Three Burgers for Dinner

I've eaten two burgers in one sitting before, but this was the first time I ever crossed the line to three. The triple threat felt right at the time--not so great the next morning.

We kept it simple: a couple of pounds of chuck mixed by hand with breadcrumbs, raw egg, salt, pepper, ketchup, a dash of worcestshire. The special something was the blue cheese and the grilled english muffin. Also, the condiment buffet:



I focus on the main event, the bacon, but we also had a bowl of sauteed onions, a bowl of sauteed mushrooms, sliced gherkins, a few kinds of mustard, mayo, ketchup and an arugula salad dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Picadillo

(& thanks to Nook & Pantry)


The photo above is NOT our picadillo. It's a delicious pork picadillo courtesy of Nook & Pantry - A Food and Recipe Blog, which adapted it from Everyday Food.

Our picadillo was also delicious, only our photograph left something to be desired. (To see what we mean, click here.) Our recipe was passed down from grandma Ida, who we think might have first learned how to cook picadillo as a teenager in Havana from the classic Cuban cookbook, Cocina al Minuto.

Brown the ground beef. Pour out the fat. You can use a strainer to do this and keep the beef in the strainer for the time being. Saute diced onions, chopped garlic, green peppers and a bay leaf. When onions are soft, add the meat back in, some red wine, a can of plain tomato sauce or chopped tomatoes with the liquid, and raisins (Ruth doesn't like green olives, so she leaves them out, however, many of us think the saltiness of the olives mixed with the sweet pop of the warm raisins is the essence of picadillo). Cover and simmer for a half hour or so. Another option is to start by cooking the onions and when they're soft, adding the meat and browning.

Nassau County Meatballs

These easy meatballs come courtesy of Ina. They dominated the first night of Passover this year. Combine lean ground beef, salt, pepper, ketchup, plenty of bread crumbs and an egg. Shape into little balls. In pot, pour one bottle of Heinz chili sauce, the equivalent amount of water, one can of cranberry sauce (not the jellied kind), and the equivalent amount of water. Heat on a medium setting and when the liquid is hot, put the balls in and let them cook, covered for about an hour, or until they're done. Don't worry about the liquid so much--if it seems too thick, add more water. If it seems to liquidy, uncover it for a bit so some of the water evaporates. No harm done either way.

Churrasco

Use any thin cut of beef--shell, flank, hangar, tenderloin sliced with a grain. Make a chimichurri sauce: the leaves from two or three bundles of flat-leaf parsley go into the food processor with salt, pepper, a few shakes of Tabasco and lots of garlic (we used all the cloves from one head). Process and stream in enough olive oil for a thick sauce consistency, then add distilled white vinegar until it tastes piquant.

Use half the sauce to marinate the beef for an hour or so. Grill the meat, just a few minutes per side for medium rare. Serve with reserved sauce. We dished ours up with grilled tomatoes sprinkled with sauteed garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and fresh thyme, along with grilled fresh asparagus and scallions.

World's Easiest Brisket

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place any size brisket in an oven bag, pour in a bottle of Heinz chili sauce and a can of beer. Seal the bag, place in a roasting pan and cook for as many hours as you can stand, or until the meat is tender. Four hours is generally enough. You can also use a covered casserole dish instead of a bag.

These are Shirley's time-tested ingredients, but there are endless possibilities with this technique. Any combination of one part liquid and one part sauce will work. Bourbon and barbecue sauce? Water and Thai peanut sauce? Dos Equis and chipotles? Check out this one from Simply Recipes or post your favorite brisket recipe below.



Here's the cooked brisket, accompanied by steamed asparagus and a cabbage dish adapted from Miriam's Red Cabbage. We sliced a head of purple cabbage, chopped two peeled apples and diced an onion. We through everything in a big pot, sauteing with oil until all three ingredients were soft. Then we added sugar, water and red wine vinegar and kept cooking on a low heat for about 20 minutes. You can cook for longer or shorter, depending on how you like your cabbage.