Last weekend I made a homemade burger and oven baked chips. I generally prefer fish to meat, but sometimes crave MEAT, which means I want not chicken but either beef or pork!
I decided to make a burger and chips since they are something I can cook very well at home in a healthier way. Cooking a patty for a burger at home is a healthy option, considering the risk of contaminated meat. Also with this recipe chips are oven roasted instead of deep fried. I found this method never deteriorates the taste of chips while decreasing a lot of calories. If you crave meat, this is the perfect recipe!
Homemade Burger (serves 2)
Ingredients
- Burger bread
- 2 slice of tomato
- 2 slice of cheese
- Some lettuce
- 2 tablespoon of mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoon of brown sauce+1 tablespoon of honey/homemade sauce (detailed below)
For the patties
- 200g Beef mince
- Half of onion
- One clove of garlic
- One tablespoon of ginger
- 3/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
- Bread crumbles
- One egg
- Salt and pepper
Directions
1. Chop the onion and saute with olive oil until it gets golden brown. Put aside to cool completely.
2. In a big bowl put the meat, grazed or chopped garlic and ginger, nutmeg, onion, egg, salt and pepper, and mix them together very well with your hand until it gets sticky.
3. Put the bread crumbles. This finalises the texture. Please go slow as you add. Less bread crumbles, softer the patties will be; however, if they are too soft, they will be broken when fried.
4. Make the ingredients into 2 portions.
5. Toss one chunk of the meat between your hands for 10 times and release air bubbles in the meat. If you skip this process, again meat will be broken when cooked in a pan. Form into a patty with the height of 2 cm. Repeat this with the other chunk.
6. Heat some olive oil on a frying pan, and wait until it gets hot. Then cook the patties one side with the high heat.
7. Flip over the meat, and pour two tablespoon of water. Put the heat into the medium high with the lid on so that the patties are steamed. When the juice coming out from the patties gets transparent, that means the inside of the patties is cooked.
8. Put the lid off and cook the patties with the high heat again until they get beautiful brown colour.
9. Toast the burger bread and spread the mayonnaise.
10. On the above side of bread put the lettuce, tomato, cheese and one of the patties. Then spread some brown sauce or homemade sauce (recipe below).
11. Place the below side of bread on, then put the upside down. Voilà!
*Optional
I make the sauce on the same frying pan.
1. Wipe the greasy juice on the pan roughly with a kitchen paper.
2. Put 1 tablespoon of ketchup and uster sauce, 1/2 tablespoon of red wine and 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce, and mix them together in the pan.
3. Cook the sauce until it gets bubbles.
I do not think we can find uster sauce in a supermarket outside Japan. It is a kind of brown sauce made from veggies and fruits. You can use regular brown sauce with one tablespoon of honey.
Baked Chips (serves 2)
Ingredients
- One potato
- Dried herb (I used basil)
- Salt
- Olive oil
Methods
1. Preheat the oven to 200 C.
2. Peel and cut the potato into slices of 1 cm.
3. Put the potato slices in a bowl of water and rinse starches. This gives extra crispy taste when they are cooked.
4. Blanch potato slices in boiling water for about 5 minutes, and then drain in a colander well.
5. Spread the potato slices on a baking tray, and drizzle some olive oil and toss with salt and herb.
6. Roast for 25 minutes or until they are golden brown.
7. Scatter salt to serve.
I know what we eat is very important. I know burgers and chips are not counted as healthy foods. I know we should eat lots of vegetables, drink water and avoid processed food.
However, I personally think the quality, amount and moderation are also very very important. So if I crave something, I always try to get the better quality of that food, instead of banning from eating it, and enjoy the reasonable amount, instead of neither overeating nor undereating. I never cut out anything from my diet, but I try very hard so that everything is in moderation.
This sounds very simple, but actually difficult to practice since what we want to eat and how much we should eat are completely depends on our condition and we have to be constantly aware of our body needs.
However, I believe that is the key, and followed the voice of my body last weekend. The burger and chips were very tasty and satisfying, and I definitely recommend them when you crave MEAT!
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