Making a great burger by going to a smaller slider size bun

Burgers are a staple of the summer cooking. Cooking burgers that are from the butcher, Costco in frozen patties is the easy way.  But after my family said some of what I cooked wasn't that good decided to look for something better. Shifted to organic beef from Costco in the 21oz packages. The problem is the 21 oz is an awkward size for dividing up.  There are four us.  Dividing up into 6 was easier and more reasonable amount of 3.5 oz of beef.  But that size is way too small for a hamburger bun, but a slider bun fits.

There are three parts of my sliders that take time - bacon, caramelized onions, and the burgers.  Part of why I think people like my burgers is I am not in a hurry. 

I oven bake the bacon as I find it easier to cook a whole package at once in cookie sheets. Here is a serious cook's recipe for oven baking bacon.  But I don't do it the fast way. I modify the recipe cooking at a lower temperature of 325 for 30-40 minutes until the bacon is starting to brown all over, then turn down the heat to 150 and cook for another 30-45 minutes. I accidentally added the finishing step of 150 for longer time and found I could walk away and not worry about the last finishing.  Everyone likes the bacon and the clean up is much easier not going for a higher temperature. The bacon fat can easily be drained into Tupperware for reuse in recipes that need bacon fat.

Caramelized onions I'll also slowly cook allowing an hour. Here is one recipe with tips. I use butter and olive oil with salt and pepper. Last time I tried a bit of bacon fat.  Slowly cook over medium heat in cast iron. The browning doesn't occur until 30 minutes cooking.  When the caramelized browning covers all the onions, then I reduce the heat and cook for another 30 minutes.

Time for the burgers. Make 3 inch patties.  6 evenly divided from the Costco 21 oz Organic Beef package.  Garlic salt and pepper.  Cook in cast iron skillet or grill 3-4 minutes per side if you like medium rare.  Warm up buns in toaster oven or grill.  Let the burger rest a couple of minutes.  Serve with onions, bacon, and avocado sides.

I'll add pictures to this post if I remember to take some pictures a long the way.

Life Story told by a Jewish Cook opening Ramen Shops in Japan and Brooklyn - Ivan Ramen

Up until last night one of my favorite cooking shows was Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" with Masa Takayama. Why was this episode my favorite? Because it told a great story about Masa.

My new favorite is the story of Ivan Ramen. on Netflix's "chef's table." It is also the favorite of many others.

“In its third season, Chef’s Table is trying to relax. Creator David Gelb’s Netflix series is typically a paean to the kind of austere, über-expensive restaurants casually referenced as “temples” to their chosen cuisine, with the annual World’s 50 Best list as its unofficial source text. That description still applies to about half the new season’s six mini-docs, because this is still Chef’s Table: the Peruvian restaurant Central, currently fourth among the all-important 50, has its own research department, and an interlude with tyrannical Berliner Tim Raue could be retitled Whiplash: Germany. But the other half constitutes a real and intermittently successful effort at change, and the story of ramen chef Ivan Orkin represents the peak.
The proprietor of Lower East Side–by-way-of-Setagaya shop Ivan Ramen is both a perfect and atypical subject for the docuseries. On the one hand, he tells us in his opening voice-over, “You have to be all in to get into ramen” — obsession and commitment being the traits Gelb prizes above all else in his subjects. On the other? “Ramen isn’t dainty,” Orkin says, by way of explaining how a “fuck-you kinda guy” became a respected figure in the culinary world. “It’s messy.” On a show on which tweezers appear as often as knives, that’s a step off the beaten path.”

— https://theringer.com/chefs-table-orkin-netflix-ivan-ramen-new-york-a3513fe922ac

Pizza Dough Recipe, Best Taste - Clean and Supportive

For years I have held off on making my own pizza dough.  I tried a couple of times, but I didn’t like the taste and time it took to make the dough.  So I would use pre made dough from Whole Food or Trader Joe’s.

Over the past few months I have gone back to trying to make my own pizza dough, using Woodstone’s pizza dough recipe which is the same company that makes my pizza oven.  I like this recipe because of the taste, clean and supportive for toppings.

Yield: Makes 6 ea. 7-oz. dough balls

 

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Ingredients

1/2 tsp. dry instant yeast
1 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 cup water, 65 degrees
1 cup semolina flour, Bob’s Red Mill is great
 4 1/2  -5 cups all-purpose flour, we prefer King Arthur for this dough
Olive oil

Writing this post I discovered this dough tip page that gives you great information to modify the recipe.

Three Styles of Crust

1. Crispy Crust (thin or thicker crust): Lower gluten (as low as 7.5% is available), a wetter dough (without being sticky), protein content can be the same or lower (for less chewy dough), and oven temperatures between 550-600 degrees.
   • Lower temperature for thicker crust (needs to cook longer, 5-7 minutes)
   • Higher temperature for thin crust (quicker bake, 3-4 minutes)
   • Minimal toppings and sauce: the more “stuff” you have on the pizza the longer it will take to cook and the less crispy it will be.
2. Cracker Crisp Crust: low protein (10.5-11.5) low gluten flour, longer mixing time (12 minutes) better developed dough.
3. Thick and Chewy Crust: Gluten in the range of 12-13% and a bit dryer dough, higher protein as well as a lower oven temperature (525-550 degrees) and longer cooking times (6-9 minutes). Use a larger dough ball if using our dough. This is a good style if you like more toppings and sauce on your pizza.

Woodstone Ovens in the home

I just chatted with one of the folks at Woodstone Corp and we had a nice discussion on using the Woodstone oven.  I enjoy cooking and some other chefs who like their woodstone oven at work have one at home too.

Wood Stone is the oven of choice for hundreds of world-class chefs in their restaurants. Of course, they love them so much that they naturally want to have the same oven to play with at home! You too can cook in the same oven favored by the likes of Bobby Flay, Tom Colicchio, Wolfgang Puck, and Michael Mina with Wood Stone Home!

I work from my home office so I guess I could say I use my oven at work and home too.

Tonight’s menu is roasted chicken, pizza, and roasted broccoli.

What did you do Yesterday? Lunch at Facebook's 6th annual Sam Choy Luau Lunch

I headed down to the bay area yesterday, and there were probably 20 people on the plane who were heading to Uptime Symposium.  We all landed from SEA to SJC at 9:10a and everyone was off to Uptime, except me.  I had a meeting at Facebook and was able to go to  6th annual Sam Choy Lunch.  

The food was awesome pork, chicken, fish, beef, and the long long line for the Poke

Hey Everyone!
Today, Tuesday May 20th we are having our 6th Annual Sam Choy Luau at Hack Square!