I had half a potato leftover from this morning's Spanish Omelette, and my wife tells me we need to use up the bag of onions in our kitchen, so I got some ground beef, and made myself a burger and some fries.
Let me start with the fries. I took my half-potato and sliced it into strips. Then I heated up a little bit of olive oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat (I tried high heat this morning, and got smoke -- lesson learned), and essentially stir-fried the strips of potato. This is still a bit of a wonder to me. I always associate fries with vats of oil and a huge mess, but this was remarkably easy. The fries came out nice and soft on the inside, but could have been a little crispier on the outside. Next time, I'll turn the heat up just a notch, and hope I don't get smoke again. Still, they tasted good.
So, on to the burger. I started with somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of a pound of lean ground beef, and added a few things: half a slice of chopped onion (not much progress on the bag, but it's just me tonight, so I did what I can), a small clove of finely chopped garlic, and some Gorgonzola cheese crumbles that I found in the fridge. The resulting patty got place in my new Foreman grill* at 350 degrees for 7 minutes. This proved to be a bit too much time, as the burger ended up a bit dry. The Gorgonzola flavor remained, though, and was quite good.
No real veggies in this meal, for which I will no doubt be taken to task, but nevertheless, pretty satisfying. I'll definitely try these again, making a few tweaks in the process.
*Story about the grill: Recently both our old grill and our roommate's grill had some issues. We had a big grill, which developed a dead spot on the top cooking plate. He had a small one, on which the top plate died completely. Both were several years old (his much older than ours), and were well-used. They were also a pain in the elbow to clean, because they had to be done by hand, and, of course, couldn't be immersed. Shortly after the little grill died, Target had a sale on the newest generation of Foreman grills. So we donated ours to Goodwill, tossed the roommate's in the trash, and got a new grill. Two advantages: First, we gained a little bit of much-needed shelf-space, and second, the new grill has cooking plates that can be removed and put in the dishwasher!
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3 comments:
With burgers, it's generally better to have a higher proportion of fat to the meat. That should help to keep it from getting too dry, in addition to not overcooking.
Personally, I'm a fan of using those powdered ranch dressing mixes with a bit of garlic in my burgers. You could also try adding a little Worcestershire to the meat.
Hope this helps.
Years ago, when I used to cook fries in a french fryer (vat of oil) I found that they would be crispier if twice-cooked. The oil should be at 375 degrees, then cook the potatoes until they are done. They won't be crisp. Take them out of the oil and let it return to 375 degrees (it cools a lot when you first add the potatoes. Then finish them off by cooking until crisp. Just like McDonald's--they do it that way, too.
That's neat! In this case, I was just pan-frying, but I'll remember that if I ever get to frying in oil. More stuff to think on...
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