Turkey Burgers with Creamy Romaine Slaw

Is there anything so great as a burger?  Besides sandwiches….

Behold: a burger.

No, people, there is not.  Let my un-highbrow food preferences be known—there is no more perfect food than a cheeseburger.  It is my favorite food, although my arterial walls may wish it otherwise. 

An American icon, the hamburger evokes childhood memories and particular emotions with each juicy, meaty bite.  Can you remember the first burger you ever had?  Can you imagine a summer barbecue without burgers on the grill?  Can you walk by a restaurant and smell charcoal and sizzling beef without a Pavlovian drool response?  We even love bad burgers, a fact to which McDonalds can attest.

See all the junk in the patties?  This will help the finished product immensely. 

Thankfully, the burger is not staid in tradition.  It is malleable, adaptable, and open to new ideas.  It is GGG for whatever you could think to do to it.  Just look at the Australians—they put beets and pineapples on their burgers. Or peruse the Kuma's Corner or Bad Apple menus, and rethink what should and should not top a burger. 

One of my favorite burgers has just bacon, sharp cheddar, and barbecue sauce on it.  Perhaps my favorite all-time burger had pancetta, brie, spinach, and a bourbon-poached pear on it (thank you, Kuma’s Lair of the Minotaur).  But, really, all burgers are my favorite.  Some are just more favorite than others. 

Sizzling away on the grill pan.  I have a bad track record with grilling turkey burgers on a real grill...too many down the grates.

This one came to me via Mommie from Real Simple magazine--Turkey Burgers with Creamy Romaine Slaw.  Usually turkey burgers suffer the same fate—dry, overcooked, a bland imitation of beef.  You just can’t treak turkey the same way as beef.  For one, I like my burgers medium-rare—but you won’t ever catch anyone sane eating undercooked poultry.  A good burger needs little more than an 80/20 meat/fat ratio, a coarse grind, loose packing, liberal sprinkling of salt & pepper, and a quick sear on a roaring hot grill/griddle to become great. (I guess that might sound like a lot…) But, lo and behold, treat the turkey the same way, and dry blandness results.

Instead, it helps to approach turkey burgers from a different angle.  What does it usually lack?  Flavor and moisture, both due in large part to its lean-ness.  So…why not add those things back in?  Unlike burgers, which I almost never “mix-into” before cooking (I’ll make an exception for the Contessa’s burgers, which call for onion, Worcestershire, egg, and, yes, a pat of butter stuck into the middle), turkey burgers call out for seasoning and add-ins. 

Someday soon I’ll tell you all about my Salsa Verde Burgers, which began as a Rachel Ray recipe but have evolved far beyond into something sublime.  They use about ¼ cup salsa and cumin to spice up the burgers, with the chunky tomatoes keeping the meat from drying out.    

These burgers use spicy Dijon mustard, thyme (or sage, if that’s all you have) and green onion to much the same effect.  Lacking cheese, a tangy romaine slaw perks up the earthiness and keeps them tasting light while also hearty.  The only substitutions I made were the aforementioned sage.  I also used only 1/2 the amount of meat to make 2 burgers, but kept the add-in amounts the same.  What can I say, I like big--not subtle--flavors.  Same with the slaw--probably went a little heavy on the sauce, but it came out just right--tangy, bright, crunchy, and oh-so-flavorful.  A success all around. 

Yes, those are panko-crusted baked onion rings.  Patience, friends. The recipe is coming.

I know I write loftily about silly topics like what we eat and why we eat it.  I’m still working out the tone and style and, truthfully, I’m using this as an exercise to help me find a style of food writing that suits me.  So, internet, bear with a girl.  She’ll come around, eventually.

Minorly adapted recipe after the jump; original linked above. 

I love summer, part duex

Is there anything more beautiful than a knobby, ugly heirloom tomato?  If the outside scares you, just slice one open and see the world of seeds and veins of color that run through it.  These babies are grown for flavor, not appearance.  The difference between these is marked--I can't eat most supermarket tomatoes even on sandwiches, as they're so mealy and sour and, well, just icky.  But these, these I can't stop eating--plain, with a bit of salt, or drizzled with olive oil and fruity balsamic vinegar and, well, it's just about as good as it gets. 

We ate these alongside some grilled bbq chicken and some stovetop beans, but really these are the stars of my show. 

I grilled last week

But friends, let me tell you...I was not meant to work over 15 days without a day off!  SERIOUSLY!  I mean, come on.  I barely cooked, I barely slept, I barely resembled human for over two weeks, and all that I can think about now that I'm finally in teh warm afterglow of a true weekend is...I need a vacation!  One short month....

Anyway, I did manage to turn the grill on sometime last week during our prolonged 98-degree+humid heat spell.  Because nothing quite says summer like burgers, and if it's going to be sauna-like outside then I say let's celebrate it!  It will be in teh negatives, snowy and ice-covered before we know it, which makes a little sweat not quite so bad after all.

These weren't special burgers, just some leftover hand-formed patties I had frozen a while back, plus some vinegared cucumbers and grilled summer squash sliced that were tossed with chipotle oil and seasoned salt.  Damn, but doen't that just look like summer?

Now, if I only knew why I've been craving soup for the last two weeks...perhaps gazpacho is in order!

Wunder Fudzen

Isn't she pretty?  God, there is just something about pizza.  Call it a flatbread, call it a pie, call it deep-dish, call it cracker-crust, call it 'za (or please don't because that's just really lame)---it's so alluring.  I don't know that it's possible for me to dislike pizza, any pizza, even really bad pizza.  It's one of those things, like dumplings, I think (oh, the wonder of the dumpling; extant in all cultures; universally delicious) that are good even when they're baaaad.  

I had a hunk of defrosted pizza dough in the fridge for about a week, and it wasn't as springy and fluffy and gorgeous as it once had been, and it certainly wouldn't stretch (hahaha) far enough to feed two for dinner.  But I also had chicken marinating in a tuscan marinade, and I was at a loss at how to get pizza to be a side dish for chicken and zucchini. 

Then, I discovered, just call it a Mediterranean flatbread--problem solved!

I grilled the chicken (skewered) and some thick zucchini slices, then moved them to the top rack to keep warm.  I had stretched the dough into two 7" rounds, well floured, and brushed one side with olive oil.  Throw the oiled side on the grill and let it go for a minute or two, rotating and checking for hotspots and over-char.  The dough will cook (and burn) really fast.  Once one side is cooked, remove from the grill and place raw-side down on an oiled cookie sheet.  Top the cooked side and throw the uncooked, now oiled side back on the grill; close the lid until cheese is melted and the the crust is crisp.


The key, I find, is using a dry dough, small rounds, and very light toppings. You don't want wet dough at all--it will fall through the grates before it has time to toughen up.  Bigger rounds are too hard to maneuver on the grill.  And you only have a few precious minutes once the pizzas are topped to cook them, so go really, really easy on the toppings.  I used bit of mozzerella, 3-4 halved tomato slices, torn basil, chopped kalamatas (on one) and a sprinkle of feta.

Aren't they pretty?