Homemade burgers

Homemade Burgers

Cheap, simple and so tasty, homemade burgers are the business.  The ultimate comfort food, the best sandwich, washed down with a cold, cold beer, happiness at your finger tips.

The ingredients are as simple or as complicated as you want to make them, mince, onion, an egg, flavourings and some binder like breadcrumbs (or not, depending on how much of a purest you are).  That’s it.  A pound of mince will make 4 burgers, 4 x quarter pounders!  See, even the maths are easy peasy!  As there was only 2 of us for dinner, we ate two and froze two, so tucked away in the freezer is a simple supper for some busy evening.  I did not have burger buns in the freezer, but found two breakfast English muffins and they turned out to be just perfect.  I know, only in MY freezer!

Fionnuala’s Saturday Burger Dinner, Beer optional

450g/1lb beef mince

1 medium onion, finely chopped

About 50g/2oz dried breadcrumbs or two slices of bread made into crumbs.*

One egg

Level teaspoon of dried mixed herbs or fresh if you are growning your own

Salt and lots of pepper

Some fixings

A burger bun or similar (don't forget to toast it)

Cheese that melts well, I used cheddar

Some sliced onion

Lettuce (gottta get your 5 a day!)

Sliced tomato

Ketchup and/or Mayonaise or a mix of both (advanced class only)

*I cheat and always have this in my house

In a large bowl, add all the burger ingredients.  Then, clean hands in, squish all the ingredients together until well combined. 

Divide the mixture into 4 equal parts and pat down into a burger shape.  It is best not to make them too fat or they will not cook evenly.  Fry in a little oil for about four or five minutes each side until the juices run clear.  Do not squeeze all the juices out while testing as then your burger will be dry and horrible.  While the burger is doing its final cooking add some cheese on top and allow it to melt slowly.

By now, you should have your fixings out and ready to go.  I like oven chips with this, so they should be ready by now, and let everyone build their own burger. 

As the oven is on, why not add some  slices of bacon on a tray to crisp up.  Goodness knows you need the calories!

Your burger should look something like mine, if not, you will have to try again next week.

Raspberry Lemon and Frangipane Tart

I know, Yum, right?  Could there be a better mix of  ingredients that spell SUMMER??  This was my show off tart at a friends birthday.  The recipe is here

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1880/raspberry-lemon-and-frangipane-tart

but I really made this to (show off) no,  to celebrate a friends birthday.  This will make you drool

The amount of washing it creates will make you faint.  Was it worth it ?  Yes!  My friend said, "Look at all the work you went to, sitting up those raspberries!"  If only she knew!  That took five seconds.

I did not get a great picture of a cut slice, but my friends don't hang about.  Spoons aloft, I had to take a quick snap.  

Here is my report as I went through the steps

Well, half way! There are lots of parts to this recipe. So far, I have the pastry chilling. It is drier than my usual recipe and looks as if it will be hard to roll out. But it is sitting in the fridge at the moment, awaiting the next layers.

Next, I have made the lemon cream. This is cooling with the cling film lid on it. It has both cornflour and plain flour in it and I might have prefered cornflour on its own as it seems to have an 'floury' taste to it at the moment. However, no panic, as it will be cooked again.

Also, the frangipane layer is made and sitting awaiting the piping bag. All this done and I am only half way!!!!

Now to the washing up. I seem to have used every dish and bowl in the house.

The next day.....

The pastry was incredibly difficult to roll out, so short, it just became a heap of crumbs when I tried. So I went for my other method of rolling it into a log and slicing off coin sized pieces and placing them on the tin and pressing them together. I saw Matt Tebbutt do this and I think Jamie Oliver also and though I had never tried this myself before, it worked very well here. There was no way of rolling this pastry out any other way. All in all I prefer my own biscuit pastry recipe and would not try this one again.

The filling were easy to do as described and cooked beautifully together. I did lower the temperature for the last five minutes of cooking.

The topping went on well and it was only as I was placing the raspberries that I realised I had misread the recipe and only bought 2 x 150g of raspberries and not the 5 stated in the recipe. So I was a bit short on raspberries! I thought I did not have enough to make the jam topping and the warm jam would drop down and melt into the cream, so I sprinkled chocolate over the tart and it looked divine. Good save!

The taste was fantastic, everybody raved about it. Biscuit, lemon, almonds, cream and raspberries, how could it go wrong? I would make it again but with a different biscuit pastry recipe.

Cold plates

No cooking at all, at all!

Sometimes you just don’t need to cook to have some lovely food in front of you.  When I feel like this I turn to the fantastic pig.  I think I could live without other meats, if I was left on a desert island with a pig and a few sharp knives!!!

Maybe I need a few more courses before I can produce all the lovely food that a pig has to offer, sausages, rashers, pate, hams.  Thankfully in the mean time there is the English Market in Cork and some wonderful artisan producers.  On the Pig’s Back, Iagos and the ABC bread company sell most of what was in front of me tonight.

Just because you are not cooking, does not mean that you can just shove it on the table any old way.  I recently bought some wooden table mats just for this purpose, and Yes Cian, I was practicing for a dinner party!  This is not a complicated presentation, but I think  it looks well.  The addition of some chutney, made last year from these recipes complimented everything and nothing more to do but open a nice bottle of red.  Pretty darn fantastic, even thought I say so myself 

Student Chicken

Chicken in Tomato Sauce with Pasta

I could give this a fancy name, but I want to stress how easy this recipe is.  This is my contribution to student cooking, fast, easy, good for you and cheap!  All the ingredients are available in Lidl or Aldi, it’s a step up from adding bottle sauce to cooked chicken but above all it tastes so much better and you will feel like a pro.  Ok, you need to act like a grown up and buy some store cupboard ingredients like oregano and basil and hopefully a block of parmesan, but these will last for ages and you will have something to look at on your shelves on Thursday nights, before you head back to Mammy at the weekend. 

For two people (you know that makes sense!)

2 chicken breasts or 4/5 legs or thighs, skin off

1 portion of bacon bits (half that pack of smoked bacon bits you get in Aldi or Lidl)(optional, but do it anyway)

A little oil for frying

1 meduim onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed and finely chopped

1 small red pepper, cut into pieces, no seeds

8 to 10 mushrooms sliced

1 can of tomatoes, chopped if they are not chopped already

1 tablespoon of tomato puree, (buy the tube not the small cans and you can store it in the fridge)

Teaspoon of dried oregano

Pinch of dried Basil

1 chicken stock cube

To serve,

100g pasta per person, cooked in boiling water

Some grated parmesan

Cut the chicken into small pieces so they will cook evenly and quickly.  Fry the bacon pieces in a little oil over medium heat, and then add the chicken pieces.  Turn them over so that they brown on all sides.  After a minute or two add the chopped onion, garlic, red pepper and mushrooms.  Turn everything over in the oil and continue cooking until the vegetables begin to collapse. 

Add the tin of tomatoes, the puree, the chicken stock cube and about half a can of water.  Finally add the oregano and the basil, rubbing them through the palm of your hand to release the flavours and make you look more like Jamie Oliver.

You don’t need to add any more salt as there is quite a lot of salt in stock cubes, but feel free to add pepper if you like.  A pinch and I mean a pinch of chilli flakes are good too.  But that is for second year!

Serve over the cooked pasta with some grated parmesan on top.  Phone Mum and tell her what a healthy student you are!

(PS Clean your board, your knife and your hands with HOT water after chopping raw chicken.)

Rhubarb and Orange Cake with Flaked Almonds

Rhubarb and Orange Cake with Flaked Almonds

When my son was growing up he used to tease me if I produced a special dinner on a week night, “Practicing for a dinner party, Mom?”  He was often correct, but it became a little joke between us when anything a tiny bit special was produced.  But therein lies the first rule of the dinner party, never cook something for guests that you have not cooked before.  It is not the night for trying out that recipe that looked great in the book, but you are not sure if you can manage all the steps.  You will just get flustered when you should be sipping wine with your guests.  As sipping wine with my friends is one of my all time favourite things to do, I limit the work and stress of entertaining by cooking things I know that work, and that I can cook without too much effort. 

If you want to go all out and do three courses, then either buy one course or get a guest to bring one.  For my last dinner party I bought fishcakes to serve with (bought) sweet chilli sauce, roasted a belly of pork and made this fantastic rhubarb cake for dessert.  Start practicing this one while the rhubarb is in season.  It is also a great dessert to carry to a dinner party if you are asked to bring something.  I found this recipe when I asked that very question, “What is an easy dessert to carry to a dinner party?” on this forum, where I hang out talking about food, not as boring as you might think, well each to their own!!

You will find the recipe here

http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/r/rhubarb_and_orange_cake_with_flaked_almonds.html

EVERYDAY FRUIT CAKE/HARVEST FRUIT LOAF

It’s been a bit hectic at work and the home cooking front has slipped a bit at the moment.  I seem to be making endless supplies of brown bread as the B+B business gets into full swing and home dinners and baking are on the back burner.  When I do produce something zinging, I forget to take photos! Doh!  No point telling you about the fantastic roast belly of pork dinner we had on Sunday, now is there?  Scoffed before anyone got a camera out!  Other fantastic meals include plain grilled meat, garden salad and some fantastic new potatoes.  Not top end cuisine, but really good summer food.  Herbs picked between the rain showers are really livening up the ordinary, mint on new potatoes is just fantastic and gone is the butter in favor of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice – lip smacking!

So, I was turning on the oven for garlic bread (the new Kerrygold garlic bread is just sooo yummy, buttery, garlicky mmmm) and OH appeared with a hangdog look and suggested I make “something nice for a cup of tea”.  So here is my

EVERYDAY FRUIT CAKE/HARVEST FRUIT LOAF

I made three 1lb loaf tin cakes out of this, but half the recipe will make a 2lb loaf tin cake or a deep 6 or 7 inch cake. 

Pre heat the oven to 170c/325f or gas 3

1lb/450g self raising flour

8oz/225g butter, stork or suitable spread (it has to say suitable for baking on the container)

8oz/225g of sugar, any type or a mixture will do, I used some brown and some granulated

12oz/375g mixed dried fruit

A few glace cherries if you have them

Teaspoon of mixed spice

4 large eggs

6 tablespoons/90ml milk

I prepared the tins by lining them with greaseproof inserts.  Or grease and flour your tins.

Sieve the flour into a large bowl and add your butter or substitute.  Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. 

Stir in the sugar fruits and spices.  Beat the eggs  with the milk and stir into the dry ingredients. 

If you feel the mixture is too stiff, add more milk.  It should be quit soft and drop off a spoon.

Bake in a preheated oven for 40 to 45 mins for the loaf tin size and for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 for the larger cakes.  It is done when a skewer comes out clean.  Leave in the tin for 10 minutes.  The extra cakes freeze well, but not in our house.  OH did not even wait the ten minutes for it to cool!

Grilled Flatcap Mushrooms

Nothing I cook is very ‘cheffy’ or requires too much time and attention.  I am all for flavor and kicking it up a notch or two.  This recipe delivers on minimum effort/maximum taste and is a quick lunch on those days you want something tasty and not too much trouble.  (That’s every day in my house).  It makes a nice starter too, though some guests have a thing about mushrooms and fall at the first fence when confronted with two large ones!  I love mushrooms and include them in everything I can. 

It is a Paul Flynn recipe from the Tannery Cookery School, by far my favourite place to spend a week.  Paul is one of my food heroes, working with the best of ingredients and just letting them shine.  There is nothing on his course that is outside the abilities of the interested novice, but my goodness, the flavours! 

Paul Flynn’s Grilled Flatcap Mushrooms with Rocket and Parmesan

Serves 4 as a starter or a light lunch

8 medum flatcap or large mushrooms stems removed

2oz/50g butter

2 cloves of garlic crushed

30ml olive oil

splash of balsamic vinegar

Bag of Rocket

100g grated fresh parmesan cheese (NOT the ready grated dust!)

2oz/50g toasted pine nuts (or flaked almonds)

Salt and pepper.

Toast the nuts in a dry pan over a medium heat until they are slightly browned.  Put aside. Pan fry the mushroom and garlic in the olive oil  and butter over a medium heat.  (Not too hot or the garlic will burn – not nice!)

When nearly cooked add a dash of balsamic vinegar.  Season with salt and pepper.  Place the cooked mushrooms in a covered bowl for 15 minutes.  The mushrooms with secrete their juices to mingle with the garlic, oil and butter.  This will make your dressing.

Arrange the mushrooms on warm plates.  Place the rocket on top.  Drizzle over the dressing and sprinkle the parmesan and nuts on top. 

Serve with some good bread to mop up the juices.

(Paul recommends a drizzle of truffle oil on the mushrooms while resting in the bowl, but nobody has given me any for Christmas yet)