Hamburger!

With autumn at the door, it's time to look back on all the different exotic BBQs I tried last summer. Probably one of the most quintessential North-American dishes is the hamburger. But fast food chains have given this meaty sandwich a bad rep. But when done well, this is almost as good as any steak.

My basic recipe is:

• ground chuck (medium-lean, you need this for a juicy hamburger) Any decent butcher grinds his beef in his fridge only when ordered. This makes it safe to cook medium-rare too.
• Chopped onions
• Chopped parsley
• Worcestershire sauce
• Dijon Mustard
• Ketchup
• Thai Fish Sauce (fear not, this stuff is filled with umami and will bring out the beefy flavour)
  
• S & P

Mix all the ingredients with a spoon. Form patties with your (wet) hands. Let rest in the fridge for an hour. Before grilling (BBQ or pan), submerge in ice water for 30sec. Only flip your burgers once. The least you touch'm, the better. Do not squeeze them to speed up the cooking process, they will only dry out. Do not cook them past medium, you want a juicy burger, not a hockey puck! When done grilling wrap in thin foil and let rest for a couple of minutes. (as you would do for any piece of meat)
Prepare your buns and toppings and serve (I like to use ciabatta bread, bacon, arugula, tomatoes, grilled red onions, aged cheddar, grilled shitake, ketchup, Dijon and a pickle.)

The burger featured in the picture is a mooseburger. I handchopped a moose steak with bacon (venison is very lean, so you need some fat to keep the burger juicy), chives, garlic and onions.

Fall-off-the bone Ribs

There's tons of ribs recipes out there ... I myself sometimes do them marinated in Jack & Coke or Chinese style (marinated with ginger, diep fried and then smothered with a sweet'n sour sauce). But the following recipe makes succulent, soft, fall-off-the-bone ribs.

2 racks of pork baby back ribs
156 ml Can tomato paste
1 cup blood orange juice (fresh!, you can use regular OJ if you want)
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 cloves of minced garlic
Hot Sauce to taste (Sambal, Tabasco, etc.)
S & P

Preheat your oven to 300 F degrees (150C). Put ribs into a large roasting pan. Whisk together the tomato paste, orange juice, brown sugar, Dijon, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, garlic, hot sauce and S & P. Pour over the ribs. Cover with foil and bake until the ribs are fork tender, about 2 hours. Put on a hot grill/BBQ until griddle marks appear. Or leave them another 30 minutes in the oven and eat straight.

Here the ribs are served with Patates Salardaises (fingerling potatoes fried in duck fat with parsley and garlic).

This recipe is inspired by a recipe I found on Foodnetwork Canada with some personal modifications.

Italian X-mas desert

Buy a Pandoro (very light Italian X-mas cake), and make french toast (pain perdu in French, soggy bread for people from the UK) with it. You can add a little bit of Amaretto or cinnamon to the eggs. Serve with caramelized apples and some ice cream. Delish!

Cure for the flu and summer

A crappy summer brings the necessary cold and flu symptoms, so here's my cure: make a juice cocktail from all the kinds of citrus fruits you can find around the house (oranges, blood oranges, grape fruits, limes, lemons, clementines) and take 2/3 juice 1/3 vodka. The juice will give you the extra needed vitamins and the vodka will kill all the germs :-) If you don't feel better after one, just drink a couple more, I promise you will feel a hell of a lot better!

Italian summer salad

OK, cats ... start purring coz this is my fave salad! A couple of balls of the best mozzarella you can find (please try to use the authentic Mozzarella Di Bufala ... it's really different from the chemical crap you buy in supermarkets), a couple of handfulls of argula/roquette salad (rucola), fresh ripe figs, fresh ripe tomatoes (no water culture greenhouse suckaz), some A.O.C. prosciutto (Italian cured ham), organic runny honey, good grassy olive oil (only extra virgin cold pressed, anything else is shite!) a couple of basil leaves (red, green, whatever). Basically, you toss everything together on a serving plate ... peppery crunchy rucola, chunks of mozzarella, slices of ham, crossed figs, tomatoes, drizzle with honey and a nice swig of olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Usually I drink Prosecco with this. Njoy!

It's such a simple recipe, so it comes down to using the best ingredients you can get. A guaranteed killer for your next dinner party!

Jacked ribs

For 2 -4 racks of spareribs (I prefer babybacks). For the marinade: in a bowl, mix a can of coke (real coke, no pepsi), 100ml of soy sauce, 100ml Jack Daniels and 100ml Maple Syrup, a good squirt of ketchup, a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, some crushed bayleafs, a couple of turns of freshly ground black pepper and some hot sauce for that kick. Mix and throw together with the spareribs in a ziploc bag, marinate for 24hrs in the fridge. Get your barbie smokin' hot, and grill those ribs, occasionally turning and moistening with the marinade. It's a guaranteed killer!

My Carbo

Fresh pasta or very good linguine (I like the brand Di Cecco), al dente
Bacon or pancetta cut in strips
2 cloves of garlic
couple of eggs
1/2 cup or 250ml of double cream
handful of freshly grated parmesan or pecorino cheese
1 small diced tomato
some chopped flatleaf parsely

Gently fry the pancetta or bacon with the whole cloves pf garlic. Whisk the eggs, cream and cheese together. Take your pan of the heat and remove the garlic. Now add the boiled pasta to the pancetta, give it a good stir and then add the egg mixture.
Now it's up to you, I like my carbonara smooth & silky and others like it scrambled egg style. So smooth and silky means you take it of the heat and mix in the diced tomato and parsley. Otherwise you heat it through a little bit more on low heat (and stir often) and afterwards you can add the tomatoes and parsely. And serve directly with some extra grated parmesan cheese on top.

Tip: you can add a tiny bit of white wine or lemon juice just so the acidity will cut through the fat of the cream.