10 Spicy Burgers for Hot Tasty Days

Hot days ask for spices. Lots of them. And long meals eaten outdoors. Grills and barbecues and cold beers and white wines. All the good things in life.

For me, a delicious summer meal should involve meat. And my newly discovered love for spices. A burger, preferably, with a glass of sparkling white wine and some roasted veggies on the side. As simple as that.

Let's start with the meat part, for now. I am a big fan of meat, but consumed moderately - once the week, and only kosher. Which means that sometimes I depend on the available supermarket offer. I am not living in America after all, where the range of kosher meat is amazing and you only need ideas to make all those meaty dish to happen. Before the Jewish High Holidays, I wanted to offer myself a meat overload, in preparation of what was supposed to come. Just to be sure that my stomach is getting ready. 

As a busy mom, frozen burgers are the answer to many serious foodie problems. All you need is to defrost them and add the right ingredients and salad - very easy fresh tomato and cucumber salad, for instance. 

Happy owner of a 10- beef burger pack, I started to build up our star of the lunches for the next days. Luckily, the generous reserve of spices I got from Spice Kitchen UK, part of their Brand Ambassador Program, solved 99,9% of my questions and challenges. 

First, need to defrost the burgers. Therefore, I place them on baking pan for around one hour. 

Meanwhile, the search for the best spices, began. I tried to use at least 8 different spices, spread to every burger. One got a special treatment, as I wanted to try a gourmet variant, with a truffle oil addition. This is the only burger that got some oil, as for the rest, I only used spices.  

I smear the spices on both sides of the burgers, to be sure that the flavors are equally distributed all over. 

Ingredients

I've used the following selection of spices (for each side of the burger, I used 1/4 teaspoon). When not mentioned otherwise the spices were offered by Spice Kitchen UK:

- Fenugreek - was the best surprises. Its hints of roasted maple, which means both a sweet and bitter add, it melted perfectly with the original beef flavor. Note to myself: experience more with this amazing spice.

- Harissa - is a classical Moroccan hot spice, but it cannot get older. Recommended if you love your meat hot and very spicy!

- Aleppo Pepper - it is a very versatile spice, that adds a fruity pleasant note. Pleased to discover it matches meat as nicely as it does with avocado.

- Urfa Biber - it never disappoints when it comes to coming together with meat. It adds that special flavor and balance that goes very well with any kind of meat (tried with turkey and now with beef and nothing to complain about).

- Ras el-Hanout - it is a very rich spice, which has an impressive list of ingredients (from star anise to rose petals, cumin, turmeric, paprika and nutmeg, among many others). It goes very well with foods which are 'neutral' (not with a very strong flavor, such as corn or couscous) and opens up a complex range of tastes and impressions.

- Berbere - it never disappoints when it comes to meat, and I was very happy to reinvent a - despicable at a time - childhood traditional meal. It has a balance of tastes, from very spicy (paprika, black peppercorn, red chilli, garlic), to moderate mild ones (fenugreek and cardamom). 

- Black Pepper - from my own reserve of spices...- as simple as that. Pepper, especially the black one, always adds a particular spicy note to every meal, and to some cocktails too (Bloody Mary, anyone?). I smeared over the burger also 1/2 teaspoon of truffle oil, my purchase from www.viani.de.

- Special Grill Mix - a mix available in the Turkish stores in Berlin, which has: paprika, pepper, chilli, coriander, garlic and celery salt.

Directions

Preheat oven at 250C.

Leave the burgers to cook, while moving them from a side to another every 20 minutes or so.

Serves: 10

Preparation time: 15 minutes+the time requested for the burgers to defrost

Cooking time: 1 hour

Bon Appétit!

Disclaimer: Spices offered for review by Spice Kitchen UK, but the opinions are, as usual, my own.

Read More

For the Love of the Duck. The Spicy Peking Duck with My Homemade Plum Sauce

Although not sharing too many meaty recipes on the blog and often eating a (kosher) meat dish only once the week, I am a big meat lover. From the traditional pastrami to various meatballs and spicy kitchen to my favorite one, the duck, you only have to be lamb to make me think twice before eating it. 

Acknowledging my weakness, my good friend is preparing at least once the year for me a special duck meal, which involves the same big headless one, cleaned and kashered, to which different spices and sauces are added. This year, it was the climax of spices, as in the previous years she only added chestnuts and plums. Although I was part of the preparation, I only added and suggested various spices and the recipe shared is the idea of my friend. My full contribution - recipe wise including - was the plum sauce and the discovery of the delicious Pancakes for Crispy Duck from Ming Foods, with kosher stamp from London Beit Din, that matched excellently my oyster mushrooms filling. 

Unfortunatelly, as the final result and its consumption was ready to be served on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I couldn't take pictures of it - during the holiday using electronic tools is not permitted - so I cannot share all the awesomeness. However, I bet that even the photo opps were allowed, it was delicious enough to make me forget about blogging and writing. The duck disappeared from our eyes in less than 30 minutes...

Ingredients

- 1 big kosher duck - around 2.5 kg, trimmed and cleaned in boiled water

- 3 tablespoon sunflower oil

- 3 star anise

- 1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger, crushed

- 2 cloves fresh garlic, crushed

- 3 tablespoon apple juice

- 1 tablespoon brown sugar 

- 4 tablespoon soy sauce

- 2 tablespoon turmeric

- 1 tablespoon salt

- 1 tablespoon pepper

Directions

In a preheated pan at 250C, add the oil, the star anise, and the rest of the ingredients, one by one. Mix them well. Pour them on the duck and leave the duck to marinate for 2 hours, changing the position every 20-30 minutes or so and smearing the sauce all over the duck. If you have enough time, you can also leave it soak overnight and prepare it the next day.

Cook it in the oven until crips - at least for 2 hours, at 250C.

Preparation time: 1 hour

Cooking time: 2-3 hours

Serves: 8 people

Pancakes for Crispy Duck

Those Ming Foods pancakes are the right company for the crispy duck. They are thin, with a touch of gluten taste, easy to prepare and requiring the right amount of filling for an unforgettable gourmet experience.

Recipe for the Plum Sauce

It was my first plum sauce experience and I loved so much the result that I would probably try my hand with some jams or other unusual sauces to add to meats or veggies. Although I was very spare with the sugar and sweetness, given that I knew that the duck is wrapped in so many sweet flavours, so I wanted to give a savory note.

Ingredients

- 500 gr. medium-size fresh plums, quartered

- 1 cup red wine. I used the Bordeaux Marquis de Greyssac

- 1 tablespoon star anise, powder

- 1/2 tablespoon Berbere spices, courtesy of Spice Kitchen UK, part of their Brand Ambassador Program

On taste, if you want your sauce sweet, you can also add 1/2 cup brown or white sugar or even 3 full tablespoon of honey.

Directions

In a preheated pan at 250C, add the wine, the star anise, the Berbere spices and the plums. Mix them well every couple of minutes until soft. Let them boil for at least 40 minutes. It's ready when the mixture looks like a jam. Let it rest and serve it at the room temperature. 

Preparation time:

45 minutes - 1 hour

Serves: It files around 20 wraps

Additional ingredients for the wraps

In order to give some more freshness to the wrap combination, you can add fresh slices of cucumber or sliced tomatoes.

Bon Appétit!

Read More

Ginger, Honey and Teriyaki Sauce Chicken Thighs

Since 2010, when my blog was launched successfully in the online waters, I posted only 2 meat recipes. For your information, I am not a vegan or vegetarian, although I fancy to eat clean and healthy, and the low frequency of meat recommendations is due to the fact that I only eat kosher meat which if you are outside of Israel, America or England, might be a bit problematic, but not impossible to purchase. Anyway, I am not blessed with fancy restaurants to try various top notch meat recipes - I would sing you Hanukka songs for a piece of beautiful roasted duck in plum sauce or chestnuts right now - therefore cooking meat is always a challenge, but not an impossible thing. I do have more than one choice to try from and in the next years, my experience with meat will get diversified as well.

One of my staple meat meal are the chicken thighs, which I usually cover in various sauces. It is easy to prepare and cook, rich in proteines and matching nicely a salad or a portion of potatoes. 

This recipe is an Asian winter variant, without oil, which I perfectly loved because the tastes of the ingredients are mixing into the meat flavor with exquisite results.

Ingredients
5 chicken thighs
1 tablespoon greeted fresh ginger
3 tablespoons Teriyaki sauce
3 tablespoons honey

Directions
Place the defrosten chicken thighs in the pan. Smear on both sides the ingredients in order to cover them properly. For the honey and Teriyaki sauce, I used a brush. Place it in the oven at 250C and cook it for around one hour or until ready.

To be matched with a fresh tomato salad, mashed potatoes or just a classical portion of French fries.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes
Serves: 3

Bon Appétit!

Read More