skillet pour ¼ inch of peanut oil.  Heat until shimmering.  Place the patties in the oil and fry 3-4 minutes per side over medium high heat until you get a nice brow on both sides.

Slice each Eish Masri in half and grill each half in peanut oil until lightly brown.  Place one slice of Eish Masri on each plate then add a scoop of Ful Mesdames, some sliced tomato, the cooked falafel, some yogurt sauce and top with the last slices of Eish Masri.

 

Eish Masri
2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt

Combine yeast, ¼ cup water and sugar and let sit for 10 minutes to proof the yeast – if you get some foam at the end, you’re good, if you don’t then your yeast isn’t any good or your water is too hot or cold – try again!  Put the flour in a large bowl and create a well in the center.  Add the yeast mixture, then add more water a little at a time until you get a dough ball.  Knead the dough for 10 minutes.  Place the dough in a warm place and let it rise until doubled (about 1½ hours).  Divide the dough into 4 balls then let them rest ten minutes.  Smoosh the balls flat (about ½ inch thick).  Place the disks on parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake at 350˚F for 10 minutes until cooked through.  These will store overnight in a plastic bag or airtight container.

Ful Mesdames
15.5 ounce can butter beans rinsed and drained
½ leek diced (white and light green parts only)
4 cloves garlic minced
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Juice of ½ lemon
Salt to taste

Place all ingredients in a medium bowl and mash with a hand masher or fork (you want a chunky mixture, so don’t go crazy mashing).  Adjust lemon and salt to taste.  Refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to use.  This is best used at room temperature, so take it out of the refrigerator about an hour before you want to use it.

Yogurt Sauce
1 cup 2% Greek yogurt
½ cup grated cucumber
Zest of ½ lemon
¼ cup finely chopped fresh mint
Salt to taste

Place all ingredients in a glass bowl and mix together – taste and adjust salt as needed.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

 

Egyptian burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in african recipes, middle eastern recipes, vegetarian burgers | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Ecuadorian burger recipe

Posted on December 8, 2011 by linda

Burger with Aji Sauce and Avocado on Stuffed Potato Cakes (Llapingachos)

And so we begin the letter E with the beautiful county of Ecuador.  Ecuador is located on the northwestern corner of South America along the coast.  It’s bordered by Colombia and Peru and, for some reason Wikipedia thinks it’s interesting that Ecuador is one of only two South American countries (Chile is the other) that doesn’t share a border with Brazil.  I didn’t find that particularly interesting, but wasn’t sure if you would, so there it is.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

What I do find interesting is that Ecuador is the home of the Galapagos Islands.  The Islands played an important role in Darwin’s theory of evolution and currently are home to nature preserves and national parks (there are also about 23,000 people living there).  Most incredibly (to me), the Galapagos were the subject of a family slide show that didn’t bore me to tears or put me to sleep!  The wildlife is very cool and the scenery is stunning.

But, enough about the Galapagos, back to the mainland.  Ecuador was part of the Inca Empire then it was conquered by Spain in 1533.  After Spanish rule, the Ecuadorians had a ton of conflicts with their neighbors regarding borders (especially Peru) and finally settled in 1999 on the current borders.  In 1999 Ecuador suffered an economic crisis and a collapse of the currency – they’ve since adopted the US dollar and are working on stabilizing their economy.

Now my favorite fact about Ecuador came from our friends at the CIA World Factbook.  Ecuador is known for Mount Chimborazo – to quote the World Factbook, “due to the fact that the earth is not a perfect sphere and has an equatorial bulge, the highest point on the planet furthest from its center is Mount Chimborazo not Mount Everest, which is merely the highest peak above sea level.”  So, Ecuador is home to the tallest mountain in the world, who knew?

Ok then, but what about the food?  The flavors of Ecuador are pretty typical of the region with abundant use of fresh fruits and vegetables and a little bit of spice.  There are a couple of things that really stood out for me though.  The use of annatto seeds gives a rich earthy, peppery flavor to the food and a wonderful orange color (it was the original coloring agent used to make cheddar cheese orange).  I used anchiote paste because I like the addition of the vinegar, garlic and spices – it gives everything even more depth of flavor.

The other thing about Ecuador is they love potatoes (as do I, yeah!).  I read somewhere that they have something like 300 varieties of potatoes!  And, they make this yummy concoction called Llapingachos – these are potato balls seasoned with annatto and stuffed with cheese.  If you’ve been reading for any amount of time, you know this is irresistible to me.  I had to incorporate this into the burger – turns out it is just as tasty as it sounds.  I bought some purple potatoes because I’ve always wanted an excuse to try purple potatoes, but then I remembered that part of the fun of the cuisine is the orange color of the annatto.  So I switched to my old stand-by, Yukon gold potatoes.  I love the texture and flavor of these potatoes, they have lots of creaminess and none of the mealy texture that a russet potato can have.

So we ended up with a beef burger on a Llapingacho with some creamy avocado and a slightly spicy Aji sauce, all complemented by blanched red onions that are lightly pickled in raspberry vinegar.  You could use any fruit based vinegar, you just want a little fruitiness to lighten the overall effect of the dish.

This burger is delicious and rich without being super heavy (surprising as that is).  The Aji sauce is only lightly spicy, but it adds a nice tang, as do the pickled onions – these are perfectly balanced by the cheesy earthy potatoes and the creamy avocado.  The color is also fun and fresh with the pink of the onions playing beautifully off of the right green of the avocado and Aji.  We served with Ménage a Trois red, a great fruity wine that was the perfect compliment.

Ecuadorian Burger
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon anchiote paste
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
4 Llapingachos (recipe below)
4 slices of tomato
1 avocado mashed
4 leaves of bib lettuce
Pickled red onion (recipe below)
Aji sauce (recipe below)

Combine ground beef, anchiote paste salt and pepper.  Form four patties out of the mixture, smash the patties until they are as thin as possible and cook to desired temperature.  To serve start with the Llapingachos on each plate, add a tomato slice to each, ¼ of mashed avocado, the cooked patties, a leaf of lettuce, some pickled onion then top with Aji sauce.

Llapingachos (potato cakes)
1½ pounds Yukon gold potatoes peeled and cubed
1½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoon anchiote paste
1 Tablespoon butter
1 cup chopped onions
Shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Boil the potatoes in water with ½ teaspoon kosher salt.  Drain the potatoes.  Place the potatoes in a large bowl and add the anchiote paste (break it up as you add it) and the remaining teaspoon of salt.  In a medium skillet heat the butter until melted then add the onions.  Sauté onions until soft.  Add the cooked onions and any remaining butter to the potatoes.  Mash the mixture with a hand masher.  Form four balls with the potato mixture.

Using your thumb, make a hole in each of the balls then stuff with shredded cheese (about 1½ Tablespoons of cheese per ball – get as much as you can into each ball).

Close up the hole.  In a large non-stick skillet, heat the vegetable oil until shimmering.  Flatten each ball in your hands until you get a patty about ½ inch thick.  Place the potato cakes into the hot oil and fry each side until lightly browned.

Pickled Red Onion
1 small red onion sliced in half then cut in ¼ inch thick slices
Juice of 3 lemons
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons raspberry vinegar

Blanch the red onion slices in boiling water for 3 minutes then rinse them in cold water or use an ice bath to stop the cooking.  Place the cooked onions in a glass bowl then add the lemon juice (you just need enough to cover the onions).  Add the oregano and vinegar and stir to mix.  Refrigerate for at least an hour before using.

Aji Sauce
4 Serrano chilies
½ cup flat leaf parsley
½ cup fresh cilantro
3 cloves garlic
¼ cup lime juice
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
Kosher salt to taste

Chop the first four ingredients roughly.  Place them in a food processor along with the lime juice and blend until all pieces are even sizes.  Add the vegetable oil while the ingredients are blending.  Taste and add salt as necessary.  Refrigerate for at least an hour in a covered glass container.

Ecuadorian burger recipe

 

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in beef burgers, south american recipes | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Dominican Republic burger recipe

Posted on November 29, 2011 by linda

Dominican Chimichurri (burger) with Cabbage and Pink Sauce
Sorry it’s been so long since my last post – between our broken refrigerator and the Thanksgiving holiday, finding time to write has been difficult.  But enough of my problems – let’s go to the Caribbean!  Pictures of sandy beaches and clear blue water have me craving a tropical vacation, as our weather turns cold and rainy.  The Dominican Republic is located occupies about two thirds of the Greater Antilles island of La Hispaniola, with Haiti occupying the rest of the island.

 

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

The Dominican economy is largely dependent on the US.  According to CIA World Factbook, 60% of exports and 75% of the incoming tourism dollars in Dominica come from the US.  Overall, the economy is relatively strong.  Unfortunately, Dominica has really poor income inequality and 42% of its people live below poverty level.

The Dominican Republic was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus and was under Spanish rule for a really long time, then the Haitians ruled them for twenty-two years, then they went back to Spanish rule (voluntarily to get out from under Haitian rule) and, finally achieved independence in 1821.  The culture is a rich mixture of Caribbean, French, Spanish and Portuguese influences.

Dominican food reflects this rich heritage with fabulous Creole sauces, garlic, peppers, cured meats, it’s all good.  For our purposes, the most important thing is that Dominicans have a burger of their own.  Its called Chimichurri – no relation to the Argentinean sauce, I’ve no idea why they have the same name and couldn’t find any reasonable explanation on-line.  So, the Chimichurri varies a bit (of course), but the basics are beef patties seasoned with onions and other things, tomatoes, pink sauce and cooked cabbage.  The pink sauce varies from simple ketchup and mayo mixtures to more complex seasonings.  The cabbage is usually dressed in the pink sauce then sautéed.

I found the pink sauce tended toward a little too sweet and heavy, so I cut it a little with some lime juice and that made it a deeper, more interesting flavor.  A lot of the recipes I found call for grilling the tomatoes, so I tried that the first time and I thought it dulled the flavor of the tomato.  In the final version we have the lime juice in the sauce and the tomatoes are raw.  Overall this was incredibly easy to make and the final burger was rich and tasty.  It’s a recipe for a night when you’re in the mood for something a little heavier, richer and definitely a little indulgent.  If you want another layer, add some grilled onion, or some potato chips, or a fried egg!  Enjoy J

Dominican Republic Burger
1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion diced (about ¾ cup)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Pink Sauce (recipe below)
½ head of cabbage sliced thin
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
Sliced tomato
4 burger buns

Mix the first six ingredients together in a large bowl.  Divide into four portions and form balls of the mixture.  Let it sit for an hour and get to room temperature.

While this is sitting, mix ½ of the pink sauce with the sliced cabbage. Refrigerate the cabbage until ready to use.  Heat a large skillet (don’t use non-stick) over medium high until hot.  Add the meat balls and smoosh them down into patties.  Cook to desired temperature then remove from skillet.  Deglaze the pan with red wine vinegar then add the cabbage and cook covered for 3-5 minutes until just wilted (I like some crunch left in mine).

Toast your buns if you like, then place the burger patties on, add the tomato and the cooked cabbage, then top with some extra pink sauce.  Serve while everything is warm.

Pink Sauce
⅓ cup plus 1 Tablespoon mayonnaise
¼ cup ketchup
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Juice of ½ lime
Salt to taste

In a glass bowl, combine all ingredients and adjust to taste.  Refrigerate for at least a half hour before using and taste again after refrigerating – adjust again as necessary.

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Dominican Republic burger recipe

Posted in beef burgers, caribbean recipes | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Dominican burger recipe

Posted on November 17, 2011 by linda


Caribbean Spiced Chicken Burger on Dominican Bake (fried dough), with Stewed Spinach and Spicy Papaya Sauce
Ok folks, this is number 50!  Hard to believe, but we’ve already made 50 burger recipes together!  And it’s a doozy.  We’ll keep the intro short so that we can get right to the food.  The Commonwealth of Dominica is not to be confused with the Dominican Republic (although it’s another one of those that you have to be really careful researching that you are reading about the right place).  Dominica is South and East of Dominican Republic.  It’s a small island within the Lesser Antilles between Martinique and Guadeloupe.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Based on the pictures of the gorgeous beaches and amazing landscape, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need to travel here to really understand the cuisine, please make sure that you let the IRS know that this was super necessary 🙂  Dominica is volcanic and (according to Wikipedia) is the youngest island of the Lesser Antilles.

According to their own website, Dominica is “The Nature Island” and the Dominicans have worked to promote the island as a destination for eco-tourism.  Blah, blah, blah, let’s get to the food.  Dominicans like their food spicy, but not crazy hot.  They eat a lot of fish and a lot of chicken.  One of the local specialties is frog legs from the Giant Ditch Frog (called Mountain Chicken – cause frog legs do taste like chicken).  Due to over hunting the Giant Ditch Frog has become critically endangered, so we’re going to stick to chicken and pretend we’re eating frog legs.  (Btw, if you’re ever in Boston and get to eat at L’Espalier, if the chef is making frog legs, order them – I had them once there and it was one of the best dishes I have ever tasted).

Now, for those of you that follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you might have noticed that I was having refrigerator problems the last couple of weeks.  Dominica was a victim of this chaos and I lost the ground chicken that I had purchased for the dish.  I had to improvise and thawed out some chicken breast and ground it myself.  This was serendipitous as the end result was so much yummier than I thought it would be.  Grinding the meat allows bits of the marinade to stay infused in the meat, and the flavor was extraordinary.  I’ve always loved lemon with chicken; this just brought it to a new level.  The texture was also a lot different – lighter, less chewy and stiff than the store bought ground chicken.  So please, spend the $40 and get the attachment to your mixer, you will thank me.  Ok, I’ll move on.

The spicy papaya is a riff on various pastes and sauces that I found mentioned as part of Caribbean cooking.  If papayas aren’t in season, you could substitute mango or fresh guava.  The sweetness of the fruit really compliments the sweetness of the fruit and the rum.  I didn’t love the color of the final sauce, but I couldn’t argue with the flavor.

Dominicans make a soup from the leaves of the dasheen plant, so I played off of that idea with the stewed spinach (dasheen is not available in this part of the world).  The last element of the dish is the bread.  Dominicans eat a fried dough that they call “bakes”.  It’s a popular street food.  As you may have noticed, I like fried stuff, so I had to try this out.  It is so easy to make and so tasty, you’ve got to try it out.

The combination of all of these elements far exceeded my expectations – even my dad thought it was “not bad” (he really doesn’t like meats other than beef for a burger, so this is high praise indeed for a chicken burger).  My mom and I cleaned our plates and wished we had more.  Paul was out of town, so sadly he missed this treat.  I will make it again so day for him, but right now it’s just fun to torture him with what he has missed 🙂 With this burger you’ll get a wonderful balance of sweet, spicy and tart – the lime juice permeates everything and gives a great continuity t the total dish.  It’s definitely not very burger-like, but you’ll be coming back for more.

Dominican Burger
1½ limes juiced
2-3 cloves garlic minced
¼ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves chopped
½ teaspoon lemon pepper
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1¼ pounds boneless chicken breast cut into cubes
1 Tablespoon olive oil
4 Bakes (recipe below)
Caribbean Sauce (recipe below)
Stewed Spinach (recipe below)

In a large bowl combine first five ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Add the chicken and let rest in the refrigerator for one hour (at the most).  Pull the chicken out and grind it on the fine setting.  Form four patties.  In a large non-stick skillet, heat olive oil and cook chicken until done.  Place each cooked patty on top of the Bake rounds, top with Caribbean Sauce and Stewed Spinach.  Serve while the chicken is hot.

Dominican “Bakes”
1½ cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons butter
¾ cup coconut milk
Vegetable oil

Combine all ingredients in a glass bowl and mix until you get a somewhat dry dough ball.

Let the dough rest for 15 minutes.  Divide the dough into four rounds about ¼ inch thick.  Heat ¼ inch of vegetable oil in a non-stick skillet until just shy of smoking.  Place rounds in oil and fry until lightly browned and golden.  Flip and cook the other side until the rounds are heated through.  Serve hot or room temperature.

Caribbean Sauce
1 cup dark rum (don’t use spiced rum, just dark rum)
1 habenero pepper seeded and quartered
3 ounces guava paste
1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar
½ teaspoon dry ground ginger
½ teaspoon garlic powder
Pinch of ground cloves
Juice of ½ lime
1 cup chopped papaya

In a small saucepan, combine rum, habenero and guava paste and cook over medium heat stirring regularly until the paste is dissolved (about 10 minutes).  Remove the habenero (you can leave it in longer if you like things really hot).  Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for another 10 minutes.  Let sauce cool a bit, then pour into a blender or food processor and pulse until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Stewed Spinach
1 small onion diced
7 scallions – white and light green parts sliced
1 large clove of garlic diced
3 cups baby spinach
½ cup coconut milk
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

In a medium skillet, heat oil and brown onion over medium heat.  Add the scallions and garlic and turn heat down to medium.  Cook for 2-3 minutes stirring regularly until beginning to soften.  Add spinach, cover and cook for 2-3 minutes until spinach wilts.  Add coconut milk, cook uncovered for 10-15 minutes.  Serve warm.

 

Dominican burger recipe

 

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in caribbean recipes, chicken burgers | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Djiboutian burger recipe

Posted on November 13, 2011 by linda

Berbere Seasoned Lamb Burgers with Berbere Ketchup and Spiced Butter Leeks
And now, we are halfway through the Ds and on our way to Djibouti.  The spelling is challenging for me, but the pronunciation is pretty simple – basically ji – boo – tee, some give it more of a ja – boo – ti, but either way, it ends with booty, which makes me smile.  Djibouti is the smallest country in the Horn of Africa.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard the expression “Horn of Africa” many times over the years and I’ve never known exactly to what it refers.  I’m filling in all sorts of gaps in my American education working on this cookbook.  The Horn of Africa is comprised of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia; it’s the pointy area on the Eastern side of the continent.  Djibouti is smack dab in the center.  It’s located right at the mouth of the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden.  Because of this location, it’s a hub for international shipping; which is a good thing because it is a country with few natural resources.  Most of the goods that travel in or out of Ethiopia travel through Djibouti (Ethiopia is the only one of the four countries to be landlocked).

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Despite the shipping business, Djibouti is not a prosperous country and the fact that Eastern Africa is currently experiencing the worst drought in 60 years, and Djibouti has become increasingly dependent upon food aide to feed its people.  This is especially true in rural areas.  About twenty five percent of the population lives in rural areas and current estimates say that 88% of this population is dependent on food aide.  Unemployment is estimated at nearly 60%.  These are difficult times for Djiboutians.

So, let’s turn to the food.  Given the country’s location, their cuisine is influenced by African, Middle Eastern and Indian flavors.  Djiboutians enjoy spice, not necessarily heat, but lots of flavor.  The use a seasoning called Berbere, which is similar to the Indian seasoning Garam Masala.  Like so many of these spice blends, there are a lot of different recipes and no singular exact recipe.  Most of the citations I found had cumin, cardamom, clove and coriander, and then they layer a bunch of other spices so that the end product is incredibly fragrant, just a little hot, but jammed with flavor.  I couldn’t find black cardamom (which is typical for Djiboutian cooking), so I substituted green cardamom.  If you plan ahead (which I clearly didn’t), you can get the black cardamom online (Penzeys, my favorite spice purveyor, carries white, green and black varieties).  This spice blend is the basis for the recipe, the flavor it gives the dish is reminiscent of Indian flavors, but the final dish does not taste Indian, it’s really hard to describe – a little perfumed, a little sweet, some heat and an undertone of herbs.

In researching Djibouti, I’ve discovered a new technique that is so simple and yet so tasty, I’m amazed I’ve never come across this idea before.  Djiboutians make ghee (clarified butter), but rather than just plain ghee, they season it.  It’s simple, but some spices in a pan with a stick of butter, melt the butter over low heat, skim the foam off the top then let the solids settle and pour off the clear butter on top.  The butter ends up infused with the flavors of whatever you cooked with it.  It’s a subtle flavor, but I ended up wanting to slather this butter on everything.

We tried the burger with both beef and lamb and lamb is definitely the way to go.  The flavor of the meat compliments the spices much better and it works with the leeks without overpowering the dish.

All told, this dish is fragrant, spicy and sweet and incredibly rich.  Another great dish for a cool autumn evening.

Djibouti Burger
1 pound ground lamb
1 teaspoon Berbere Seasoning (recipe below)
1 Tablespoon Spiced Butter (recipe below)
4 slices Naan or other flatbread
Berbere Ketchup (recipe below)
Sautéed Leeks (recipe below)

Mix ground lamb and Berbere seasoning until evenly combined.  Divide into four patties.  In a large non-stick skillet, melt 1 Tablespoon of Spiced Butter.  Fry lamb patties in butter until done to desired temperature.  Remove from pan.

Grill naan slices lightly in the same pan.  Build your burger with naan then fried patties, a scoop of Berbere ketchup then top it off with sautéed leeks.

Berbere Seasoning
1 Tablespoon whole cumin seeds
16 whole cardamom pods
1 teaspoon whole pepper corns
½ teaspoon allspice berries
½ teaspoon whole coriander seeds
1 Tablespoon ground paprika
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon ground fenugreek
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Put the first five ingredients into a small dry skillet.  Lightly toast the seeds over low heat until they are fragrant.  Let them cool then put them in a spice blender and blend until as fine as possible.  Add the other ingredients and pulse until well mixed.   Like most spice blends, this makes more than you’ll need for this recipe, but it will store in the freezer for months.

Berbere Ketchup
6 ounces tomato paste
2 Tablespoons Berbere Seasoning
3 Tablespoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
3 Tablespoons water
Salt to taste

In a small saucepan, combine all ingredients and simmer over low heat for at least 20 minutes stirring regularly.  Add more water if the sauce gets too thick.  Allow the sauce to cool to room temperature before using.

Spiced Butter (this makes extra butter, do half the recipe if you don’t want extra)
2 sticks unsalted butter
½ cup onion diced
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon garlic powder
10 whole cardamom pods
4 whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
6 whole allspice berries
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
6 saffron threads crushed
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Put all ingredients in a medium saucepan and turn heat to medium low.  Stir regularly until butter is completely melted.  Skim off any foam from the top then let the butter sit until the solids have settled to the bottom.

skimmed off foam

Pour the clear butter into a glass bowl (pour through a strainer so that no seeds get into the final clarified butter) – be careful not to get any of the solids into the bowl.

clarified butter on top, solids on bottom

Cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until ready to use.  This will keep in the refrigerator for longer than regular butter – and, the process of clarifying the butter also removes most of the lactose, so most lactose intolerant people can use it without problems (at least according to the world wide web, so it must be true, right?).

Sautéed Leeks
1 leek
2 Tablespoons Spiced Butter
Salt to taste

Clean the leek and slice in half lengthwise, then slice the white and light green parts crosswise into thin strips.  In a medium skillet, melt the spiced butter.  Add the leeks and cook over medium heat until leeks are softened.  Salt to taste.  Use while warm.

If you like this burger, try the Eritrean Burger, it’s another great burger that uses Berbere seasoning to bring it some zing!

Djiboutian burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

 

Posted in african recipes, lamb burgers | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Dannish burger recipe

Posted on November 8, 2011 by linda

Frikadeller (Danish meatball) Burgers with Pickled Red Cabbage and Remoulade Sauce
Denmark is a small country in northern Europe bordered by Germany, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea with Norway and Sweden just over the water.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

It is a member of the EU, but has not joined the Eurozone, so they don’t use the Euro.  It is one of the most prosperous and economically stable of EU countries.  The Kingdom includes the islands of Greenland and Faroe and their people are Danish citizens.  Denmark has had people living in it since around 12500 BC.  The Kingdom used to include a lot more land, including Sweden and Norway.  Over time, the Danes have had to cede territory and had various groups break away from the Kingdom so that now it occupies land equal to slightly less than twice the size of Massachusetts (not including Greenland and Faroe).  Their history is filled with Vikings and plague, neutrality and conflict and in general, Danes seem to identify more as Scandinavians than as Europeans.

Their food is a reflection of Scandinavian as well as Germanic influences.  Being part of cosmopolitan Europe, almost any kind of food is available and enjoyed in Denmark.  My husband was lucky enough to visit Denmark on business a few years ago (I couldn’t get away to join him 🙁 ), I asked him what he remembered of the food and his only firm memory was that they seemed to butter everything.  This was not a tremendous help as I set forth to figure out what to do for my Danish burger.  It becomes clear as you start researching Danish food that the Danes love dark rye bread (generally called pumpernickel here), which works well for me because I love it too.

They do make a version of a hamburger called hakkebøf.  This is basically a meatball, smooshed slightly flat and often served with potatoes and brown gravy.  This gets translated to “hamburger steak” for reasons that completely escape me.  From what I could tell the more common dish is frikadeller, which is very similar (in fact many of the recipes for these dishes contain the same ingredients).  The only difference seems to be that frikadeller usually combines two meats, while the hakkebøf is usually just beef.  So, I went with frikadeller and used a combo of pork and veal (feel free to use regular beef if you prefer).

The next thing I noticed was that there are lots of references to tarter sauce, apparently, Danes love tarter sauce.  Theirs is made with mustard so that it’s slightly yellow.  Lots of different recipes out there, but most are similar.  I added some tarragon vinegar, but you can use white wine vinegar if you don’t have tarragon vinegar handy (I usually have a jar around because whenever I buy fresh tarragon, I always have too much and hate to waste it, throw it in some white wine vinegar and put it in a jar and it keeps for, virtually, ever.  I also put some capers in because they add a nice salty zing and are used frequently in Danish cooking.

But, my favorite part of this burger is the pickled cabbage.  I need to figure out what to do with the rest of the cabbage, but I loved the fact that pickling the cabbage brought out the hot pink in it and made this the oddest looking burger I can remember.  Ok, the watermelon on the Botswana burger was pretty cool, but even it didn’t quite glow pink like the pickled cabbage.  So it looks cool, but I was pretty sure these flavors would never make anything all that interesting – I was wrong, somehow this crazy mess actually tastes good!  The tart cabbage balances the sweetness of the tarter sauce nicely and the meat comes across with lots of flavor that stands up beautifully to the dark rye.  It’s a hearty burger, but not too heavy, and perfect for the whole family.

Denmark Burger
½ pound ground pork
½ pound ground veal
1 small onion diced (approximately ½ cup)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¾ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ cup fresh bread crumbs
2 eggs slightly beaten
2 Tablespoons heavy cream
2 Tablespoons butter plus extra for the bread
Pumpernickel or dark rye bread sliced thin
Pickled Cabbage (recipe below)
Remoulade Sauce (recipe below)
1 medium onion sliced
Vegetable oil

In a medium sized bowl, combine the pork and the veal.  Add all other ingredients up to the cream and mix well.  Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour.  I made this into smaller burgers and ended up with 8 patties, you can do that or divide it into any size patties you’d like to get the right number of servings.  When you’re ready to cook, portion out the meat mixture and form ovals with the portions.  In a large non-stick pan, melt the butter.  Place the ovals into the pan and flatten them down.  Cook until completely done.

In the meantime, heat vegetable oil in a skillet until shimmering.  Add onions and cook until browned.  Set aside on paper towel until ready to use.

Butter slices of pumpernickel and place cooked patties on top.  Add some pickled cabbage and top with remoulade sauce and some of the cooked onion.

Pickled Cabbage
2 cups of red cabbage sliced thin
1½ cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon dried dill
½ teaspoon salt

In a large glass bowl, combine all ingredients.  Cover and shake well to coat everything evenly.  Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.  Shake the excess liquid off before using.

Remoulade Sauce
½ cup mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup sweet relish drained
3 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon drained capers
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon tarragon vinegar
½ teaspoon yellow mustard

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate until ready to use.

Dannish burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in european recipes, pork burgers | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments