In October of last year I had spinal surgery. My lowest disc had been ground to the consistency of hamburger, and—despite epidural steroid injections, physical therapy, and a river of opioids—my back pain just kept getting worse. So, they removed the disc and fused the associated pair of vertebrae. After the surgery, I spent a painful week in the hospital followed by two weeks in a rehabilitation facility. Returning home, a big part of my post-operative rehabilitation has been long walks. I've had my share of ups and downs with the rehabilitation process, but walking Lately, I've been trying to get in at least one long circuit (at least a mile and a half) every day.
A typical summer in Austin, Texas, means daily high temperatures in the triple digits, with humidity just high enough to ensure runnels of sweat just from walking down to the mail box. As I type, it's 3:30 in the afternoon, the temperature outside just hit 102F. My back-patio thermometer says it 96 degrees in the shade. I hear the sizzling trill of cicadas in the trees, and it's hard not to think of the neighborhood as a giant skillet. As much as I love the Texas heat, it's not the kind of weather you want for a long walk. It's also a bad idea to walk any time around or just after dusk. That's when the mosquitos come out, and they're wicked hungry. So, like a lot of other Austinite walkers, runners, joggers, and cyclists, I end up having to get up before dawn to get in my day's exercise. It works. I get in a long walk without being braised in my own juices, and I get to watch the sun rise.
I wish it were that easy to solve the cooking heat dilemma.
Baking is the worst. Crank up the oven to 400F for half an hour, and the house can heat up five degrees for the rest of the evening. Open flames, naturally, have pretty much the same effect. Too many cooked dishes in a meal can mean an uncomfortable night all around. Plus, no one really wants a meal that warms them up when the air is this hot. If I even mention soup, Princess V makes a sour face. Sure, we can eat lots of sashimi, carpaccio, tartare, and salads; and we do. After a while, though, the cold foods leave me wanting some of the complexity that can develop only with the addition of heat: roasting, grilling, sautéing. Also, summer places its own culinary demands on us. For most people, apparently, summer means grill marks. It's rare, this time of year, that you find a food-porn magazine without grill marks on the cover. I understand the attraction of the grill in summer: you get all of that caramelized, smoky goodness without heating up the house. Then again, standing over a bank of hot coals in 102F weather isn't the ideal cooking experience.
Continuing the Boycott
For me, summer has always meant hamburgers. I don't know where the association originated, but hot weather always leaves me craving juicy burgers with molten cheese. Ironically, I don't eat a whole lot of beef, and I never buy ground meat. As I mentioned in Beauty in the Beast Princess V is more than a little concerned about the possibility of BSE. Also, I find that beef makes me logy and generally plays hell with my digestion. I like the flavor of beef once in a while, but I can't eat much of it, and I try to avoid ground beef altogether. This is why I started experimenting with alternative meats, and I think I've come up with a success.
First, here's a brief run down of the failures:
- Bison. I love rare bison, but bison tallow is gamy. Bison burgers always taste a bit too much like liver, for my taste.
- Pork. Too greasy or too dry, and ground pork just doesn't hold together. Plus, the flavor profile is just wrong.
- Turkey. Lean ground turkey is way too dry and a little too sweet. Adding in a little dark meat helps a little, but the result is far too sweet.
- Ahi tuna. Luscious, but this is a burger? Also, this strikes me as a waste of good tuna. I can think of a thousand dishes I'd rather make with fresh tuna. Similarly, I have no interest in even trying shrimp burgers or lobster burgers.
- Chicken (version one). Lean ground chicken is as dry as lean ground turkey, but the flavor of pan seared ground chicken is more like ground beef than turkey.
- Chicken (version two). The grocery store carries a variety of ground chicken that's not so low in fat. As with the turkey, they mix in one part dark meat with three parts white meat. The result is moist, but the burger tastes too schmaltzy.
And the winner, believe it or not, is: chicken (version three). The secret is to replace the chicken fat with tastier fat. Blow off the pre-ground chicken, use lean breast meat, and add some good streaky bacon for the fat. Of course, everything is better with bacon.
For the sake of a little of the old bang/wow, it also helps to design your own condiments. Catsup and mustard seemed like no-brainers, and the chipotle in the catsup was begging for some avocado to balance the heat.
Chicken Sliders with Chipotle Catsup, Dijon Tapenade Mustard, and Avocado Cream
(serves six)
dramatis personae
four boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
eight slices center cut bacon
one teaspoon cornstarch
one teaspoon worcestershire sauce
two tablespoons olive oil (if frying)
black pepper
catsup
one small can tomato purée
chipotle chilis in adobo
cider vinegar
dark brown sugar
a pinch of kosher salt
mustard
one quarter cup niçoise olives (pitted)
two tablespoons non-pareil capers
three anchovy filets
one quarter cup dijon mustard
avocado cream
one large hass avocado
juice of one small lemon
juice of one medium lime
one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
one half tablespoon of avocado oil
one quarter cup milk
quality of ingredients
The chicken breasts should be free of freezer burn. These days, you'll find many options for high-quality chicken: free-range, cageless, hormone-free, antibiotic free, air-chilled. As far as I can tell, each of these adjectives adds a great deal to the cost of the chicken and next to nothing to the taste.
I like the fat-to-lean balance in center cut bacon, but that's also our go-to variety for breakfast. A good applewood, mesquite, or hickory smoked bacon might work. Possibly pancetta. I'd avoid the maple syrup stuff, though.
Some of the TV chefs and foodies of late seem determined to use extra-virgin olive oil for everything. As much as I love extra-virgin olive oil, using it in any high-temperature application is just stupid. Use a good quality olive oil if you're frying your burgers but leave the extra-virgin on the shelf.
Even if you live in an area (like Austin) where you can get dry chipotle chilis, the canned ones work better for uncooked sauces.
Be sure your cider vinegar does not say "cider-flavored vinegar" on the label. That's not cider vinegar. Some brands sell both cider vinegar and cider-flavored, so read the label every time you buy it.
Salt. I like kosher or sea salt. It doesn't matter which you use, but be aware that you'll use half as much if you choose to use table salt.
I prefer Niçoise olives in my tapenades. In a pinch, you can use kalamata olives for a tapenade, but in this case—for a mustard—I think the kalamatas would be too tart.
Taste the capers before you use them. Some brands are too salty to use directly out of the jar. If they're too salty, soak them in fresh water for a few minutes before using them. Be sure you don't get the kind steeped in balsamic vinegar.
Avocados are difficult to get at exactly the right degree of ripeness. If they're just a little too soft, they might be overripe. Overripe avocados have nasty brown portions. For this application, however, where the avocado will be puréed in a blender, it doesn't need to be quite as soft as it would for a guacamolé. Buy an avocado that yields to a slight pressure.
preparation notes
Cut away all the fat from the chicken breasts, dice the bacon, and combine the chicken, bacon, corn starch, and worcestershire sauce in a food processor. Process the ingredients until you no longer see chunks of bacon in the mix.
Wet your hands (ground chicken is very sticky) and form the chicken into patties at least one half-inch thick. Cook the chicken patties until they're golden brown on one side (about four minutes in a hot skillet, a little longer on a grill). Flip the patties and cook them until the other side is equally golden brown.
You can make the patties burger-size and serve them with hamburger buns or slider-size and serve them on biscuits or dinner rolls.
You may have noticed that I didn't list quantities for any of the ingredients for the catsup (except the tomato purée, but you have to start somewhere). I find most store-bought catsup cloying and vile, but I know this is a matter of taste. For this reason, you should make the catsup to suit your own taste. I recommend starting with one chipotle. Remove the stem, cut open the chili, and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Add the chipotle and the purée to a blender. Add a splash of cider vinegar, a teaspoon or so of brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Blend the ingredients until the chipotle is completely puréed. Taste the concoction. If you want it hotter, add another chipotle. Add more vinegar, sugar, and salt as your taste dictates.
For the Dijon tapenade mustard, first make the tapenade. Combine the ingredients in a food processor and pulse them a few times. The anchovy filets will disappear immediately. You just need to process the ingredients until the bits of olive are about the same size as the capers.
For the avocado cream, in a blender, purée the ingredients until smooth.
