JAMIE OLIVER'S BOTHAM BURGER

I made and ate such a beefy Jamie Oliver burger that I was cleaning the house the whole afternoon. Upstairs and downstairs and in my master's chamber.

I dusted, I swept, I mopped and I sweat. I must remember never to have Jamie's burger for lunch ever again. It just gave me too much enthusiasm, excitement and passion ~ for all the wrong things. I need rest. Rest is what I need. Rest is best.


Being petite I struggled to eat this big fat thick dolloped-with-curry-mayonnaise-and-piled-high-with-caramelized-onions burger. Heck, I even struggled to clamp it between my two little paws. I had mayonnaise and crumbs smeared within a 2 inch perimeter of my mouth and yet I missed biting down on the beef patty. I must remember that I am not a troll. 

I made these burger buns yesterday and 'painted' them with flour. I thought they looked pretty neat. I cut out a small piece of plastic grid that my super duper DIY husband has around the house amoungst a host of other puzzling things, placed it closely over the risen bun dough and sifted flecks of flour over them. Even after baking and throwing them into a plastic bag the pattern stayed...I was Jamie Oliverishly thrilled and excited that I went around cutely reminding everyone that Bob's their uncle.

Jamie Oliver's burger recipe was very good. I cannot comprehend why anyone would ever want to eat a MacDonald's when it is so easy and healthy AND TASTY to make your own. I used very lean meat, chopped it up in my food processor to the texture that pleased me, mixed them up with the other ingredients and had fun compacting them into a lid that was slightly larger then the buns. I saw this tip just a couple of days ago but unfortunately I cannot remember where. If it's you please do let me know so that I can link. It was a brilliant idea. Pure genius.

Jamie Oliver's Botham Burger Recipe ~

1 kg lean meat
2 medium red onions, finely chopped (I omitted this)
2 eggs
1 -2 handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs
1 T coriander seeds, crushed
1 small pinch of cumin seeds, crushed
1 heaped tsp of Dijon mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper


Preheat the oven to 230 C. Mix and scrunch all the ingredients together. Divide into 4 (I made 7 and they were big, about 150 gm each). Pat into a lid or just use your hands to shape.


Place in the oven and roast for 25 minutes if very thick like Jamie's or less if not too fat and thick. Jamie Oliver's timing will leave the burger slightly pink in the centre and the outside nice and crispy.


Build a burger with what you have.


NOTE : Because I did not read the instructions for this recipe I didn't realize that these burgers were roasted in the oven. I had pan fried them..*smiling like a dope and scratching the back of my calf with my big right toe*

Curry Mayonnaise ~


A slap of bottled mayonnaise
1/2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp mustard


Mix them all well. Slap on burger.

CARAMELIZED ONIONS

Come on Brain ......work....think?..... Nope. It's as empty as a gaping sea shell on the sea shore.  Brain says .."Dumm dee dummmm......."

Please Brain..... don't go on vacation. I've just yanked the refrigerator door open. Tell me.... what is it that I need. Quick. The stove's on fire. Look I promise not to have too many passwords. Now help me. Shoot.

This also happens when I have just taken the last step down the stairs or the last step up the stairs only to stand there, brainless, with wondering eyeballs. Brains take a complete vacation at the most crucial of moments.

What has all this got to do with caramelized onions? Nothing. It's not a brain food but apparently there is great hope that onions may be key in producing long term health benefits. The sulphur and quecertin in onions have been known to neutralize the free radicals in the body. It helps prevent thrombosis and reduce hypertension, prevent cancer and infections. And the juice of one white or yellow onion a day can raise HDL cholesterol ( the good stuff)......etc etc etc.

And once past the stinkiness, and tears, caramelized onions have the most marvelous aroma, are sweetly delicious and are the perfect condiment piled inside a burger sandwich amongst other things.Three cheers for onions.

I spent a good hour caramelizing these onions but I know I'm going to have a good burger sandwich soon. Tomorrow to be exact. I have these limp strands of gold stored in a sterilized jar in the refrigerator. Six large yellow onions, sliced and sauteed made one heaped bowl of limp and sweet, golden ones. And if you promise to be good I'll share the burger with you.


The recipe is a no-brainer ~

6 large yellow/brown onions, sliced finely

4-5 T vegetable oil/grapeseed oil/olive oil I used grapeseed)

4 T balsamic vinegar

2-3 T brown sugar

2 knobs of butter

salt to taste

Heat up the oil in a heavy based pan or pot. A wok is not ideal as the onions can't be spread out evenly in the oil and will not cook at the same time unless you're stirring the whole time.

Once hot throw in the sliced onions and toss it about a little until each slice is coated with the oil. Put the flame on small and let the onions cook slowly. Stir once in a while to make sure the onions brown evenly. This will take a while. I spent a little over an hour. 

When the onions just begin to turn pale gold pour in the balsamic vinegar, butter and sugar and a good pinch of salt. Mix well and let the onions brown further. The sugar, butter and vinegar will help darken and caramelize the onions. As it begins to get darker make sure you stir more often to prevent burning and even browning. When a dark golden brown the onions are done and ready.

Store in a sterilized jar in the refrigerator.

ROSEMARY 'N SUNDRIED TOMATO BREAD

This baby made it to the TOP 9 on Foodbuzz today, 31st May 2010. Happy Buzz Day ! Thank You to the Foodbuzz community :)

A thunderstorm lashed the sky, dense, grey sheets of rain pummelled the ground, the television went blank, the house morphed into dark, gloomy and small, the wind swept through gaping windows and quivering doors and a fine spray of rain caressed an arm with chilled drops......... a cold quiver settled inside of me and I could think of little else but Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, Heathcliff's unresolved passions and Mr. Rochester's brooding misery.... what did I do? I made bread. I should have made "lunatic mugs with smiling faces" ...but I made bread. Had it been a little colder I would have lit the fireplace, if I had one, or a wood oven if I had one too. Black thunderstorms are a haunting pleasure. I love them. When I'm happy.


I was.... so I made a rosemary infused bread embedded with flecks of sundried tomatoes baked to a crust on the outside, tender on the inside and entrenched with flavour all over. And I caught them all in the amber eye of a candle lit. Thunderstorms sometimes make my day.

The recipe ~

Based loosely on a baking book 'Home Baking' by Martha Day given to me as a birthday present by my children.

4 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
1 T honey
 1 - 1 1/4 cup lukewarm water
1-2 T oil from the jar of sun dried tomatoes 
6-7 pieces of sun dried tomatoes, chopped
1 1/2 T chopped fresh rosemary

Sift flour into a large bowl. Add yeast and mix. Add the chopped rosemary and sundried tomatoes. Mix. Add salt and add 1 cup of lukewarm water and the rest of the liquid ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon or on the electric mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix on slow and if necessary add more water. The dough should be soft and slightly sticky. Change the paddle attachment to the hook attachment and mix further OR turn out onto lightly floured board and knead by hand for at least 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Flour your hands if the dough gets too sticky. Do not over flour.....it's always better to err on the sticky side. After kneading the dough should be smooth and much less sticky.


Shape the dough into a smooth ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth and allow to rest for an hour or until it doubles in bulk. Test with a poke of your finger and if the depression stays like a belly button without bouncing back its ready for the second kneading. 

Knead for another 5 minutes and let rise again until double in bulk. When risen shape into an 8 inch flattish round, score the top with a blade and let rise until double in bulk. 


Bake at 220 C for 10 minutes, take out, lightly dust some flour over and bake for another 20 minutes on 200 C. Take out from oven and test for doneness by tapping the underpart and it should sound hollow. 


Enjoy.....warm or with a bowl of creamy soup. 

Note : This bread can be made with only one rising. 

I am submitting this to Yeast Spotting.

STIR FRIED RICE NOODLES ~ MEE HOON GORENG

 
There's a reason why 'prawn brain' or 'otak udang' (oh-tuck oo-dung) is  a Malaysian idiom used to describe an extremely stupid person. It's because prawns pile poop in their heads. And along a little vein on their backs too.

So the next time you're cleaning prawns snip the front half of their heads off in addition to removing the little 'vein' along the curve of their backs. 

The reason I'm telling you this is because this recipe for fried rice noodles uses a sweet, rich and creamy pink prawn stock made by blending the shells and heads of sauteed prawns to a mush and the juice drained and squeezed out. So it is a pretty good idea to make sure your prawns are poop free. Agree?

Having said that, can you imagine how delicious this noodle dish is? Prawn/prawn juice is one of the many natural flavour enhancers....it contains umami......the fifth primary taste in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Put simply umami is a pleasant savoury taste imparted by glutamate that makes food taste delicious. Click here if you would like to learn more about umami or if the grey cells are feeling exceptionally  frisky today.

I love umami but I love not chemistry. Or was that biology? (( boggle )). Anyway what I'm trying to say is .........Stir Fried Rice Noodles is not rocket science. It's not even science...........it is Art.

Now to the art. Fried rice noodles is a street food. It's disgustingly cheap and may be stir fried,  soup-ed up or sauced up in countless ways. Usually bought in its dried form, it is given a soak for an hour or so to soften up. It's then drained, given a few shakes in a colander and tossed into a  sweet, spicy seasoned sauce, bubbling away deliriously in the wok waiting to be puckered up by the noodles.  

How to clean the prawns. Well.

Using a small paring knife, make a little incision between where the head joins the body. You'll be able to see the 'vein' joining up into the head. See how the poop track is connected to their heads?

With the tip of your knife lift off a tiny bit of the 'vein' and then tug gently at it. The 'vein' will slide out quite easily like a little grey thread. You have just removed prawn poop ~ in a very cool way. Then snip off the front half of their heads to get rid of the rest. Now your prawns are really clean and ready to be cooked.Woo-hoooo..........

 
The recipe ~
The amount of rice noodles is an estimate. I had forgotten to weigh them in their dried form before soaking. But its was more than enough for 2 persons.

About 150 - 180 gm of dried rice vermicelli/skinny rice noodles, soaked in cold water for an hour and drained. Keep aside. Note : The noodles will not go completely soft. But don't worry. It will soften further in the cooking.

6-7 medium sized prawns, cleaned as above leaving the shells and heads intact.
Some thinly sliced beef, seasoned with a little light soy sauce, salt pepper 


Some sliced cabbage or any green you like
Chinese chives, chopped into 1 inch lengths ( I LOVE chives in stir fried noodles dishes)
Some bean sprouts if you like
Some sliced shitake mushrooms

1/2 large red onion
2 pips garlic
1//2 inch fresh ginger

1 tsp or more chillie paste (store-bought or made like here)

1 1/2 T oyster sauce
1 T light soy sauce
1 T dark soy sauce
1 cup or more water or chicken/beef stock
salt 'n pepper


2- 3 T cooking oil


Blend or pound the onion, garlic and ginger to a paste. Prepare and clean the vegetables and keep aside. Prepare the prawns as above and season the beef slices.


Heat up a wok. Pour in 1 T of the cooking oil. When hot stir fry the prawns for a minute or two, adding salt n pepper to season, until they go completely pink and are cooked. Lift out and keep aside on a plate to cool a while. 


When cool, peel prawns and place all shell and heads into a small food processor and blitz until very fine. You may add a little water to help it along. Take the mush out and strain, squeezing out the juice into a small bowl. Discard the squeezed ground prawn shells. Keep the juice.


Pour the remainder of the oil into the wok and warm it up till fairly hot. Throw in the ground onions, garlic and ginger and chillie paste and stir fry until aromatic and the paste is cooked. About 2-3 minutes. 

Throw in the seasoned beef, mushrooms, veggies (except chives) and finally the cooked prawns, stirring all the time. Put in the oyster sauce, the 2 soy sauces, salt and pepper to taste, the prawn juice and finally 1 cup of water or chicken/beef stock. Stir. Bring to the boil. throw in the drained noodles and mix well to ensure the noodles are enveloped by the sauce. Add in the chives at this point and continue to mix well, cutting through the noodles if necessary. The sauce will be soaked up by the noodles and the noodles will become softer and cooked through as you stir fry. If you find it a little dry add more stock or water. Season with more salt n pepper if necessary. 


Once everything is well mixed the final dish should be a little moist and not too dry. Serve hot.