Page 4C
East Oregonian
EAT, DRINK & EXPLORE
The healthy burger that may
make even carnivores opt for veg
By MELISSA D’ARABIAN
Associated Press
May shepherds in the
season of the backyard
barbecue, and for us that
means one thing: burgers. Let
me back up and say that just
about anything I make on the
grill in warmer months, I also
make regularly inside on the
stovetop. And while I do love
a lat-top-smooshed burger
with its crusty, dangly edges,
the backyard barbecue burger
remains in a league of its own.
Our family’s burger
bonanzas are a little legendary
in our social circle (OK, so
maybe with just my kids,
nieces and nephews). The
herby-garlicky sauce I make,
called “magic” sauce by those
in the know, is particularly
popular. So when three of my
extended family members
went vegetarian, my burger-
grilling game suffered. I did
what any well-intentioned-but-
misguided carnivore would do:
I bought some frozen veggie
burgers from the grocery store
and called it a day. Now, to
be fair, some of those veggie
burgers are downright tasty.
But, homemade-with-love-
magic-sauce-worthy? Not so
much. So, I upped my veggie
burger game. While I do love
the black-bean, quinoa or
legume-based versions I’ve
created over the years, the
simplest veggie burger of all
remains a family favorite: the
giant portobello mushroom
cap. Bonus: This dish is
low-calorie (leaving wiggle
room for cheese, sauce and
a bun), and it’s nearly fool-
proof — no falling apart and
disappearing into the lames
between the grill grates.
I used cilantro in this
version because it pairs nicely
with the baked corn tortilla
chips (just a few go a long way
to add satisfying crunch), but
feel free to experiment with
other herbs, such as basil, or
mint. Even carnivores might
be converted.
———
Food Network star Melissa
d’Arabian is an expert on
healthy eating on a budget.
She is the author of the
cookbook, “Supermarket
Healthy.”
Summer means
grill, but why not
add some smoke?
By LEANNE ITALIE
Associated Press
AP Photo/Melissa D’arabian
For this veggie burger, the secret is in the sauce. Portobellos make for a tastier choice
than frozen options.
GRILLED PORTOBELLO BURGERS WITH CILANTRO GARLIC SAUCE
Start to Finish: 25 minutes
Servings: 4
For the sauce
• 1/3 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
• 3 tablespoons low-fat mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh
cilantro
• 1 scallion, roughly chopped
• 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (or
soy sauce, if vegetarian)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon water, if needed
• Black pepper
For the burger:
• 4 large portobello mushroom caps,
cleaned and gills removed
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• olive oil in a mister
• Salt and pepper
• 4 slices gouda cheese (or other favorite
melting cheese)
• 4 large slices of tomato, or 8 small
slices
• 1 cup peppery greens, such as arugula
or other peppery green mix
• 12 baked tortilla chips
• 4 whole grain hamburger buns (not
oversized)
To make the sauce, blend all the sauce
ingredients in the blender until mixed, but
with small lecks of green. Pour into a
small bowl and chill, up to 3 days.
Heat grill to medium high. Brush the
mushroom caps with the balsamic vinegar,
spray liberally with olive oil, and salt and
pepper. Grill the mushroom caps for 3
minutes on the smooth side and then lip.
Top with cheese and grill, covered, another
3 minutes, until mushroom is tender
(but not loppy) and cheese is melted.
Meanwhile, toast the buns for 1-2 minutes
on the cut side, or until barely golden.
Place peppery greens on bottom of bun
and then tomato. Remove the mushroom
caps from the grill and place directly on the
tomato. Top the still-hot mushroom with
a couple of tablespoons of the sauce. Top
with 3 chips on each burger and then the
bun.
Nutrition information per serving:
357 calories; 175 calories from fat; 15
g fat (5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 23
mg cholesterol; 626 mg sodium; 45 g
carbohydrate; 8 g iber; 9 g sugar; 15 g
protein.
A new trick for the perfect burger
By ELIZABETH KARMEL
Associated Press
I thought I knew how
to make the perfect burger.
Now I know better.
I still stand by most of
my principles — making
your own blend of ground
meat, a combination of
ground sirloin and ground
chuck; working and mixing
the meat as little as possible
— but I recently discovered
a far better way to cook
the burgers. I discovered
it while attempting to grill
tiny samples of a variety
of ground beefs (I was
searching for just the right
blend and didn’t want
to make lots of full-size
patties).
As I pondered how I was
going to grill tiny patties
without them falling through
the grates, I considered a
cast-iron grill platter, a thick,
lat sheet of cast iron. Bingo!
We could grill the bite-sized
burgers on the sizzle platter!
I placed the platter on
the grill grate and started
grilling the bites. They
were all delicious. But the
most exciting part was
the rich, brown crust they
all developed. The platter
turned the gas grill into a
lat grill, while the heat of
the cast-iron surface deeply
caramelized everything it
touched. Because the lid
was down and there were
other foods on the grill, the
burgers still got that smoky
outdoor grilled lavor, but
with a griddle-style crust.
It was the perfect cooking
mashup of grill and griddle
for my all-American
cheeseburger topped with
melted American cheese.
Since that evening, it is the
only way that I grill burgers
— of any size!
The recipe below is my
favorite burger these days. I
traded in my aged cheddar
cheese for old-fashioned
American, which melts
Saturday, May 21, 2016
AP Photo/J.M. Hirsch
Consider a cast-iron grill
platter, a thick, lat sheet
of cast iron, to grill up the
perfect summer burger.
better and adds a layer of
soft gooeyness on top of the
crunchy caramelized crust of
the burger. To me, this is the
best condiment and I don’t
need anything else except
maybe pickles, which I layer
on the bottom bun so that the
cheese and the top bun stick
together and become one.
Of course, you can
add any of your favorite
condiments and toppings,
but try this minimalist burger
at least once. When you use
the best quality beef and
grill the burgers using the
cast-iron sizzle platter, you
hardly need anything besides
the cheese and a soft potato
bun to make it summer’s
best burger.
———
Elizabeth Karmel is a
barbecue and Southern
foods expert. She is the chef
and pitmaster at online
retailer CarolinaCueToGo.
com and author of three
books, including “Taming
the Flame.”
GRILLED GRIDDLED CHEESEBURGER
Start to inish: 20 minutes
Servings: 6
• 1 pound ground beef chuck
• 1 pound ground beef sirloin
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (optional)
• 1 teaspoon Coleman’s Mustard powder (optional)
• Kosher salt and ground black pepper
• Olive oil
• 6 slices American cheese
• 6 potato burger buns
• Dill pickle chips
Being careful not to overwork the meat, in a large bowl mix
together the chuck and sirloin with the Worcestershire sauce,
mustard powder and generous pinches each of salt and pepper.
Gently shape the meat into 6 burgers, each about 3/4 inch
thick. Brush each patty on all sides with olive oil. Use your
thumbs to make an indent at the center of each burger.
Heat the grill to medium. Place a lat cast-iron griddle on
the grates at the center of the grill.
When the grill and griddle are hot, place the burgers on the
griddle and cook, covered, until the meat is no longer pink, 8
to 10 minutes, turning once halfway through grilling time. Top
each burger with American cheese about 2 minutes before you
remove them from the grill. You want the cheese to be soft but
not too melted.
Let the burgers rest 2 to 3 minutes and serve on a potato bun
with pickle chips.
Nutrition information per serving: 550 calories; 230
calories from fat (42 percent of total calories); 26 g fat (10 g
saturated; 1 g trans fats); 115 mg cholesterol; 900 mg sodium;
38 g carbohydrate; 2 g iber; 7 g sugar; 40 g protein.
NEW YORK — Summer’s on its way and that
means grilling for many people, so why not try
smoking?
Steven Raichlen, who wrote “The Barbecue!
Bible,” has followed with “Project Smoke,” also the
name of a PBS series he hosts that will launch its
second season over Memorial Day weekend.
“By now, in 2016, most people know how
to grill, and even if they don’t know how to grill
and they have the Y chromosome, they think they
know how to do it,” he said in a recent interview.
“Smoking is not something that most people grew
up doing, so there is a learning curve and there’s an
intimidation factor, but once you do it, it can give
you tremendous satisfaction.”
The step-by-step book, out this month from
Workman Publishing, covers gear, technique,
recipes and the science behind the cooking method
that Raichlen shows can be used on everything from
appetizers to dessert.
“Basically every grill works the same. Charcoal
may need a little more care with heat control, and
gas you need a little more care in how to boost the
lavor, but each smoker operates a little bit differ-
ently,” he said. “You can be convenience-oriented
or get as nerdy as you want to be.”
A conversation with Steven Raichlen:
Associated Press: What are the biggest miscon-
ceptions among home cooks about smoking?
Raichlen: Maybe the irst is that you need
a heavy-duty smoker to do it. In fact, it’s easy to
smoke on a charcoal kettle grill, for example.
I think another misconception is that smoking
has to be very time-consuming. While it’s true
that to smoke a brisket or a pork shoulder, you are
looking at the better part of a day, there are many
quick smoking techniques. For example, in Italy
they smoke mozzarella using hay. The process
maybe takes ive minutes.
Another misconception is that all smoked foods
are barbecued. That is certainly not the case. All
good barbecue is infused with wood smoke. That’s
its very nature, but there are a lot of smoked dishes
that are not barbecue. Think of smoked salmon,
think of smoked cheese. These are very traditional
smoked dishes.
AP: What about smoking indoors?
Raichlen: You can smoke indoors. There are
a variety of indoor smokers that work on your
stovetop. Two that I feature in the book are the
Cameron Stovetop Smoker cooker and the Nordic
Ware Kettle Smoker.
Another tool that I use a lot in the book is what’s
called a hand-held smoking device. Kind of the
most famous brand is the Smoking Gun by Poly-
Science. It’s sort of like a reverse bong that you ill
with hardwood sawdust instead of you know what.
That’s great for smoking cocktails. You can use it for
smoking ice cream.
AP: Can you smoke anything?
Raichlen: That’s really another misconception,
that all smoked foods are either meat or ish, but
in fact the realm of smoked foods is enormous. It
stretches from appetizers to desserts.
AP: You call smoking the new grilling. What
evidence do you have to back that up?
Raichlen: Many, many pieces of evidence.
One, if you look at grill and smoker sales statistics.
Pellet grills and pellet smokers, the sales are going
through the roof. That’s probably the fastest growing
segment. Big Green Egg, that’s another company
that’s enjoyed double-digit growth for the last 10
years.
Things like wood sales are up. Ten years ago,
smoking was more a regional phenomenon. It was
done a lot in the American South, in Texas, in the
Midwest. Now it really is going mainstream.
AP: Do you have a general philosophy about
smoke?
Raichlen: I like to think of smoke as the umami
of barbecue. What I mean by that is umami lavors
from Asia. You ind them in seaweed, you ind
them in Asian ish sauce, soy sauce, mushrooms,
Parmesan cheese. These are rich, earthy lavors that
are called the Fifth Taste. They sort of make foods
taste more intense. They keep a food’s lavor but
they make it taste more interesting.
I think smoke very much serves this function.
A piece of grilled salmon, delicious. A piece of
smoked salmon, delicious, and the salmon has been
somehow transformed in an otherworldly way.
AP: Tell us about smoking cocktails and what
some of your favorites are.
Raichlen: When you smoke cocktails you are
joining two worlds: the cocktail world and the
barbecue world. You’re sort of creating barbecue
you can drink. I’m not the irst guy to come up with
this concept. When you think about Scotch whisky,
it’s a whisky that’s made with smoked barley, so
thousands of years ago people conceived the notion
that smoke and booze are a very good combination.
Mezcal is another classic example. I know
this summer I’m going to be making a lot of
mezcalinis. That’s sort of a cross between a mojito
and a margarita. It’s made with muddled mint and
cucumber. Mezcal is an agave cactus-based spirit
from the Oaxaca region in Mexico. The cactus
hearts are smoke-roasted in a pit before distilling so
it has a good smoky lavor. I like to beef that lavor
up by adding smoke using a smoking gun to ill up
the cocktail in the pitcher.
AP: How can home cooks get started on
smoking?
Raichlen: There’s one thing I’m going to say
that will probably be a little bit unpopular. There’s
one way that you really can’t smoke very well and
that’s with a gas grill. At the very least they need a
charcoal kettle grill. You can smoke anything in a
charcoal kettle grill.
Indoors, it’s harder to get a crust, what in barbecue
circles would be called the bark that we would look
for in a Texas brisket or Memphis-style ribs. You
also have to choose somewhat judiciously what you
smoke indoors. It’s theoretically possible to smoke a
brisket or a rack of ribs on an indoor smoker but you
will get far better results if you do it outdoors in a
kettle grill, for example. The kettle grill is amazing.
You’re looking at $150 for a kettle grill.
Everybody thinks they need to spend thousands of
dollars but there are many, many effective smokers
that cost less than $300.