Cheeseburger – somewhat different

I am not a usually cheeseburger lover but we have been experimenting with various burger recipes lately. One idea I cam accross few weeks ago in the magazine “Beef” was the idea of adding cheese and sliders to the Ham directly before forming the patties.

I have been doing this now for a few times and it turned out to be really nice. I take the minced beef, add salt, pepper, onion power and garlic powder, then usually cheddar to taste, some fresh chillis for the male version of the burger, sometimes even some liquid smoke. Then I mix everthing and form the patties (for the male version I usually end up between 250 and 300g per patty). Then just prepare the burger as usual.

I really like the burger this way now – they consistently are very juicy and flavorful – so, give it a shot if you like burger!

Ribs

As I was asked yesterday about the recipe for ribs (and maybe the ColeSlaw), let me just quickly get this done.

So, we all love ribs. And I am personally convinced, Ribs are the typical “low and slow” dish, meaning they need one important thing: Time to cook.

As I wanted to do ribs for weeks now, and I finally got some yesterday, we decided to cook them, although I would usually dryRub them the night before and let them sit in the fridge for 12 hours or so. This time, I cheated in 2 ways really, nevertheless, the result was good.

So, after removing the silver skin from the inner side of the ribs (important!!!!), I basically used the same rub I would do normally, consisting of brown sugar, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt (I used smoked salt this time), pepper, cumin and a bit of cinnamon. To make it a bit more effective on the ribs, I mixed the rub with oil and used a cooking brush to get it on the ribs. (cheat 1)

The ribs went on my gas grill (cheat 2). lowest heat, only one burner going at around 130°C. Then I cooked them for 4.5 hrs. After that, they were absolutely tender. That’s all. I turned them in the middle upside down and as I was only using one burner, also turned them around 3 times. Also – 2 hrs before eating I did put BBQ sauce on the ribs.

For the Coleslaw: I cut white cabbage into small stripes, added sliced carrots and celery. One onion and Mayonaise (plus salt and pepper). That needs then at least 1 hour to sit.

The result was amazing!

Pork shanks

It has been a while since I shared an incredible dish. Honestly, I am not short on great food, but I didn’t really feel that I should write about how I cook a simple steak – but maybe I should?!?!

Anyway, this is about pork shanks. Not that I am culturally very much into it as I do not live in Bavaria. But a few years ago this started out as a joke somehow and now usually I do shanks once a year.

So last Thursday way the time this year. We had 9 shanks, totalling around 14kg for 8 adults and 2 kids….

The seasoning of the shanks is as simple as it can be – salt, pepper, garlic, caraway seed, some paprika. That’s it. But it is important to cut through the skin before the shanks are cooked so the fat can drip out. Usually I would do rhombuses ….

To cook the shanks, I put them on the grill for 3.5 hrs (remember, each one was 1400g / 3 pounds) at about 150°C indirect heat. Turn them once in a while – I used my Genesis this time….

As a side we served bread dumplings and bavarian cabbage.

The cabbage was also very simple – cut onions and white cabbage. I used pork fat to fry the onions until soft and add some sugar to cramamelize the onions, then add the cabbage and fry for a few min. Add salt, pepper and caraway seeds to taste. I then added some roasted bacon, you can also add the bacon as first thing and fry it on the same pan.

Finally add vegatable broth and let the whole thing simmer for 25 – 45 min. The longer, the softer the cabbage gets. If you like you can also add some starch dissolved in water to thicken the sauce.

That’s about it. The food came out great, I just need to confess that I seem to get old as I had to fight finish the shank ….

Japanese influenced flank steak

One of the dishes that I used as an excuse to start this blog was a nice steak I had done last weekend.

I am usually more a fan of Ribeye steak, rather than flank. But as I had done a nice flank few weeks ago (need to write about the recipe as well soon), I came across this nice idea in “Fire & Food” where they had a special on flank steaks.

The whole idea of this dish is pretty simple. I didn’t marinate the Steak at all (I had 1kg, 3 pieces) but only seasoned it with Togarashi. To my surpise I was able to get the spice at Metro. Otherwise I would have simply mixed it.

After seasoning the meat and letting it rest for about 15 min, I grilled it medium rare.

When serving, we dipped the pieces into Ponzu sauce which added the special flavor to the meat. I basically mixed the ingredients, hard to go wrong when you taste it here and there.