Have you ever noticed that miniature food always seems to taste better? I’ve got a delicious recipe for you today using ground lamb to make sliders. The recipe is slightly adapted from Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarain. He made them on The Kitchen a few weeks ago and I had to try them.
These little sliders pack a big flavour punch. The ground lamb is seasoned with shallots, garlic, mint, parsley, cumin and paprika.
Here are a few tips for success:
Use a light hand when mixing everything into the ground lamb. Form your hand into a claw and use your fingers like a rake to incorporate the seasoning ingredients into the lamb. Over-mixing leads to tough burgers. According to tasting table.com, “Mixing ground beef releases myosin, which is a protein that causes muscle contraction. It’s important for burger making, as myosin binds fat and water to the meat, leading to a more tender burger. So you want to retain as much of the protein as possible — but when you mix too much and let too much myosin escape, you can be left with chewy meat.”
Salt burgers just before grilling.
I used a 2.5 inch round cookie cutter to form my sliders. But feel free to form by hand if that’s more your style.
Cook lamb burgers to an internal temperature of 135°F. Insert instant read thermometer into burger from the side, not the top, and push it until it reaches the centre of the burger.
The pickled onions can be made and stored in your fridge up to 2 weeks ahead of time. This recipe makes more than you will need, but they are great on sandwiches and in all kinds of salads.
If you prefer to keep the tzatziki sauce dairy free, look for a plain vegan yogurt or sour cream that does not contain coconut as the main protein. The coconut flavour will not work for this application. I like Tofutti brand Sour Supreme
Today’s recipe is for my cousin Mark. We were recently exchanging text messages and he told me how much he was enjoying my blog posts, but he wasn’t really cooking many of the recipes. He suggested that perhaps I post some recipes geared toward novices, sort of like what Duplo is to Lego! He has a young son, so I can appreciate the context. He always makes me laugh.
He is correct. Most of my recipes are multi-ingredient, multi-step recipes. Truthfully, I started this blog, in 2009, as a way of chronicling my cooking and photography adventures, sort of like an online journal. I was doing it for my own amusement, mainly as a way to track my progress. The fact that so many people signed up to follow along was totally shocking to me.
These days, I will admit I am way more focused on the food styling and food photography aspect and less on recipe development. It is what brings me the most creative pleasure. Of course, everything I post must still taste delicious and the recipes must be reliable. But they are more complicated because I am so focused on capturing all the little details and I set more advanced challenges for myself.
All that to say, today’s recipe is a sandwich. Not much cooking is involved. It’s all about gathering good quality ingredients and assembling them. My inspiration was a Salad Niçoise. Tuna, olives, hard boiled eggs, and pickled onions are the “building blocks”. (A little Lego reference for you Mark!)
Here’s how it all comes together.
For the olive component, I made an olive tapenade. Pitted green olives, garlic, parsley, capers, lemon juice and olive oil get blitzed in the food processor. If you don’t feel like making it, store-bought is fine. There are many great options on the supermarket shelves.
For the tuna, I’m going to get bossy here and insist that you not use water packed tuna. I stopped buying water packed tuna several years ago. If you have never tried tuna packed in olive oil, you are missing out on something very delicious. Two brands I really love are Rio Mare (more affordable) and Tonnino (a bit of a splurge).
If you are not an onion fan, you can certainly leave them out, but I urge you to try it. This is a sandwich rich in fat (tuna, olives, eggs) and the pickled onions cut through that fat and balance the sandwich perfectly. Pickling onions is not a difficult thing to do and it tames the bite of onions, making them mellow and delicious.
Perfect hard boiled eggs (and by that, I mean without the grey/green ring around the yolk) are not difficult to achieve. Bring a pot of water up to a boil. As you gently lower in the eggs, yell to Alexa to set the timer for 9 minutes. (That’s all I ever use my Alexa for!) While the eggs are boiling, fill a bowl with cold water and ice cubes. When the timer goes, plunge eggs into ice water bath. When eggs are cool, transfer to an airtight container and keep in the fridge for up to a week. Peel just before using.
A little note regarding eggs: I have recently become obsessed with eggs that have a super golden, almost orange yolk. The first time I had this, I was in London, England. It was the most beautiful and delicious egg I had ever eaten. Through much research, I have discovered that those eggs come from chickens that are fed a diet high in Marigold. Sourcing those eggs reliably, was a bit of a hit and miss, but I found a brand at Farm Boy (Vita Eggs) that carries them regularly. Make sure you buy the ones marked Free Run. The organic ones are not as golden.
The best bread for this sandwich is either a baguette or a ciabatta loaf. If you live in Canada, Ace Bakery makes excellent versions of both. I used the Ace Bakery olive ciabatta in the video. Make sure you toast the bread first. Otherwise the sandwich will become too soggy.
Last week, as I was watching TV, this commercial caught my attention. It featured a young woman, staring wistfully, at the bountiful bread counter at Whole Foods. As they panned across the crusty artisan loaves, the tagline, “Maybe bread and you should be a thing again”, scrolled across the screen.
I’m a big believer in Julia Child’s credo, “Everything in moderation…including moderation.” So many people I know are abstaining from bread. While I don’t indulge in it everyday, I believe that if it’s good bread, I have a responsibility to eat it. The burnished crust on the baguettes at my local bakery were too calling my name.Sandwich making is not as simple as slapping a filling between two slices of bread. There’s an art to it. I’ll fill you in on how the pros do it.
Use two sauces instead of just one. Elevate plain mayo by adding a teaspoon of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. Their smoky mild heat takes plain mayo from drab to fab. Slather this on one side of the baguette. On side two, spread some olive tapenade for a punch of umami. You can make your own, or purchase some from the olive cart at the supermarket.
If it’s not the height of tomato season, roast some little cherry or grape tomatoes. Make sure you oil and season them well. Every layer of the sandwich should be seasoned. Slice some roasted or grilled chicken. A supermarket rotisserie chicken is perfect for this.
Even if you aren’t an onion fan, I urge you to try pickling some onions. It takes about 15-20 minutes and is simple to do. It removes all the harshness of raw onions and becomes quite mellow. I’ve included instructions in the recipe. Don’t forget to show your avocado some seasoning love as well. A squeeze of lemon or lime juice, some salt and pepper are all that’s needed. Finish with some fresh basil and some peppery arugula or a handful of micro greens.Dagwood would be jealous!
When Mother Nature shows up at the farmers market flaunting her peaches (and beans), you don’t mess around too much with perfection like this. Keep it simple!I have made this salad four times already this summer. The first time I made it, it was part of a celebratory dinner* for 12. (Big football game victory – Go RedBlacks!!) Luckily I had a wonderful sous chef with me in the kitchen that day; my niece Samantha was visiting. We have collaborated in the kitchen before, on a 6 braid challah, so I knew I had some exceptional assistance.
As the afternoon wore on and we continued our prep, I noticed the level of blanched beans in the colander was diminishing. My niece could not stop eating them. She told me that her beans never tasted like this, and asked what I had done? I explained that they were fresh from the farmer’s field and I that I had heavily salted the cooking water. (almost 1/4 cup Kosher salt for a big pot of water). This seasons the beans perfectly and they do not taste “salty”.
Sautéing the peaches in a bit of vegetable oil for just a few minutes really enhances their natural sweetness. The pickled onions add a welcome piquant note. This is a beautiful fresh summer salad.
