Bymark Hamburger

I had a date tonight.  With my favorite boyfriend.  Well, ok, he's my hubby too.  We went to see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at Civic Theatre.  What a production.  We loved it.  It's fun when you've attended enough theatre that you recognize some of the actors.  Tonight we got to see Jim Trofatter who is the playwright for the Benjamin Harrison House and their mystery theatre.  And, Ed Mobley who we've seen in many plays and whose wife, Catherine, was in one of my all-time favorites - Menopause the Musical.  We've got season tickets to Civic which forces us to find the time to go.  It's one of the smartest moves we've ever made.  I'm not a fan of movies but love, love, love live theatre.  So, we got to take a break from all the party prep and all of the year end fun at the office. 


Early last weekend, I'd realized we were going to have a pretty hectic week.  That meant planning my meals well so I could get them made in the time allotted.  I'm infamous for not leaving enough prep time and eating late.  That wasn't happening tonight.  We walked in from the office and Connie started feeding the furry critters.  I put the grill pan on the stove and turned it on, then started getting the food out of the fridge.  We had an hour to prepare and eat dinner.  As usual, I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  I added some Andria's Steak Sauce.  And, a bit of black truffle salt.  And, some morel mushroom dust. 


What did we think?  We loved these burgers.  Connie took one bite and said, "You can make these again!"  I'd have to agree.  They were very simple to put together and the flavors played really well together.  I had to substitute portabellas for the porcinis the recipe called for.  That's why I ground up a morel and added the morel dust.  To amp up the mushroom flavor.  The brie was perfect.  It needs be put on the burgers when they're hot off the grill.  But, don't totally melt it. 


Bymark Hamburgers


Ingredients:


1 lb 90% lean ground beef
freshly ground pepper
Andria's steak sauce (or a few dashes of Worcestershire)
1/2 t black truffle salt
1 dried morel mushroom, finely ground
two portabella mushrooms, sliced
4 slices brie cheese
onion rolls
1/4 c mayonnaise
1 t white truffle oil
1/2 t lemon juice


Directions:


Heat a grill pan or heat a skillet for the mushrooms and light the grill for the burgers.  Mix the ground beef, truffle salt, ground pepper

and steak sauce.  Form two burgers.


Grind the dried morel very finely.

To cook the mushrooms either grill them on the grill pan or saute them in olive oil in the skillet.  I found they cooked better when cooked on my grill pan at the edges so they'd get some of the olive oil I'd put in the pan.  Pat the morel dust onto the burgers.  Grill the burgers until they're your desired temp.  

We typically aim for medium rare but these wound up at about 140 and were still moist and juicy thanks to the Andria's Steak Sauce.  (nb: you can order the steak sauce directly from Andria's.  It's worth it to order it because it's fabulous.  I use it in about anything that I put hamburger in.)  Be sure to put the cheese on the burgers just as you remove them from the grill.  You want it to soften but not run.  While the burgers are grilling, mix the mayonnaise, truffle oil and lemon juice to make the spread for the buns.  Broil or grill the buns until they're golden brown.  Slather them with the truffle mayonnaise, the put on the hamburgers and mushrooms.

adapted from Burgers by Paul Gayler

Apple, Cheddar and Bacon Monte Cristo

One of my all-time favorite meals is grilled cheese and tomato soup.  Doesn't that just conjure up kidhood?  I was never much of a fan of peanut butter and jelly.  To this day, the only time I eat peanut butter is in a sauce.  That's another kidhood staple.  I guess soda pop is too.  But, we were only allowed one Coke a week.  We could get it from the soda machine under the stairs at church.  So, after Sunday school we got our pop.  And, we were further underprivileged in that we weren't allowed to watch much tv.  You have no idea how many times I've thanked my mother for being so strict.  I'll choose a glass of water over Coke or Pepsi anyday.  And, the tv in our home is rarely on unless there's a game we want to watch (football, baseball or hockey) or unless I really want to watch FoodTV. 

Fortunately or unfortunately for my hips and cholesterol count, cheese is one kidhood staple that's stuck with me.  Mom used to do grilled cheese with Cracker Barrel Extra Sharp Cheddar and white bread.  She'd serve it with Campbell's Cream of Tomato Soup made with milk - never made with water.  Now, I'll experiment with just about any kind of grilled cheese.  Actually, grilled cheese is pretty often the first dish that comes to mind when I need something quick.  After all, we're the nuts with over a dozen kinds of cheese in the fridge at any one point in time...

Then, there's breakfast.  Eggs, waffles, bacon, french toast, hash browns...  Bring it on.  I love breakfast.  I still use my grandmother's old griddle.  I know they make the nice non-stick ones now.  But, there's something about using her things that just makes me feel connected. 

Needless to say, when I saw a recipe that combined grilled cheese with french toast, I was ready to make it right then.  Don't ask why I've never paid attention to recipes for a Monte Cristo before.  As my next younger brother would say, not enough o's in stooopid I guess.  Well, I've now solved that lapse in judgment with Rachael Ray's Apple, Cheddar and Bacon Monte Cristo's.  As she would say, YUM! 

Rachael Ray's Apple, Cheddar and Bacon Monte Cristos

Ingredients:

6 slices good quality bacon
4 slices peasant or sourdough bread
1/4 to 1/3 lb extra-sharp white cheddar cheese
2 gala apples, cored and thinly sliced
2 large eggs
1/4 c half and half
pinch freshly ground nutmeg
butter or olive oil
shagbark hickory or maple syrup

Directions:

Fry and drain the bacon.  Slice the cheese very thinly.  I used four slices per sandwich.  Whisk the eggs, half and half and the nutmeg in a shallow, wide bowl. 

Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil or butter in a large skillet.  Dip one side each of two slices of bread and put the bread dipped side down in the sizzling olive oil or butter.  Layer on each two slices of cheese

then enough apple slices to cover the cheese. 

Add the bacon slices.  Or, in my case, I had already cooked bacon pieces so used those up... 

Then, add the rest of the cheese. 

Top with slices of bread - the dipped side out. 

Cook until the first side is nice and brown then flip.  Once the second side is nice and brown and the cheese is wonderfully melty, serve your sandwiches. 

Open Faced Reuben

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is a reuben.  Piled high with corned beef or pastrami and sauerkraut.  Slathered with thousand island dressing.  Topped with a gooey layer of melted swiss cheese.  Heaven on a plate.  I also love the reuben's first cousin - the turkey reuben.  It's marginally better for me, but the margins are pretty slim!  So, when I saw the recipe in The Dish for much lighter open-faced reuben, I thought, "What's the worst that could happen?"  The recipe called for a light slaw instead of the sauerkraut and Dijon mustard instead of thousand island dressing.  Absolutely worth a try.  Instead of the 1/2" thick slices of pastrami called for in the recipe, I used half of a package of thinly sliced pastrami from Trader Joes.  And, since my yellow bell pepper was better suited for the compost bin than the cutting board, I omitted it.  It's now working on creating some lovely soil for our vegetable gardens next year. 

I've got to say that I loved this sandwich.  Would it satisfy a craving for a real reuben?  Not on your life.  But, it is a great sandwich?  Absolutely!  The slaw was quite good and will be used in other recipes.  A make again for sure.

Open-Faced Reuben

Ingredients:

for the slaw:1/2 small head of green cabbage, cored and finely shredded

1 1/2 T kosher salt
2 T sugar
2 T cider vinegar
1/2 t Dijon mustard
1/4 small red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 small yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 t poppy seeds

to assemble the sandwich:
1 T Dijon mustard
freshly ground pepper
2 T extra virgin olive oil
4 1/2" thick slices of pastrami
4 slices rye bread
1/4 pound sliced Swiss cheese


Directions:

for the slaw:
Shred the cabbage. 

Put in a colander or a small bowl and sprinkle it with the salt and sugar.  With your hand, squeeze the cabbage. 

You're trying to crush it to release the liquid.  By doing this, you'll need less dressing.  Really, it works.  Let the cabbage sit for about 10 minutes.  Squeeze it a couple of times during the 10 minutes.  Rinse the cabbage well with cold water and give it one final good squeeze.  Toss it with the rest of the slaw ingredients. 

Set the slaw aside.

to assemble the sandwich:

Brush the bread slices with one tablespoon of the olive oil.  Toast them under the broiler until they're golden.  Top them with the pastrami.  Brush the pastrami with a combination of one tablespoon of Dijon mustard and one tablespoon olive oil. 

Top the pastrami with the Swiss cheese.  Broil until the cheese melts. 

Top with the slaw and serve.

adapted from Food and Wine


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This post is part of a series featuring recipes from the FOOD and WINE archive. As a FOOD and WINE Blogger Correspondent, I was chosen to do four recipes a week from FOOD and WINE. I received a subscription to FOOD and WINE for my participation.