Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Hamburgers

I whipped these up pretty quickly while I was watching TV from the kitchen. We had some ground beef and I felt like having hamburgers, so I minced up a couple of onions and mixed it with the beef, plus some cornstarch and soy sauce that was around. I added some ginger powder - it takes the gross smell from the beef away without having bits of ginger in the meat (I dont like biting into pieces of ginger in food). I heard there is a trick to mixing ground meat - you have to stir it in ONE direction, it helps make it stickier faster instead of crumbling. I don't really know but it's what I hear.

The buns were the first googled recipe I clicked on that didn't require milk (cause I didn't have any milk at the time), and I didn't make exact measurements of the ingredients. I didn't expect them to look so nice. I wonder which recipe it was? I suppose I can find it again if I needed it.

The recipe needed one egg and one egg yolk for the egg wash, so I took out two eggs. I separated one yolk into a bowl, and added the extra egg white to the recipe.

I think I've figured out how to make a proper egg wash now. (dont laugh) After I had the whole yolk by itself in a bowl, I popped it and pulled out the skin that covered it. The remaining yolk was just the nice and smooth liquid portion inside, and once mixed with about a tablespoonful of water, looked proper at last, and worked beautifully when brushed onto the risen dough. How come recipes never tell you this stuff? Maybe I am just reading the wrong recipes.

Likewise with the sesame seeds - the recipes I've seen all say to roll your bun in the seeds, but they are not that easy to handle and lift. I experimented by sprinkling sesame on some, and spreading it on with a rub of my hand with others - I think I got better results from rubbing than sprinkling.

Anyway after I grilled the hamburgers and sliced the buns, the end result was really nice. It's too bad we didnt have any lettuce around, it would have been picture-perfect if I added some lettuce and a couple slices of tomato. Kathy and I gobbled these burgers up right quick, stopping only to take a quick snapshot first on her suggestion. We ate these with ketchup, mustard, and pickles. There is a plate of broccoli that you see the corner of, slightly off to the side. Yes, really, it's there, honest.