Fat, Drunk and Stupid - Making My Own Ginger Beer

"Mr. Costanza. Your legs have sustained extensive trauma. Apparently your body was in the state of advanced atrophy, due to a period of extreme inactivity. But with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, I think there's a good chance you may, one day, walk again."

In the summer months, Jill gets frustrated with my lifestyle. She works hard each day, and I do not. Each of the last few summers, when I'm not teaching, I've titled my time off as "The Summer of James." I spend my time, as George Costanza calls it, "decompressing," while my wife thinks of it more, as Jerry does, as "decomposing." As I've mentioned before, I don't especially enjoy the summer months' hot weather and the bugs that go along with it, so I spend a lot of my time indoors thinking about my next meal, or drink. I also spend a lot of time thinking about the next toy that I "need" to improve my cooking, or my golf game (Jill loves this). Two of the toys I found recently are the Juiceman Jr and a soda siphon made by ISI. I sought out both of these items in an effort to make my own ginger beer.

Ginger beer is the perfect summertime mixer. It tastes a lot like ginger ale, but with a huge spicy kick. Think of it as the Big Papi of ginger ales. Most people know of ginger beer as one of two necessary ingredients in a Dark 'n' Stormy (the other being Gosling's Black Seal Rum - no substitutes allowed!). I first fell in love with it, though, when I had a Moscow Mule at Green Street Grill in Cambridge, Mass. At that time, I'd never heard of a Dark 'n' Stormy and I think I'm happier for it. In my opinion, the Moscow Mule (and my own spinoff) is a far better drink.

According to Mr. Boston's, a Moscow Mule is made by adding 1/2 oz. lime juice and 1 1/2 oz. vodka into a coffee mug (clear fancy kind), then adding ice and then filling the glass with ginger beer (garnish with a lime). I prefer to make it in a highball glass (or a collins glass) and tend to follow the approach of adding about 1 oz. lime juice (half a lime) and 2 oz. vodka, adding ice and then filling the glass with ginger beer (about 4 oz.). It's a good mix.

Finding ginger beer is a lot easier than I realized. Most supermarkets will either carry it in their soda aisle (near the fancy root beers) or in the latin/mexican food section. The ones I've found in the store have been decent, at best. Through further searching, I was able to find one at a local farm market that was better, but the best I've had was a homemade brew.

On a recent visit to Drink in the Fort Point area of South Boston, I had a classic cocktail known as a Mamie Taylor made by my favorite bartender, Misty (who used to be the bartender at Green Street). My brother-in-law told her how he loved VO and Ginger, so she decided to give him the Mamie Taylor. It was almost identical to a Moscow Mule, except it used scotch instead of vodka. In making the drink, Misty used a homemade ginger beer that was delicious. She told me that it was quite easy to do and gave me a quick run-through on how to make it. After that visit to Drink, I knew I had to get all of the necessary equipment to make my own ginger beer.

After getting the juicer and the soda siphon in the mail from Amazon, I set out to find the best recipe for ginger beer. I only got a basic run-through from Misty (she had much better things to do than talk to me), but it was a great start. I knew I needed some "ginger juice," lemon juice, simple syrup and water. The proportions weren't entirely clear to me at this time. I knew that I needed 32 ounces of liquid for the soda siphon and it should be primarily water.

Using the juicer was a breeze. I first thought that I needed to peel the ginger before throwing it in the juicer. Wrong. It was a waste of time. The juicer obliterates pretty much anything you put into it and pulls out only the juices. The ginger peel was no match for the Juiceman.

After lots of experimenting with proportions, I think I've found a winner. I extracted about a hand's worth of ginger which yielded 4 ounces of ginger juice. I then squeezed 4 lemons to get 4 ounces of lemon juice. I put that into my soda siphon with 5 ounces of simple syrup (3 parts sugar to 2 parts water) and 19 ounces of cold water. That totals up to 32 ounces of liquid. I put the necessary tubes into the siphon, screwed on the nozzle head, charged the canister with a CO2 cartridge, shook the canister a little and put the soda siphon into the fridge. In an hour or so, the ginger beer is cold and ready to drink.

So here is the list of ingredients one more time:

4 oz. ginger juice

4 oz. lemon juice

5 oz. simple syrup (3:2)

19 oz. cold water

Now its time to make your drink of choice. My drink of choice almost always involves bourbon, so I decided to take the Moscow Mule and the Mamie Taylor's recipe and apply it to bourbon. This is an awesome drink, folks. It may have a real name, but I like to call it a "Kentucky Mule." Even for non-bourbon drinkers, like my wife, it is a winning combination.

Here is the basic recipe:

1/2 lime juiced (about 1 oz.)

2 oz. bourbon (Jefferson's or Bulleit is a good choice)

homemade ginger beer

Juice the lime half straight into a highball glass and drop it in the bottom. Add the bourbon and top with ice. Then fill the glass with ginger beer. I like to shoot the ginger beer from the siphon into an empty soda bottle before pouring it into the glass. I find that the pressure from the siphon is pretty strong and it can make a mess. Give it a quick stir and the drink is ready to go.

This drink has been integral in my "decompression" this summer. They're light, refreshing and have a good kick of ginger spice. Plus, they get you good and drunk on a hot summer day. I hope that if I keep making these for Jill, she'll soon become more tolerant of The Summer of James.

Still a little summer left...

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Fat Reading - Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America

My wife, Jill, hates clutter. She likes things to be tidy and neat. A few of the major thorns in her side are my growing collections of what she calls "crap." I consider them the necessities in life. How could I live without my bourbon collection (at 19 bottles and counting) that takes up a whole corner of our kitchen counter? Another collection, that is growing exponentially and doesn't get consumed like my booze, is my cookbook collection. Every month I get at least one new cookbook and sometimes I get three. There are cookbooks in almost every room of the house, including the bathroom. One of my more recent additions to the cookbook collection is Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America by José Andrés.

After a trip to Dalí and drinking lots of cava out of porrones for my birthday a year ago, I fell in love with Spanish cooking. The idea of tapas is great. It's the same idea that motivates people to order the appetizer sampler at Chili's: being able to sample lots of flavors without getting too full. What makes Spanish tapas better, though, is that they're made from just a few high-quality ingredients, and they're pretty easy to make (for the most part). For a while, I searched to find a good book of Spanish recipes. I had one from Williams-Sonoma that looked good at first, but I found that it was not doing it for me. The recipes didn't really make me excited enough to get cooking. Perhaps they were too traditional or just too boring. After a little more looking around, I found a cooking show on PBS called "José Made in Spain." It featured José Andrés, a goofy fat man with a thick Spanish accent. His show features him gallivanting around Spain experiencing near-orgasms each time he eats a piece of Cabrales cheese or Serrano ham and then recreating these experiences back in his own kitchen in America. At times he seemed to be a little much for me to handle, but I liked his style and definitely liked what he was doing with his food. After finding his show, I decided to look into whether or not he had any cookbooks, and I found Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America.

I have to say that this cookbook is a perfect blend of traditional Spanish cooking and American ingredients, which is exactly what it aims to accomplish. The recipes are divided into chapters by key ingredient (Chapter 1: olives and olive oil, Chapter 2: tomatoes, and so on). My immediate favorites were the chapters on garlic and onions (Chapter 9) and on cheese and eggs (Chapter 11). As I continue to explore the book, I find more and more exceptional recipes that aren't overly complicated and bring a ton of flavor out of just a few ingredients. Lately, I've been hooked on the breakfast tapas. There are several artery clogging, put-you-in-a-food-coma dishes that are all about the flavor and certainly not about keeping it light. Perfect for my pursuit. A recent recipe I made from the book came from the cheese and eggs chapter; a fried egg with potatoes and chorizo. It required very few ingredients:

- 1 egg

- 1 potato just slightly larger than the egg

- 1 hunk of chorizo (same size as the potato)

- a sprig of thyme

- 1 clove of garlic

- oil/butter

This is a quick breakfast for one. Multiply your amounts accordingly for more people. You don't need to multiply the amount of thyme and you should max out your garlic at no more than 2 cloves.

When I cook, I love having everything prepped ahead of time. It makes the cooking process smooth and painless. I tend to get distracted by things going on around me, so prepping ingredients while stuff is in the pan can definitely lead to disaster. With this dish, you only really need to prep the potatoes ahead of time. I prepped the chorizo as well, but it could be done on the fly. I started by cutting the potatoes and chorizo into little cubes (roughly 1/4 of an inch). Making the pieces the same size is the idea here, so that they cook at the same rate in the pan.

I put my pan over medium heat with a couple tablespoons of oil. I then smashed the garlic clove with the flat side of my knife and threw it into the pan as well. This step is key if you're afraid of the nasty repercussions of garlic. So often people put garlic into their food at too late of a moment, or in too small of pieces, so it doesn't have time to gradually release its flavor. Instead, the garlic overwhelms the dish making your co-workers and loved ones stand back any time you enter the room. Here's a trick: leave it whole. Here's another trick: cook it slowly over a lower heat. Don't leave it out of the dish. The garlic will gradually impart its flavor into the oil, and won't be overpowering. It will bring a mild note to the dish, and certainly won't make you smell all day like you would after eating the crap you get at some of the red-sauce joints in the New York area. Plus, leaving the garlic whole (or smashed) means it can be easily removed when you plate up the dish.

When the garlic began to sizzle in the pan, I knew that the oil had enough time to get hot. I threw the cubed potatoes into the pan and shook the pan in a circular motion every minute or so until the potatoes became a light, golden brown. This took about 4 or 5 minutes. Just watch the potatoes closely. I added the sprig of thyme and sautéed for another minute and added salt (to taste). Then, I added the chorizo and cooked it until it was slightly browned. At this point, the dish is pretty much done.

The last step is cooking the egg. In the book, he describes a technique that is over-the-top awesome. It involves heating the olive oil in a small sauté pan to a temperature of 375 degrees. Pool the oil by tilting the pan, and then deep-fry the egg by gently placing it in the oil and spooning the oil over the top of the egg. I attempted this method once. The egg was incredible. I also wasted an entire cup of oil in the process. I decided that I'll have to settle for the standard method of frying an egg. My only piece of advice for cooking eggs is don't cook them for too long or on too high of a heat. Be gentle. For sunny side up eggs I like using medium heat and almost separating the white from the yolk in the egg. After cracking the egg, I'll drain the white into the pain attempting to keep the yolk in the shell. Then, I'll place the yolk gently in the middle of the white. When the egg is almost done, I cover it for like 10 seconds. If an egg looks done in the pan, it will be over done on the plate.

After making the egg, I lay it gently over the potatoes and chorizo in a wide, shallow bowl. I like having this dish with a little toast or crusty bread to soak up the egg yolk.

Spanish cooking is all about getting a lot of flavor out of a few, good ingredients. José Andrés certainly knows how to communicate how to do it. His book, Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America, is a great introduction to Spanish cooking. It uses ingredients that are easily accessible to an American cook, and blends them into dishes that you could easily imagine finding in a Tasca in Spain.

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Tube Meat: Hot, Juicy Links

This installment of Tube Meat is a little gluttonous and a little dirty too. Some may consider a few of these links offensive and obscene.

NYT: The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts - Daniel Boulud's latest venture DBGB is the impetus for this article. It addresses the growing movement of high-end burgers from high-end chefs and how they go about creating them. I have to say that I am a fan of anyone willing to make a better burger. The recipe for the Comme Ça burger is very similar to Mr. Schlow's method which I adopted for my Fat Boy.

Cooking For Assholes - I have to say I enjoy Alex Neely's expletive-laden, arrogant approach to writing about food. Plus, he loves wrapping everything in bacon.

Cook To Bang - Food porn? Maybe not the true definition of it, but there's plenty of great pics and provocative titles to make you hungry and who knows what else.

Ad Hoc at Home - Thomas Keller's new book is coming out in November. It's going to be hard to wait. I put a link to its Amazon page in my widget on the right if anyone wants to get me a Christmas gift. :)

Expert Advice From The Bartender: Misty Kalkofen - Misty has been the best bartender in Boston since her days at Green Street, but now she does it even better at Drink. She's featured here in Bon Appetit.

The United States of Obesity - Apparently others are pursuing fatness too. This post is interesting food for thought.

10 Good Cheap Liquors - Get your drink on without breaking the bank.

The Hamburger Fatty Melt - This burger looks too good to be true.

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Fat, Drunk and Stupid - Jefferson's Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." - Dean Vernon Wormer ~ Animal House

Continuing with our Independence Day theme, I am writing my first review of America's official spirit. Furthermore, what could be more patriotic than writing about a whiskey named for our founding father, Thomas Jefferson? Our third president would be quite proud of the bourbon named for him today. Jefferson's Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is one of my favorite bourbons. It's priced at around 30 to 40 dollars for a bottle too, which is pretty damn cheap considering all of the fancy whiskeys out there (I was actually able to get it on sale for 20 at the NH liquor store, too). At this price point, there are several good bourbons like Knob Creek, Basil Hayden's, and Bulleit (the list goes on). Jefferson's is the cream of the crop in this category. Its smooth enough to drink neat or with a splash of water but has plenty of flavor so that it could be drank over the rocks. Is it too fine a bourbon to use in a mixed drink? No, but I'd rather drink it alone.

First impressions of any bourbon are important. Does it smell good? (always smell alcohol with your mouth open) Jefferson's Kentucky Straight Bourbon has a great nose (its smell). It smells sweet like vanilla and caramel. The first taste is smooth and sweet. As it lingers on my tongue, there is a blend of flavors (mostly sweet) and when I swallow it leaves a little bit of that vanilla with a little bit of spice. Bourbons at this price range don't normally have this complexity. Jefferson's is a long-standing member of my whiskey collection. It tastes great and isn't going to break the bank. I do have other bourbons that I like more (like Jefferson's Reserve), but they are all ones that I save for a special occasion (or when my buddy Joe raids my collection).

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Tube Meat: Hot, Juicy Links

In celebration of our independence, here is my first edition of Tube Meat: Hot, Juicy Links.

This is Why You're Fat - There is nothing more American than this.

Straight Bourbon - By act of Congress, Bourbon is the official spirit of the United States. Be American: drink it!

The Top 10 Drinks Only America Could Have Invented

Amazing Ribs - What is more American than ribs? Making killer ribs is that much easier after checking out this site.

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Liposuction: A light dish to kick off summer right.

School's out for summer. Most people love the idea of summer; going to the beach, grilling and hot weather. What's not to like? Here's the thing: I hate hot weather and I don't especially like the beach (In New England, the water is pretty damn cold). Plus, the bugs around here in New Hampshire make being outside pretty unbearable. So that leaves grilling as the sole summertime activity that I enjoy. Sadly, my disinterest in Summer means that I spend most of my time holed up inside my condo trying not to sweat and thinking about what I'm going to eat next. In the summer, I don't need to put in much effort in my Pursuit of Fatness. Fatness pursues me, so that is why I must occasionally undergo "Liposuction."

In Pursuit of Fatness is dedicated to my culinary experiences that bring a ton of flavor, and usually a ton of fat. There is resistance to this plan, though, and it has a name. Its name is Jillian (my wife). Since I met Jill in college, I've made a transformation of sorts: a fifty pound transformation. I went from being a scrawny, 150 pound junior in college to being a more well-rounded individual (I'm over 2 bills now). I wouldn't say I'm proud of this. I look at my gut each day in the mirror and wish it would get smaller. I just don't put a lot of effort into actually making it smaller; certainly not in the summer. Jill also looks at my gut each day, and probably wonders, "What have I gotten myself into?" Jill will suggest going for bike rides on the weekend. I whine, complain and suggest other activities that involve less sweating. Eventually, I give in to going for a ride as long as there is a stop for ice cream along the way. I think my pursuit of fatness is winning the war, but occasionally Jill will win a battle or two.

From time to time, I make concessions to my wife in the food that I prepare at home. I like to call these moments of weakness, involving less than 2000 calories, "Liposuction." They are merely delaying my inevitable girth, and sometimes they are actually pretty tasty. This week, in honor of the beginning of summer, I prepared a salad. The word "salad" should never be uttered around a lipophile, like myself, but there are a few salads I actually do enjoy. No, I'm not talking about taco salad either. One such salad is a tomato and watermelon salad.

One of my favorite restaurants in Boston recently closed its doors for good. It was Michael Schlow's Great Bay, located in Kenmore Square. In my opinion, they had the best seafood in Boston. The first time I visited Great Bay was on my anniversary in August. My wife and I had an incredibly simple and mouth-watering tomato and watermelon salad. It paired the sweetness of a variety of watermelon with beautifully fresh and slightly acidic heirloom tomatoes. It was completed with a chiffonade of mint leaves, green onions and a light dressing of vinegar and oil. The details at this point are a little fuzzy regarding the secondary players in the salad, but the main ingredients (tomato, watermelon and mint) were unforgettable. It was then accompanied by small crostini that were topped with ricotta. The components were simple. The flavors were simple. Yet, they were creatively blended in a way that really made the dish shine. For the next few weeks of tomato season, I beat this dish to death. It was something that was quick and easy, and it was just so damn delicious.

In honor of Great Bay's closing this past month and the official beginning of summer, I decided to make my first tomato and watermelon salad. My only issue would be the quality of the tomatoes. I almost never bother making anything with fresh tomatoes as the star ingredient until I can get them at my local farm market, which won't be for another couple months. In the last couple years, though, I have found a decent stand-by until the good stuff is back called Ugly Ripe. Ugly Ripe are basically a hybrid of heirloom tomatoes and a more conventional type of tomato. I have to say that even in the dead of winter I've had pretty good flavor from Ugly Ripe tomatoes. They aren't mealy and they definitely pack a juicy punch of flavor.

So here are my ingredients:

- 1 large Ugly Ripe tomato diced into small cubes

- approximately 1 cup of watermelon (preferably seedless) diced into small cubes

- 4 green onions

- about 10 to 20 mint leaves cut into a chiffonade (thin ribbons)

- a loaf of crusty bread

- Chevre (a soft goat cheese)

I started by cutting the watermelon into a small dice (roughly 1/4-inch cubes). I found that the easiest way to accomplish this was to first quarter the watermelon and then cut 1/4-inch slices from those chunks. That would lead to making a fairly even dice of the watermelon.

I did the same to the tomato. The Ugly Ripe, like other heirlooms, are a meaty tomato. They are great for cutting into a dice. I hate how some tomatoes are all seeds and slime on the inside. These have some substantial meat to them. Here's a little tip: cut the slices of tomato with a serrated bread knife, then cut the slices into a dice with your regular chef's knife or whatever you use for chopping. A tomato's skin can be temperamental.

I then cut the scallions into thin slices. I also cut them on the bias to make them look fancy. I feel like the scallions do actually hold together better when they're cut this way. So, I guess there was a purpose. Next, came the mint. I grabbed a bunch of good looking leaves, stacked them together and rolled them up. That made cutting them into thin ribbons easy. That's what we'd call a "chiffonade." Look at all this fancy technique we got going here.

At this point, I combine all of my ingredients with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. If you have some good EVOO, now is the time to bust it out. We're not doing any cooking here, so the good olive oil makes a big difference. I'd say go heavier on the vinegar than the oil. You really don't need much of either the oil or the vinegar here. Let the flavors of the tomato, watermelon and mint speak for themselves. Be sure to save a little of the mint for the end, too. Now is a good time to taste your mixture. Add salt and pepper as needed. Salt is a necessary evil. It brings out a ton of flavor, so don't leave it out.

My next step is where I sneak in some fat. The olive oil has some, but most people would still consider this a pretty healthy dish. I like making this salad as a topping for bruschetta (broos-ketta) or crostini, (The difference between the two is that bruschetta are grilled and crostini are toasted in the oven) so I bought some crusty Italian bread and cut it into some thin slices. I then drizzled some olive oil on both sides and threw them on a hot grill.

After a minute or so, the bread had some nice grill marks and were golden brown on the bottom. I pulled them off and topped the grilled sides with goat cheese (Chevre). This step can be optional for those of you who don't dig the tanginess of the goat cheese. It's not a deal-breaker. I threw the bruschetta back on the grill for another minute to warm the cheese and toast the bottom of the bread. The cheese won't melt, but it will soften up.

After grilling the bread, the tomato and watermelon mixture has had a little time to meld. It's time to construct the final product. I put a slice of the bread in a shallow bowl and pile up the mixture. I drizzle a little oil and put a few drops of vinegar around the edges, and sprinkle the remaining mint on top. I make sure to have a few extra slices of bread to scoop up the extra salad. It's time to dig in.

Back Fat:

This dish depends greatly on the quality of the ingredients. If you use crappy tomatoes, you're definitely going to notice it. That's a big reason to spend the extra coin on the Ugly Ripe. You only really need one large tomato, and you'll make a good amount of salad for an appetizer for four or a healthy main portion for two (plus leftovers). In August, when heirloom tomatoes are in season, I love getting a mix of meaty tomatoes to add even more flavor and color to the dish. If there are a variety of watermelons, I'll get a mix of those too. If you're eating with me this summer, expect to see this dish. I can't get enough of it.

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Fat Boy Burgers

In honor of Buff Love aka The Human Beatbox...

Today, in pursuit of fatness, I made a hamburger. I knew that this was the perfect thing to cook to show my attitude about cooking. With that being said, I couldn't have some

boring, old hamburger with pre-made patties, crappy wimpy slices of American cheese, thick slabs of under-ripe tomato and all the other rubbish you get at a Memorial Day picnic. It needed to be more, because there are rules you need to follow when making any burger.

Rule #1: It needs to be big: a Fat Boy burger (see above).
Rule #2: You need FAT. Lot's of it. Fat in the meat, fat on top of the meat and the meat coated (or sitting) in fat while cooking.

Rule #3: There needs to be enough seasoning (big burgers need a lot), but not too much that the flavor of the meat is lost.

Rule #4: You need good bread. Some people like a soft bun or roll. I like something soft, but firm enough that it's not falling apart when I'm eating it.

Rule #5: The toppings should never be an after-thought. They should compliment the flavor of the burger and also add something to the experience of eating it.

Rule #6: The burger should be messy. Bring a whole stack of napkins or use a shirt.

In the end, your burger should be excessive. If it can't be described as such, you've failed miserably. End of story.

So did I live up to these rules? Did I pay homage to the burger masters out there?

Well, at the very least, I started things right. I had great ingredients. This time around I used 80% lean ground chuck. It's not always available at the meat counter at my supermarket so sometimes I do settle for 85% (the horror). I really like going with the meat that's at the meat counter rather than the meat in the plastic-wrapped styrofoam. Plastic-wrapped ground beef tends to feel wet and slimy when you take it out of the package (not good). So when I have the choice, I go with the 85% from the counter. I don't have a meat-grinder yet. When I do get one, which is only a matter of time, I'll definitely be grinding my own meat. For now, my local meat man does a great job.

I was making two burgers this evening, so I bought just over a pound of meat. That meant that I had two burgers that were just slightly larger than a half-pound each. I'll explain the indentations in the center of each patty later.

Next, I had good bread. I got two Ciabatta rolls, which I think are the perfect match to an oversized, juicy burger. The rolls have a slightly crusty exterior with a soft interior. I think they're perfect. Some could complain that they are too firm and make biting into the burger a little more work, but I enjoy the contrast in texture between the exterior of the roll, the interior and the burger itself. At this point, my burger is still a blank canvas. The meat and the bread are a great foundation, but it needs some inspiration to bring it to the next level.

Oddly enough, I found my inspiration in a salad I had at a Mother's Day Brunch. The salad was topped with crispy leeks and had a hint of toasted sesame oil. It was delicious. I thought the crispy leeks were amazing. They were light, crispy and packed a ton of flavor. The toasted sesame oil added just a hint of flavor, but enough to make you notice.

My favorite burger on Earth, The Radius burger made by Chef Michael Schlow, has crispy shallots/onions on it, so crispy leeks are not a stretch by any means. This can be done. It will happen. This will be my reworking of the greatest burger on Earth.

If you'd like to get to the making of the burger and skip past the toppings, scroll down to the stars. *****

I cut my leeks into thin vertical strips of just the white part, roughly 4 inches in length. Leeks will almost always have some kind of grit in between the layers of them, so I busted out the salad spinner (this totally pisses off my wife).

My wife hates any time I take out extra equipment (she's usually the one who cleans up). I, on the other hand, love using as many gadgets and pieces of cooking gear as possible.

After cutting and cleaning the leeks, I threw the strips into a big pot of cold canola oil. I made sure there was enough oil so the leeks weren't overcrowded in the pot. At this point, I turned the heat to high. Once the oil was bubbling vigorously, I dropped the heat to low and let the leeks cook slowly.

Every minute or so, I'd flip the leeks around so that there would be more even cooking, since the center of the pot will cook faster than the outer edges. As the leeks got golden brown, I'd remove them and put them on paper towels. After a few minutes, the sugars in the leeks cooled, hardened and became the tastiest damn burger topping on Earth.

I learned this technique from Chef Michael Schlow's book, It's About Time, but never tried it with leeks before. Starting off the leeks in the cold oil and bringing them up to the high temperature is the integral part of this technique. It causes the sugars in the leeks to gradually melt and caramelize. If you were to throw them into hot oil, they would burn.

As the leeks cooked away, I prepared my other toppings and seasoned the burgers. I wanted to continue the Asian flavors, so I pulled out the Szechuan peppercorns and the toasted sesame oil from the pantry. I planned to season the burgers with both, and use the sesame oil in finishing off some pan-roasted shiitake mushrooms. Before I could grind the peppercorns, though, I needed to toast them. I threw just enough peppercorns in a dry pan over high heat and waited attentively until the peppercorns began to let off a slight aroma. I immediately removed them from the pan and let them cool.

Szechuan peppercorns have a slightly spicy, almost lemony, flavor that is definitely unique. I still have not yet found a substitute that comes close.

After grinding the peppercorns, I seasoned just one side of my burgers with them because I didn't want them to be too overpowering. I seasoned the other side with regular black pepper and I put kosher salt on both sides. I threw the patties in the fridge until about five minutes before it was time to cook them.

The leeks were still cooking away, so I had time to make my sauces and the mushrooms. The mushrooms were very easy. I pan roasted them with a little canola oil and then finished them off with some sesame oil.

Mmmm... the sesame oil smelled amazing while I was cooking the mushrooms

I made two different sauces for the burgers. One sauce was Chef Schlow's horseradish mayo sauce and the other was a spicy ketchup. The horseradish mayo included mayo, black pepper, lemon juice and horseradish.

I spiced up some ketchup with another Asian inspired ingredient: sambal oelek. This stuff is so potent, that I only needed a scant amount to really make a big difference.

************

Burger Time!

Finally, the prep for these bad boys was complete. It was time to cook. Now, I normally prefer to grill my burgers, but today was going to be different. I wanted to experiment with the Radius burger method. This method involves a three-step process where you first put the burger to high heat (he uses an indoor grill that is mind-blowingly hot), transfer it to the oven and finally finish it off under the broiler. The only difference was I was going to keep it off the grill and use a cast-iron pan instead, because I can get my cast-iron pan far hotter than my gas grill. The process is truly brilliant (you will soon see why).

I know my sister would complain that this method is way too complicated, and she might be correct. Burgers are supposed to be a great, quick meal. I was looking to make an amazing burger, though, and if you haven't figured it out yet by this blog entry, I'm not interested in making it simple. I want a bad-ass, fat boy burger and I'll take the necessary steps to do it.

So after letting the burgers come back to room temperature, I drizzled a small amount of toasted sesame oil over the burgers. Any time I cook meat on the grill, I drizzle some form of oil (EVOO, canola, sesame, peanut, whatever) on the already seasoned meat right before cooking. I also put oil on the grates of the grill. Just enough to lubricate the grates and the meat. It gets the browning process going, which leads to a nice crust, or grill marks. A burger in a cast-iron pan is no exception to this. As you can see by the pictures, I also made indentations in each patty. I picked this trick up from Bobby Flay. As the burgers cook, they'll puff up. These indentations allow for the burger to remain relatively flat and the end product won't look like the shape of a baseball. I put the burgers on the heat with the indentations up to start.

Remember, always lubricate your meat.

After getting the pan smoking hot (the oil should be almost to the point of smoking), I put the burgers in the pan for about a minute and a half per side. This allows for the burgers to get a good crust (see the picture on the right). After cooking the second side of the burgers, I transfered the burgers to a wire rack and put them in an oven that was preheated to 325. This temperature is what makes this process work. It allows the burgers to finish the cooking process in a gentle manner, so you get a nice even doneness all the way through the burger. I left the burgers in the oven about 5 minutes. While the burgers were cooking, I threw the ciabatta rolls in the toaster and got them nice and golden.

After the five minutes was up, I took the burgers out and switched the oven on to broil. I then topped my burgers with the mushrooms from earlier and a thick slice of sharp cheddar. Placing the cheese on top of the mushrooms (or any topping for that matter), allows the cheese to become a nice blanket keeping the mushrooms in place. I put the burgers back in the oven under the broiler just until the cheese was completely melted.

I was very excited at this point. I could taste the burgers.

These burgers are ready for eating.

The final assembly of the burger only required the sauce and the leeks. I started with the sauce to help the crispy leeks stay in place, which ended up being a losing battle. I was very liberal with my sauce (remember Rule #6). I made sure it was flowing over the sides, mostly for dramatic effect. After that, I piled as many leeks as I could manage onto the burger. At this point, I could not hold back. Restraint is not in my repertoire of burger-making skills. It was time to eat.

The final assembly. Damn, this looks good.

Back Fat:

In the end the burger was phenomenal. The meat was evenly cooked throughout (a nice, pink medium rare) and was incredibly juicy. The leeks were a perfect topping and the mushrooms were a great touch, too. The flavors of the sesame oil as well as the Szechuan peppercorns were just enough to make the burger flavorful, but they still played a supporting role in the overall taste of the burger. The ciabatta was a good sturdy roll that was soft enough but still held up to the juiciness of the burger. I would love to try this burger with other types of bread to find the ideal match. I would also like to experiment with the cheese I use on the burger. It was a good, solid choice, but I'm sure there are others out there that could bring the burger to even greater heights. All in all, this was a successful pursuit of fatness.

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