The Bison Burgers

While he hasn't posted any of his banked entries yet, my friend Sal has just started Sal Eats Jeremy's Dinner. This blog will chronicle Sal's eating of my dinner, in case you didn't catch that from its name. Sal runs an independent IT business, bartends at one of my favourite local haunts, and between the two of us we basically know everyone in Astoria. He's also a frequent guest at dinner and probably my best friend.

Praise being done, I had Sal over for some bison burgers and hand-cut fries the other night.

Two potatoes met their end to my sharp chef's knife.

Bison patties mixed with diced jalapenos and salt and pepper cooking with some sliced onion.

The final juicy product topped with fried onions, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, dijon mustard, and ketchup on a sesame seed bun.

Sal and I were trading songs on Spotify afterward and enjoying some Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA. If it wouldn't kill me I'd drink that all day every day.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Metric - Collect Call.

The Black Prince Chicken

This week I have two somewhat ad hoc recipes for you. Last night I was tired after a long weekend doing nothing. Seriously. It was the first weekend in a long time upon which I had no plans. First was an ice cream social party with the fine folks of Reddit Astoria. Saturday I had the Thrifty Sifter, my friend GM, and a friend of his over for lamb burgers. Sorry folks, but I didn't photograph this meal. The reviews were great, though.

Sunday was spent lazily with Ms. Thrifty Sifter in the park. The bad Sifter hasn't updated in a while, but I'm probably distracting her with fun swinging in hammocks in the park. She left for her abode and it was time for me to make dinner. I still had pearl onions (frozen) from The Chicken Pot Pie and I still had waffle fries left over from the lamb burgers.

Of course I wanted to use my trusty iron skillet, so I settled on some inexpensive, bone-in chicken breasts at the grocery. That's the fine folks at Key Food. When you get a chance, take a look at their Recipe of the Day page.

You know what else I have laying around? The Black Prince peppers from my dried chilies entry. Enter my cheapo mortar and pestle from Key Food rival C-Town. They also have a recipe page, but I digress.

To prepare, add two dried chilies to the mortar.

You'll also want (from left to right on my recipe shelf) standard adobo (about a tablespoon), Coleman's dry mustard (about a teaspoon), and cumin (about a tablespoon). 

Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 450. I didn't use a baking sheet, just placed the waffle fries and a dozen and a half pearl onions (still frozen) in a stainless steel pan. I'll admit it: this was totally lazy and didn't work out all that well. The onions are great roasted and the waffle fries are, of course, just fine out of the over, but...they really didn't work all that well together.

Next time stuff a baked potato with roasted pearl onions. I bet that will do the trick.

 Back to our pestling already in progress. I think you can guess what to do with this...

I did not separate the skin from the chicken here like I normally do for roasting chicken. The mixture was simply rubbed over every available surface. 

Heat up about three tablespoons of oil in the skillet and then place the chicken in. I did about 20 minutes per side as these were fat breasts. To distract you from what I just said, make sure to watch this episode on cooking oils from Alton Brown's "Good Eats."

Even after a weekend of carousing I was famished. So before the main course I made a simple salad with leftover toppings from the lamb burger enterprise. Part of a beefsteak tomato, half a small onion, and some iceberg lettuce. Topped with olive oil, salt, fresh ground pepper, and cider vinegar, I was pleased. 

And here's the finished product. I'm going to have to try a Black Prince pepper fresh at some point as what I made here made it difficult to distinguish its flavour. The heat wasn't overpowering and I feel the spices mixed well. However, this isn't one of my best impromptu recipes (though it did lead to tomorrow's entry which was). 

Your soundtrack for this entry: Rotting Christ - Aealo (This whole album is quality, but the opener is a classic.)

The Veal Burgers

One of the problems with starting a blog before you go on vacation is that once you've started it you go on vacation. I've spent the last couple of weeks preparing for and taking a camping vacation to the Grand Canyon and Arizona with the Thrifty Sifter and just got back last night. Jeremy did do some cooking on that camping trip and Ms. YVB wants me to post pictures. Maybe I will, though I claim pictures of Annie's Mac and Cheese can't be that interesting.

Today I planned my regular kickball game in Astoria Park. Congruent with the World Cup final, we had the bare minimum number of players. Worn out I returned home to shower before going to Hellgate Social as we normally do after kickball for cheap eats, good beer, and fun folks. Of course, once showered and drying off I felt worn out from my vacation and traveling. Instead of going out, I decided to grab grub makings and cook.

For most of my life my father had a few dishes he cooked for dinner. None of them were complex and, all in all, they were each quite tasty. One of these was the burger. His main trick involved using salt, pepper, and veal baby food in mixing his patties. Most people think this is weird because you're putting baby food in a burger. I think it's weird because they make human baby food made out of cow babies. Either way that stuff holds the burger together well and makes it taste great.

Tonight I decided to make veal burgers with an apple-celery slaw. No side dish since, seriously, a pair of burgers are quite enough food.

For burgers:

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 portobella mushroom caps, halved
• a few tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 small package of ground veal

For slaw:

• 2 celery ribs
• 1/2 Granny Smith apple, cored (left unpeeled)
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar

First I got my onion and mushrooms prepped for the blender. Peeled and halved, an onion and two mushroom caps make an excellent face.

Gotta finely chop them funguses and funyuns. Pulse just a few times and you're done.

Cook it all up in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil for about ten minutes (until the liquid has boiled off).

Once cooked, take it off the heat and let it cool off in a bowl for a while. Don't let it get cold!

Whilst you're awaiting the completion of the above liquids' evaporation, why not begin construction of your celery-apple slaw? I did.

Putting the shredder on the food processor, I ran the pair of celery ribs and the half of the apple through. Were I to do this again, I'd use the whole apple, but had assumed it would add too much liquid.

Next I whisked together some mayo (sorry Gianmichael), whole grain brown mustard, vinegar, salt, and sugar. Like the above-mentioned GM I dislike mayonnaise, but am not so orthodox that I can't have it in the occasional foodstuff as an ingredient.

Put this aside for about twenty minutes so all the good stuff can meld together flavourfully.













At this point it was time for a drink.

This was a Carivin Reserve tempranillo from 2007. It smells much fruitier than it tastes. Honestly, I picked it because the foil was a nice red (yes, I sometimes pick wines by the way they look). It worked out again as this wine was fantastico.

As you can see above, it's time to start mixing the veal and the mushroom/onion mixture.

This'll make about four patties (two for tomorrow night's dinner).

Finally got to break out my cast iron skillet for the first time!

Burgers cooked and deployed on some nice poppy seed knots I found at the Key Food.

Topped with celery-apple slaw.

The final product is tasty, juicy, and somewhat different from your normal burger. Definitely making this recipe for other folks for dinner.

Damn, still making me nommy four hours later.

Your soundtrack for this entry is the Benea Reach album Alleviat.