|
|
|
How to make the best burger ever By MARY JANE HOLT
The response to my recent inquiry about where to find an old-fashioned sunbonnet has been incredible. Thank you! When I am finished checking out all the recommendations that have come in, I will follow up and tell you about them.
In the meantime, I must share something with you. I made the most scrumptious hamburgers over the weekend! In fact, a friend who went to the Cotton Pickin' Fair in Gay with me on Sunday said the burger was the best she had ever had.
Even allowing for the fact that after skipping breakfast, and trying to keep up with a soon to be five year old who was fascinated by just about everything this year, thus prompting us to be quite famished upon returning home, so much so that almost anything would have been good to eat, it still really was great burger.
A while back, I had been told by a very accomplished cook that I should not buy lean ground beef for hamburgers. Go for high fat content, she had said.
So I did. For the first time ever, I bought my high fat content ground beef on Saturday evening, along with a Lipton onion soup mix and Kraft Hickory smoked barbeque sauce. I thoroughly mixed a half bottle of the sauce and one packet of the soup mix, along with a very generous grinding of fresh black pepper into the four pounds of meat. I then made my patties and refrigerated them overnight.
The next day, when we three girls walked in from the fair and announced that we were starved, the guys informed us they were "full." After having slept in, they had just finished breakfast. Thus I could not bring myself to ask my hubby to crank up the grill.
That's how I came to cook the burgers on top of the stove. Yes, I smelled up the house and even smoked it up a bit. To the buns that embraced our well done and ever so slightly charred burgers I added only a slice of American cheese and a generous slathering of mayo and mustard.
Betty took a bite. Elise bit into her burger. I started on mine. Our eyes lit up. We took another bite. On the third mouthful, Betty uttered the words, "This is the best burger I have ever had."
It was! For me, too! Don't know if it was the soup mix, barbeque sauce, and black pepper combo or frying it on top of the stove in an old-fashioned iron skillet, but something made a difference.
Later in the day, we had a really awesome smoothie that I decided would have complemented our burgers well earlier. It consisted of two bananas, one to one and a half cups frozen vanilla yogurt, a cup and a half of orange juice with heavy pulp and ice cubes to taste blended on high speed until smooth. The mixture makes two tall glasses of extra thick, energy boosting enjoyment. Try it.
On the previous Sunday, after church I had baked homemade macaroni and cheese and was going to share the recipe for that dish with you as well. I had a house full of company and all who gathered at the table said it was the best mac and cheese ever. (Could I be on a roll?) My son made me promise I would not forget what I had done to make it happen. He insisted that I write down the recipe.
I said "later."
I forgot.
Now, I have to go back to the grocery and find the same brand of semolina macaroni and pray that the basic recipe I worked from is still printed on the package. I actually do recall that I added eight ounces of sour cream that was not called for and I also added two extra cups of cheddar cheese.
It did turn out to be about the creamiest macaroni and cheese I had ever eaten. Though mac and cheese is not a favorite dish of mine, I agreed with those who raved about this effort. If I can just recreate it, and write it down this time, I will pass it on at a later date.
I have thoroughly enjoyed so many of my recent e-mails from you folks to me at mjhcolumn@aol.com. Feel free to keep them coming or leave me a message at 770-460-5000. I'm enjoying getting to know you better!
|
||