I'm only going put for one beer...

Dudes,

Beef Burgers

Dudes,

As promised many months ago , I'm going to do various cooking tips. As regulars will know, I started off my  work journey as a  professional chef working at a well-known burger chain, getting my qualifications and then spending time how to really cook ( the higher you go the less cooking you do, focusing on stock and general transferable skills such as managing ).

Today is the basic  beef burger. Because I'm Jewish I don't eat beef burgers with cheese and I don't add pork mince to make the burgers cheaper.

So to start off you need ground beef mince (from wholesalers or butchers), at 15-20% fat.  This mince is cheaper ,  but that's not the point from a culinary viewpoint ,  as the marbling (posh for fat) ensures the meat maintains its moisture amd gives a much more satisfying texture and taste.  

[As an aside you can buy in the meat  from the butcher and mince it yourself , but this is time consuming and o.k. if you are an upper middle-class , housewife,   lady of the manor type who has got time on their hands].

There is also a note about equipment. In a professional kitchen I would use a blender of some description ( preparing multiple dishes at 4.am 6 days a week is enhanced by machinery wherever possible). At home you just need hands-on and a bowl.

What you need :

Small to medium-sized onion very finely  chopped (hence why using blender is useful if not a trained chef)

2 teaspoons Dry parsley

1 teaspoon of Black pepper

1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt

500g  of  beef mince meat (1.637 pounds and ounces).

How simple to prep :

1)Parsley, pepper , onion into bowl or blender.  

2).Mix this mixture with the meat (again a blender helps get this more even and uniform).

3).Then divide the meat into four or five ( I can get about five)  balls. Gently and I mean gently ( being rough makes the meat tough and chewy) with your hand pat the balls into patties. 

There. That's how you make a cracking burger. These will be about a quarter of a pound uncooked , but you will note I haven't used breadcrumbs or egg yolk to bulk the burgers up or act as a binding agent. Given the fat content you don't need that and in any case you can but them into a fridge if you're worried about them breaking up.

...  If you want to you can, say,  add coffee , chilli, garlic  to make coffee burgers, chilli burgers , garlic burgers et al.

Now to cook...

Cleary were NOT doing  Tartare ( yes it's a dish of raw beef steak mince, very French). Incidentally , for whatever it is worth, I always cook burgers so there's no pink in them. Why?  People think burgers can be cooked like steaks. I disagree. With steaks you are killing the bacteria that's on the outside of the meat. With minced meat that bacteria isn't just on the outside, but all over the place . So as a chef I'd rather make sure the meat is fully cooked.

There are various ways to cook burgers , which again will change or determine the taste and texture : 

1).Fry (  the classic diner method, but you do add extra fat via oil in the pan).

2) Griddled ( using a griddle , without the oil).

3).Steamed ( which makes the meat extra moist. You don't actually cook this in hot water, but instead put a lid over the frying pan) 

4).Barbecued (charcoal will make for a smoky flavour , gas ones are easier to use, but won't impart such a flavour).

5) Smoked ( i.e. a barbecue using wood or wood chips which will create a wooden smokey flavour).

6). Grilled ( good if you live in Britain with unpredictable weather).

As to which one I use... it depends !

If it's for friends and family I will use our gas barbecue .

If it's at work I will use a grill ( in the kitchen this is basically an indoor gas fired barbecue, not like a grill you get at home in the UK ).

If it's just the two of use I'd use the  home grill.

Cooking times 

8 -10 minutes each side , on medium heat.

Then plate up with chips. Put burger into bun ( I could do a whole post about  burger  buns!) .  Here you can add sauces, pickles , coleslaw, sliced  tomatoes , jams etc (again I could do a whole post about these) . Or you can simply let the flavours of the burger stand on its own.

Up to you.

It's Boris 2:1

Hi All,

Enough said already , but a few notes:

1). The conservative parliamentary party should note he has an overwhelming mandate from the party grassroots.  Get behind brexit or leave.

2). Those on the left complaining that Boris is elected only by 160,000  right wing "extremists" as should note that the last Labour Prime Minister was elected, like the left really are, by precisely no one. No MPs or party members or even voters. He was PM for 3 years and even without any mandate spent trillions bailing out banks. People FORGET that when talking up how bad no deal would be 

3). Give us a vision, forget managerial politics and just do brexit. Whatever you do you'll never satisfy the guardian and the liberal left.

The slow death of liberal democracy in Britain

Hi All,

The ludicrous situation we are in:

1. Parliament votes down the shitty May deal (which after watching  "panorama"  it is clear that British officials were not negotiating for Britain) .

2. The EU won't budge on this deal

3. Leave without a deal is therefore the  default

But parliament wants her cake and eat it , by rejecting both the deal and exit without a deal. We get an extension .

But...

If the EU won't change its position there can't be a better deal.  Therefore surely we have to leave at some point without one, for what is the point in forever having extensions if nothing will change?

Meanwhile we see the likes of  Hammond and other Tories being willing to put Corbyn into power by threatening to vote against their own party and  government to stop a no deal.... which would simply destroy the conservative party as a force in politics and usher in a Labour /SNP/Liberal government.  Well, if that did happen all of those rebels should loose the whip and the therefore be unable to stand as  conservative candidates in the elections that would follow.

One other comment is that by using underhanded parliamentary procedure to thwart brexit is not and will not give any confidence by the people towards our system. In fact it fully justifies the idea of the establishment/ elite concocting a remain by the back door scenario in contempt of the people.  The elites are wilfully ignoring a democratic vote and clearly had no intention of honouring it , instead we've have had three years of scaremongering , project fear and a government which clearly wasn't interested in a decent deal  . This undermines the whole legitimacy of our system and will have terrible long term consequences  ( I don't just mean the destruction of the conservative party, which would be the most minor consequence).  Oh and before anyone calls for a second referendum, fine. If you win we can just ignore it. If we win then how many other votes do you want?

Couldn't give a fig? Or a chip is a chip

Dudes,

I'm currently redesigning our menu and it's strange that or not that our  best selling  dish is :

1. Fish and chips ( i.e. a whole fillet of fish and proper British chips not fexking "fries";  for reasons beyond me some people think chips are crisps!)

Also popular :

2.  Fried beer battered Chicken in a basket, with chips (not fecking"French"  fries!) And Israeli salad
3. Chicken and figs in a red wine sauce
4. Half roast chicken with kosher stuffing and  roasted vegetables
5. Falafel, balls and /  or burgers
6. Sam's beef burger
7. Sam's French Caribbean chicken burger
8. Sam's sausages , egg and chips and sausage and mash ( the sausages being a spicy north African one called Merguez and  a Iraqi Jewish one called mumbar ).
9.Albondigas - chicken balls in a sauce
11 . Kofta- beef  meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce
12. Steak in a variety of sauces
13. Mushroom salad
14 T'beet
15. Mega mixed grill

I have to cut the menu down and these are my top ones, of our of 50  main covers ( not including starters, desserts ,  sides or  bar snacks, which include a kosher Scottish egg, courtesy of our indefatigable uncle Yitzhak, whose getting better at the bagpipes at the young age of 96) . I'm looking to do 10 main dishes& go more fresh food . What do I chop? Some are popular with locals and others the favourites of tourists....

Plus we've *got * to cater for the vegans, vegetarian types.

Decisions, decisions!!🍹🍺🔯

P.S. currently experimenting on  making stouts ,  Dominique managed to make a nitrogen/ Irish / imperial/ Baltic  stout , after we had a relatively  minor row with a certain big stout producer.  Trouble is the ABV of this is 20% . Guinness by contrast is 4.1% ABV...  Israel has a higher tax on pure per alcohol amount than UK or USA....

Is the Labour party antisemitic?

Hi All,

We watched yesterday's  BBC panorama program, which was beyond depressing but NOT surprising, here are the edited high lights:

There's clearly no place for Jews in Labour.... and God help our community if they ever got into power !

Bring back Lord John ?

Hi All,

As the furore over the British Ambassador to America continues , after Emperor Trump's tantrum on Twitter and as Iran threatens British shipping- the union Jack won't be flouted by a bunch a deranged mullahs/ lunatics or a thin skinned President  - isn't it time for Lord John Marbury 😎😆?

In the  meantime a picture for the mullahs of Tehran :

Old school

Hi All,

July 4th

Yesterday v we celebrated with our American friends independence day !

And long live the time we Britain also can celebrate  our own independence day from the EU tyranny as  one fictional president said:

For hundreds of years Britain has fought against a hegemony in Europe :

The habsburg dynasty
The Spanish empire
The French (Ancient regime, Revolutionary lunatics and Napoleon)
The second Reich
The Third Reich
The Soviet Union
The European Union

When will the  Morse code from the Americas arrive?

Shabbat Shalom!