AK loves burgers, and I've been making my own for some time now. I've learnt a couple of neat tricks by now, e.g. some freshly ground coriander can surprisingly uplift a couple of ounces of ground beef, that bacon fat can make it practically orgasmic - I kid you not, try it yourself. That all that machine ground meat can never beat lovingly hand-minced (unfortunately, sigh).
I discovered a Japanese version of the burger when I purchased Harumi Kurihara's Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking at one of Amazon's online sales months ago, but never got round trying it until last weekend. You basically use a mixture of beef and pork, raw onions (I normally soften mine first, preferably in the aforementioned bacon fat), and - the Japanese touch here - homemade teriyaki sauce. It just so happenned that I have a bottle of mirin I bought from yonks back that I intended to use to make katsudon. However the recipe intimated me so much (read it here) - all that deep frying and timing etc etc that I never got around to trying it out.
Making my own teriyaki sauce, on the other hand, was super easy and dare I say, much cheaper than buying my own chemical-laded version - although having said that, the soy sauce I used probably contained a preservative or two. Two-thirds soy and one-third mirin. Add a bit of sugar and rice wine vinegar to taste (I used about a teaspoon to make one cup of teriyaki). I also threw in a clove of garlic (slightly crushed) and grated in some ginger. This sauce, as Harumi says, can be used to marinate meats and seafood, stir fry veggies, basically your all-round hero. I modified her recipe slightly, incorporating a little of the teriyaki into the burgers instead of just salt - just to echo the sauce and amplify the Japanese tinge.
I discovered a Japanese version of the burger when I purchased Harumi Kurihara's Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking at one of Amazon's online sales months ago, but never got round trying it until last weekend. You basically use a mixture of beef and pork, raw onions (I normally soften mine first, preferably in the aforementioned bacon fat), and - the Japanese touch here - homemade teriyaki sauce. It just so happenned that I have a bottle of mirin I bought from yonks back that I intended to use to make katsudon. However the recipe intimated me so much (read it here) - all that deep frying and timing etc etc that I never got around to trying it out.
Making my own teriyaki sauce, on the other hand, was super easy and dare I say, much cheaper than buying my own chemical-laded version - although having said that, the soy sauce I used probably contained a preservative or two. Two-thirds soy and one-third mirin. Add a bit of sugar and rice wine vinegar to taste (I used about a teaspoon to make one cup of teriyaki). I also threw in a clove of garlic (slightly crushed) and grated in some ginger. This sauce, as Harumi says, can be used to marinate meats and seafood, stir fry veggies, basically your all-round hero. I modified her recipe slightly, incorporating a little of the teriyaki into the burgers instead of just salt - just to echo the sauce and amplify the Japanese tinge.
The burgers were accompanied by (as Harumi recommended) plain boiled potatoes and carrots microwaved in butter and salt. Everything is topped with spoonfuls of the delicous teriyaki sauce. We did find the potatoes slightly too bland for our liking though. So for our dinner (i.e. burger round #2 - I made enough for 2 meals) I roasted them a la Nigella, parboiled and tossed around in flour then roasted in preheated oil over high heat for the ultimate potato experience (golden and crunchy on the outside, creamy within).
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