Homemade Burger Patties

Ola blog readers!  How kind of you to stick around in my silence - for that I am ever grateful.  

Currently I have some free time on my hands, while I job hunt for full time work now that I have finished university forever (YAY) I can start with some more recipes and things I've been getting up to, food wise!

Mum got some bread rolls out for lunch, forgetting we had leftovers to eat up, so I wanted to do something with them for dinner while they were still fresh.  I decided to make hamburgers.  Never mind that last night we had homemade pizza - homemade takeaways are THE BEST, right?!  Can never have it too often if it's homemade, with good quality ingredients!

This is merely a recipe for the meat patties, as opposed to the whole burger, because I figure you are all smart enough to ad-lib there, with salads and sauces and such.  The world is your oyster, try anything!  It's pretty hard to make a bad burger combination.

INGREDIENTS

500g mince meat
1 tsp beef stock powder dissolved in 1/4 cup water
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp tomato sauce
1 egg (lightly beaten)
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
salt
parsley

METHOD

A horrible photo, I can't work out how to rotate it

• Essentially just mix it all together in a bowl with your hands to make sure everything gets nice and mixed up
• However, I added the egg, sauces, powders, etc. together first to make a saucey thing then mixed in the mince, so things would be evenly distributed, but just use your noggin, whatever works for you
• Separate out into how many (or few) patties you want.  There are 3 of us in our family, so I made 6, for 2 burgers each.  They were quite thick and big though, so could easily be made into more!
• Grill, BBQ or George Foreman until cooked all the way through!!

 
These came out DELICIOUS but wow so filling!  Next time I shall make perhaps 12 patties, thinner, and then freeze half!!  Great way to make meat go a long way though!

Recipe Inspiration: http://www.kiwiwise.co.nz/recipe/beef-burger

Tender Beef Brisket

I've been putting off writing about the brisket I made, and I'm not entirely sure why.  I think I'm getting a bit tired of writing.  Not tired of cooking, just the writing bit.  It takes me about half an hour to do each post, and I've been too busy cooking to sit down and write about it! ;)  Plus, I often write when the TV is on in the background etc. and I've been finding that way too hard... so I need to make time to sit down without TV, just with some good music playing softly so I can concentrate on what I'm saying.  Otherwise it's all jumbled and can easily not make sense!!

Anyway, back to the food.  Brisket is a cut of beef (from the neck, I believe) where there is a lot of marbling in the meat, so you have to cook it looong and sloooow so that it melts the marbling stuff and the meat falls apart.  I've mostly associated brisket with Jewish cooking in the past, and I've never cooked it before and had no idea where to start.  I think this Jewish stereotype comes from The Big Bang Theory possibly, where Howard's mom is legendary for her brisket.

I searched on Pinterest for brisket recipes, and came up with two possibilities I could use.  First was one that used an entire bottle of ketchup mixed with a packet of onion soup, and baked slowly for 4 hours.  The second one is the one I used.  I chose it because I liked that it used a range of ingredients (while still being simple), and I didn't trust the simplicity of the first one.

INGREDIENTS

1 brisket (we used 1.1kg, which is smaller than the original recipe suggested, but it was still good - lots of sauce!  They said around 1.8kg)

2 large onions

2 medium carrots

10 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole

2 cups tomato juice

1 cup red wine

1 cup beef stock

salt and pepper

baking paper and tin foil

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180 deg C
• Season the brisket with salt and pepper and place in a LARGE glass/ceramic oven proof dish (9x13 size, the original recipe suggests)
• Top with diced onion, carrots, and garlic cloves, and sprinkle with some more salt and pepper
• Pour over tomato juice, beef stock and wine, making sure it comes up at least halfway on the brisket; if not, add some more broth(the size we used was small, the sauce covered the whole thing! LOL)
• Cover with a rectangle of baking paper that sits just inside the edges of the pan
• Cover the dish tightly with tin foil
• Put in the oven and leave for 3 & 1/2 to 4 hours
• Remove from the oven and take off the covers carefully (watch out - the sauce bubbles madly!)
• Use tongs/fork to make sure the meat is tender (it will come apart easily along the grain of the meat if it is!), and cut into 4 or 5 manageable chunks (if brisket was whole to begin with) and let cool slightly
• Pour the sauce into a saucepan and cook at a high simmer for 5 - 10 mins over medium-high heat, to cook off any remaining alcohol, and to reduce and thicken the sauce for more concentrated flavours, stirring occasionally
• Mix 3 tablespoons cornflour with 3 tablespoons cold water, and add to the sauce to thicken more if necessary
• Put the sauce and brisket back together, and serve!

So this turned out like a casserole, and it was delicious.  We ate it with potato bake and steamed green vegetables - broccoli and peas.  In the sauce, the wine wasn't overpowering or anything, and the garlic cloves were like little nuggets of gold hidden among the meat!  The onion and carrot was a nice change in texture, and the meat itself melted in my mouth.  Delicious!  Going to make this again if we ever get another cheap cut of brisket!!

Recipe Inspiration: http://tummyrumblr.tumblr.com/post/4988668577/pimpin-aint-easy

My Version of Beef Stroganoff

It was a bit miserable and cold yesterday, and I had gotten some beef blade steak out the day or so before, so it was perfect casserole comfort food weather.   I decided to make a stroganoff from scratch, because there was a can of sliced mushrooms in the pantry that has been annoying me for ages (I couldn't think how I was going to use it) and also because it was the only recipe I found online that specifically stated using beef blade steak.  I didn't want to cook it wrong and have tough meat... nobody likes that!  However, the recipe I found seemed a bit boring and bland, so I based my casserole off it, but I added a few other things that I found had been written in other stroganoff recipes.  

So really, my version of beef stroganoff is a combination of several recipes, plus a little improvising from myself.  I was a little unsure about how it would turn out, but it was actually quite nice.  We ate it with rice and fresh steamed broccoli.

Serves 3-4

INGREDIENTS

400g beef blade steak, diced

2 onions, sliced

1 x small can of sliced mushrooms (in sauce, but I removed most of the excess sauce)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon paprika

1 & 1/4 cups vegetable stock

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 carrot, diced small

2 medium potatoes, diced small

sprinkle of onion salt or garlic salt

frozen peas (quantity up to you!)

bay leaf (optional, can be added to sauce)

dried thyme (optional, can be added to sauce)

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons cornflour mixed w 2 tablespoons cold water (to thicken, at the end)

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C
• Place diced beef, onions, mushrooms, potatoes, and carrots in a casserole dish
• In a separate jug, mix vegetable stock, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, onion/garlic salt, garlic and paprika together
• Pour the sauce mixture over the meat and vegetables, and stir through to make sure it's all through
• Cover and cook for 1 & 1/2 hours in the oven (or until meat is tender), stirring once or twice during cooking, and tasting the sauce at least once, so seasoning can be adjusted if needed
• When almost ready to serve, mix through cornflour to thicken the sauce, and add sour cream
• Add frozen peas, stand for 2 minutes to allow the casserole to heat the peas through, and serve!

Goes beautifully with rice for a lighter meal, or mashed potato for real winter comfort food!!  Can also be served over pasta.  And if you don't have sour cream on hand, don't panic!  Normally when making stroganoff (out of a packet) we leave out the sour cream and it's still delicious!

I know I kinda blurred the line here a little bit between stroganoff (mushroom based, usually no carrots or potatoes) and Hungarian goulash (which traditionally has potatoes and carrots in it) but I just felt like the dish needed something a little extra, vegetable-wise, and the peas added at the end gave it a nice bit of greenery (along with the steamed broccoli) and freshness.

Recipe Inspiration: http://www.foodinaminute.co.nz/Recipes/Beef-Stroganoff