… or how to smoke your
neighbors out of their apartments and into yours…. Or how I discovered I need a
new grill.
Good news everyone! (welcome back Futurama) We cooked again
and it was delicious, and with a very nice feedback from our neighbors that,
despite the smoke, asked us what we were cooking. This recipe feels like it
should be cooked outside, but we managed to pull together nicely (sort of) with
our trusty, old grill.
For the burgers:
500 grams
of minced beef meat,
1 large egg,
1 tbs of chopped fresh thyme,
salt, pepper,
spicy smoked paprika,
1 tbs of mustard,
4 tbs of bread crumbs.
Mix all the
ingredients together by hand, until they are all evenly distributed. Next, make
some golf sized balls of the meat, that you flat into patties of about 2 cm
thickness. Put them on a plate, sprinkle with olive oil and put in the fridge
(this helps the ingredients bind). Cook the burgers of a very hot grill, medium
heat, for 4-5 minutes on each side.
For the corn, drum roll
please: you put it on a very hot grill and turn it when it starts to get some
nice charred marks. For the corn, I mixed up some butter with some dried
chipotle flakes, salt and dried garlic powder and topped the cob with this mix.
The spicy kick and the also slightly sweet and smoky texture of the chilli went
really well with the charred corn and the garlic taste, definitely something I
will cook again.
For the salad:
200 grams of
broccoli flowers,
200 grams of green beans (I used both yellow and green),
half
of a large, ripe tomato,
lemon juice,
olive oil,
salt, pepper,
dried chipotle
flakes (or a fresh medium hot red chilli, finely diced),
2-3 garlic cloves.
Creating this may require some timing so, try and get everything to the finish
line in about the same time. Boil the beans in salted water until they are just
al dente, max 15 minutes, it takes considerably less if the beans are freshly
picked or very young; remove from the water and set aside.
For the broccoli,
boil them in the green bean water for 2 minutes, leave them to dry out a bit,
the coat them with oil and chipotle flakes and grill the broccoli flowers on
the super hot grill until you get some nice marks. Cut the garlic into fine
slices and fry them for 30 seconds in hot olive oil, quickly remove from the
oil, the garlic will continue to cook even then and you want to make sure you
get some nice (tiny) golden garlic chips. Cut the tomato, put the broccoli,
beans and garlic on top and sprinkle some chopped sour weed (sheep's sorrel, red sorrel, field sorrel), after which pour some
lemon juice and olive oil on the salad (don’t forget the salt and pepper and
the red chilli, if you’re using that).
The heat from the beans and broccoli
will almost melt a very ripe tomato and sourness of the sorrel will bring a
very nice kick to the dish.
Plate everything and grab
yourself a nice, cold beer, you deserve it. After all you’ve made the neighbours
notice you, and that can only be good…. Right?
Take care,
Mr. G.
