Rooster's Coop

I absolutely have to make a Boeuf en Croute, comedy demands it.

I grew up with the classic comedies, and I have spent some time re-viewing all of them lately. I’ve seen entire series from The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and several spin-offs, Frasier and Wings (although I never liked Cheers), Gilligan’s Island, It’s About Time, and basically everything that defines comedy from the year I was born to present (for present:  The Big Bang Theory, Sh*t My Dad Says, …).

In nearly every comedy there’s a point where someone astonishes the rest of the cast by being a gourmet chef, or at least prepares an impressive gourmet dinner with comedic results. In all cases the grand impressive entrée is some kind of meat inside some kind of bread or pastry. The classic dish from The Mary Tyler Moore Show (The Dinner Party, Season 4, Episode 10) was Veal Prince Orloff,which is a braised loin of veal, thinly sliced, filled with a thin layer of pureed mushrooms and onions between each slice, and stacked back and then topped with bechamel sauce and cheese and browned in the oven. What was seen onscreen looked more like Beef Wellington. You hear a lot of references to Beef Wellingtion on TV and in movies. Beef Wellington is a preparation of fillet steak coated with pâté (often pâté de foie gras) and duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. Veal Prince Orloff is also mentioned in the Wings episode It’s So Nice to Have a Mather Around the House (Season 4, Episode 7) when the stars are anticipating their lunches “… I can’t wait to see what Lowell made us for lunch today,” “He’s going to have to go a long way to beat yesterday’s veal prince orloff…”

I don’t think I’ll ever make a Veal Prince Orloff for several reasons. First of all I have a bit of an aversion to veal that I won’t go into here (except to say that aside from any emotional or political reasons to avoid veal I’ve found it bland and tasteless the few times I’ve had it). I don’t think mushrooms and onions benefit from being pureed – I think Prince Orlov would have been better served if his brazed veal was presented with sliced onions caramelized and sliced mushrooms browned in butter.

On the other hand, I’d really like to try a Beef Wellington, but again I doubt I’d ever want to prepare one. I don’t have a problem with pâté de foie gras per se, but it seems rather expensive and a lot of bother for something to spread on a lump of beef and then bake inside a pastry shell. It just seems like the pâté would be wasted – save it to use as a cold spread, you’ll never taste it in the Beef Wellington. And don’t get me started on pâté, the nearest thing to pâté I’ve had is an American version of haggis … and I liked it. But I digress …

Anyway – as a bachelor, and an American engineer of English/Scottish/Irish/German descent, it is comedically necessary that I prepare some really impressive meals that you would expect from your grandmother at worst, and a gourmet chef at best. I’ve already made a darned good roast turkey with some impressive side dishes. Yes, I have successfully roasted a whole turkey, made giblet gravy, admittedly the stuffing was of the stovetop variety, I’ve mashed potatoes (and yes, starting from whole potatoes, not flakes), steamed green beans, steamed carrots, prepared crudités (carrots, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes)…

But comedy demands that I make some kind of beef inside a pastry to be surprisingly more domestic than the average bachelor. I have to make a Boeuf en Croute. As far as I can tell that basically means I need to get a decent boneless roast, probably a tenderloin, braze the roast and then cool it and set it aside, make the pastry, wrap the pastry around the roast, put the whole thing back in the oven so the roast cooks evenly before the pastry is burned to a cinder. That’s comedy? Sounds like a lot of work … I think I’ll stick to soups, chili, sandwiches, grilled stuff …

I figured I should post more often, but I couldn’t think of what I should post about. So I decided I could post my favorite recipes. So, with that in mind, here is my recipe for A Tasty Burger (I wouldn’t presume to say it’s as tasty as a Big Kahuna Burger, but it is definitely the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast).

Start with a 1/4 to 1/3 lb ground beef burger – which makes me realize I need to tell you how to make a burger, so let’s start again …

Start with some ground beef, also known as hamburger. You can simply take about 1/4 to 1/3 lb of ground beef in hand and roll it into a ball and pat it from ball into semi-flat and call those hamburgers, toss them on the grille and be done with it, but you want something better.

Take your ground beef and add a raw egg for each pound or two of ground beef to make it stick together, if it’s too liquid add some breadcrumbs to dry it out but it should still be fairly sticky. Dice some onions fairly fine and knead them into the mix. Add some garlic – I like to use minced garlic, it’s semi-liquid and comes in a jar. You might prefer to crush a fresh garlic clove, or use a little powdered garlic. Anyway – if you know garlic you know how much to use. Depending on the form and your taste it’s about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp per lb of beef. Add some pepper – I generally give it a few cranks from my pepper grinder (which is always set at the coarsest setting). If you don’t have a grinder use “coarse ground black pepper” from the spice rack. If you don’t have that shake it on from the fine ground stuff you use to fill the table shakers. Once again, if you know pepper you know how much to use, probably something like 1/4 tsp per lb regardless of the form, a little less the finer the grind. Now for the herbs – shake in some Italian Seasoning. I buy the herb mix under that name, if you want to work with the individual spices the proportion is basically 2 units basil, 2 units marjoram, 2 units oregano, 1 unit sage. Yet again, it’s added by feel – I’d say something like a half-teaspoon of the mix per lb, but I’ve never measured it, I just shake it in and mix until it seems right. Unfortunately since you are seasoning raw meat you can’t keep tasting it to figure out if you should add more.

It should still be kind of sticky at this point, so add some breadcrumbs to get to the right consistency – actually this is very much like making meatballs. Once it is mixed well and the right consistency pull off 1/3 to 1/2 lb globs of the meat mixture. Roll the globs into balls, and pat the balls into patties. Now they should be ready for the grille. Grilles vary a lot – your heat source could be wood, charcoal or gas, the distance from the heat source can vary from grille to grille, but anyone who grilles should know where to take it from here. Cooking time could be anywhere from four to eight minutes per side. If you want to make it a cheeseburger you’ll need to add the slice of cheese right after the last time you flip the burger – cheese-melting time versus degree of doneness of the meat is left as an exercise for the chef.

The next step is to put it on a toasted bun and add toppings. My personal favorite toppings are: iceberg lettuce leaves, a thin slice of vine-ripened tomato, a thin slice of vidalia onion, enough thin slices of kosher dill pickle to cover the area, and a smear of spicy brown mustard on the top half of the bun. Of course a couple of strips of crispy fried bacon aren’t a bad addition if you can manage that as well.

Now, of course, comes the beer pairing. For the perfect burger you’ll want the perfect beer. I will say at first that an English Brown Ale or an Irish Red Ale are generally a good pairing with almost any food that stands well on its own. You want to avoid beers with strong flavors for meals with delicate flavors, like sushi or pasta alfredo – for those I’d recommend a pilsner or some other light lager, but a burger has a strong flavor profile so it can stand against a beer with stronger malt and hop flavors. The browns and reds have a nice malty flavor which won’t overburden your tastebuds while enjoying a burger, and usually are not overly hoppy so they won’t leave your palate bitter-burdened.

But grilled burgers are usually a summertime food, so you tend to want your beverage to be a light refresher. My recommendation for the beer to accompany a summertime burger is a Pale Ale. Commercial examples are Sam Smith’s Pale, Bass Ale, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (although Sierra Nevada might be a bit more strongly hopped than a true English Pale) – or whatever your local brewery might sell as a Pale Ale. Pale Ales tend to be a bit stronger on the hop side, so they’ll be a touch more bitter but this allows the beer to stand up, making the beverage its own part of the meal. The burger has a lot of sweet tastes, from the caramelization of the crust on the meat, the sweet onion, but it lacks bitter. and overall the burger tastes “heavy”. The pale ale is light on residual sugars, not overly sweet, perhaps a touch bitter. It is not overly malty, making it lighter and more refreshing, and a nice compliment to the burger.

So, that’s my thoughts on the Tasty Burger. Feel free to discuss…

-JAI