Burgers & Confessions

Well I have a confession to make. If you have noticed that in the last few weeks my blogging has gone downhill somewhat & been quite erratic it’s because I’m Up the Duff & the last thing I have felt like doing was cooking! Believe me I could barely look at food let alone get home from work & prepare something tasty. So with a lot of help from Michael I have mainly been living on comfort food that has been pre prepared & stuck in the freezer so I could put it down & collapse on the couch after work. The worst of it seems to be over now & I have my appetite back & once again can stomach the thought of such things as vegetables & healthy food in general. So I’m slowly easing myself back in while I’m getting my energy back, hopefully before long I will be back to 100% normal. Michael prepared these burgers below so all I had to do was whack them in the frying pan & put it all together, he has been an angel. The recipe comes from Jamie’s Dinners & actually comes with some lovely homemade rosemary chips to which I said I don’t think so, maybe another time. Very, very tasty burgers, nice & juicy too without dripping & they held together very well as well.

The Ultimate Burger

1kg good minced steak
1 onion, peeled & finely chopped
olive oil
a pinch of cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
a handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 heaped teaspoon English mustard
1 large free range egg
115g breadcrumbs
8 burger buns

In a big frying pan, slowly cook the onion in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes until softened but not coloured. Add the onion to the mince in a large bowl. Using a mortar & pestle, bash up the cumin & coriander seeds with a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper until fine & add to the meat. Then add the parmesan, mustard, egg & half the breadcrumbs and mix well. If the mixture is too sticky add a few more breadcrumbs.

Lay some greaseproof paper on a tray & sprinkle over some of the remaining breadcrumbs. Shape the meat into 8 fat burgers & place these on top of the crumbs on the tray. Sprinkle more crumbs on top & gently press down. The burgers are better if they are chilled before cooking so put them in the fridge for an hour or so.

When ready to cook, fry them in a little olive oil on a medium to high heat for about 8 to 10 minutes, turning occasionally. Serve on buns with anything you like, sauce, lettuce, tomato, some cheese, beetroot, egg, whatever…