Sunday, June 15, 2008

Can a Hamburger be Gourmet?

Why not? You see enough of them in restaurants for $10 or more!

My wife read an article in a food magazine that had a fancy recipe for hamburger patties - we took parts of that and modified a little.

 

We minced sweet onions, mushrooms and yes, even carrot.

The original recipe calls for roasted garlic too - that sounds fantastic, but we didn't get that far. Although, the first time we made these I did add crushed garlic, and that was a nice touch.

 

Tossed these on the hot grill and cooked through to just passed FDA recommended internal temperature of 160 degrees.

 

Toasted up wheat buns on the grill.

Add some fresh cut cheddar to melt, add your favorite toppings...YUM

 

This is the way to have a burger. Just a little extra work, but worth it.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Grillin' Some Lamb

We got a lamb shoulder chop (0.6 lbs) to bring out to my dad's for Father's Day to grill up - give him something special while the rest of us ate burgers and hotdog's. Well, it was a good plan, but we left the darn thing in the fridge at home!

So I finally got around to it tonight. Wasn't sure what to do, so I popped onto the BBQ Brethren site and did a search on "lamb" - found a lead on the second post I checked. Olive Oil, Garlic, Salt, Pepper and Rosemary - I can do that...well, almost. I didn't have fresh rosemary and didn't want to dig out the spices box - so grabbed some spices we got recently from Penzeys Spices. I decided on the Turkish Oregano in place of the rosemary.

Rubbed it up and popped it back in the fridge for a bit. Fired up the grill to pre-heat. Got it up to 300 degrees (F) and dropped some dry oak chips on the grill above the two outside burners.

Dropped the lamb on while all three burners were at full to sear it up. 30 seconds, turn 90 degrees, 30 seconds, flip, 30 seconds turn again, 30 more seconds and turned the middle burner (where the meat is) off to cook the rest of the way by indirect heat.

 

On a side note - we are going on an Alaska cruise in a few weeks, so we splurged a bit more than normal and got me a new digital camera. This was my first time grilling/BBQing with the new camera, so I took a few shots. Tons of features and settings to figure out!

 

Also had some help from Baron Herzog (2004 Central Coast Cabernet Sauvignon). Not bad. First time trying this vineyard. I drank a lot of it, so it must be OK!

Gave Jen a small bite. She proclaimed that we would be getting some lamb on the cruise ship - so I'd say it was a success.  =)

Man, was this meat tender! This was my first time cooking lamb by any method. It was better after a little more salt at the table - but other than that - I would certainly grill lamb again.

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