Chicken burgers with pub cheese
These easy, fast chicken burgers are packed with flavor and ready in under 30 minutes. They’re what I cook on nights when it’s suddenly dinnertime, everyone’s hangry, and I need a quick, crowd-pleasing meal.
Guess what?! Change is hard! I sent my little off to Kindergarten on Monday (we’re on a hybrid schedule so he’s in school one week and at home the next) and then wandered around my house for 5 hours like I’d never been here before. (And he went back to Pre-K for almost two months this summer, so I don’t know why it felt so weird!)
That happens to me any time I go through a big transition. The edges suddenly feel a little fuzzy and I temporarily forget how to negotiate my day. It’s no wonder my kid struggles with change too.
How do you deal with change? Is there something that anchors you when the seas get rough? For me, it’s cooking. When I feel off kilter, I need to cook something. It focuses my mind, forces me to think about the present, and following a recipe is really helpful when I just want someone to tell me what to do.
So, here is a fab recipe for chicken burgers. If you’re feeling strange as this new school year starts, I’ll be the grown up telling you, “Make these for dinner. Here’s how.” Problem solved.
A couple of notes:
The heat of the skillet is important. A good sear on both sides and then covering the pan and letting the meat steam as it cooks seals in the juices as well as cooking the meat pretty fast.
I try not to handle the raw meat mixture too much; the more you mix the meat, cheese, and spices, the tougher and more rubbery it can get.
DO NOT, I REPEAT: DO NOT use another bowl to mix these ingredients. Use the container that the ground chicken came in. Save a dish.
Chicken burgers
Time: 25 minutes, mostly active
Yield: 4 burgers
1 lb ground dark meat chicken (I like to use leg meat)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander
pepper to taste
¼ cup pub cheese
2 Tbsp olive oil
Sprinkle the seasonings and plop the cheese onto the ground chicken in the package. Using your hands, mix thoroughly, but try not to over mix. I like to make sure that there aren’t any pockets of dry spices, but if there are still blobs of cheese, that’s fine.
Heat a skillet over a medium high flame. Add the olive oil and heat until the oil slips easily around the pan. Add patties with ¼ of the mixture in each one, trying to shape them into rough circles.
Get a good sear on one side. If the pan is hot enough, this should take about 3 minutes. Flip and sear on the other side, 3 more minutes.
Turn the flame to low and cover the skillet. Cook until the burgers are firm and have reached an internal temperature of 165, about 10-12 minutes.
Tomatillo gazpacho
Make the most of summer produce with a tangy gazpacho that manages to be both light and surprisingly hearty.
The calendar has turned to September, friends. Most years I’m desperate for the fall to come. I’d be happy if it was sweater weather and apple season all year round.
But this year I sort of wish I could freeze time (but also, skip over the next bit entirely). We still have a week before Kindergarten starts for M, which means, I’m not yet worrying about an email from the school saying that someone has Covid. And Z is at the perfect baby stage where he’s sleeping more, crying less (sort of), and has a personality, but isn't yet mobile.
I hate this instinct of mine to imagine that whatever is coming will be bad. Or that if I imagine all the possible bads, that I can stop them from coming. What is that? Did I inherit some DNA from great great great great-grandmother Esther who escaped the pogroms?
Anyway, I’ve been dealing with all this dread by eating gobfulls of not-great food. I’m not even trying to food shame myself. I don’t think anyone would classify my current eating regimen as “balanced.” And I’m certainly not eating only things that taste absolutely delicious. I’m eating for the sole purpose of thinking about something other than my fears. It’s not great, Dan.
Consequently, I’m trying to come up with meals that are a little more veg-heavy while still being fun and tasty and most importantly, simple. Because, though I’m cooking and eating to stop myself from worrying, I’m also deeply committed to worrying and thus, don’t want to take too much time away from the task of imagining any and all worst-case-scenarios. You know, in case I CAN stop them from happening with my imagination.
So, this gazpacho. I used to hate gazpacho. As Lisa Simpson described, it’s tomato soup served ice cold. But when it’s good, it’s oh so much more than that. Our favorite farmstand had tons of beautiful tomatillos, so I bought some and threw them into the toaster oven (but you can obviously use a real oven too) and then threw them into the soup. The rest is really your standard Spanish gazpacho with none of the American faff that we often add. Think veggies at their peak, aromatics, salt, vinegar, and lots of olive oil.
I also realized that, while straining is a pain and you end up throwing out a lot of stuff that you could otherwise eat, it also makes the texture SO MUCH BETTER. So now I strain even though it’s a pain. But you certainly don’t have to. It saves time and this recipe yields a lot more soup when it includes the tougher stuff.
A couple of notes:
Please don’t reduce the oil content in this soup. It gives the dish its body and staying power. Without it, you might as well open a can of V8.
Tomatillos are a little sour and as such, give another dimension to the soup. But you can absolutely skip them and use all tomatoes.
Start with 1/2 tsp of kosher salt. I’ve found that this soup can easily taste too salty if you go overboard.
Tomatillo Gazpacho
Yield: about 3.5 cups (depending on how juicy your veggies are)
Time: 25 minutes, all active (less if you choose not to strain the soup)
¼ lb tomatillos, husks removed, rinsed of the sticky residue, and halved
1¾ lb heirloom, plum, or other red tomatoes
1 small cucumber, peeled and roughly chopped
1 small zucchini, roughly chopped
3 large scallions, green and white parts roughly chopped
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2-1 tsp fine sea salt
½ cup olive oil
Preheat the oven or toaster oven to 350. On a parchment or foil covered baking sheet, place the halved tomatillos face down. Bake for 5-7 minutes or until the tomatillos have softened a bit, but aren’t completely mushy.
While the tomatillos are cooking, roughly chop the rest of the vegetables.
Add the tomatillos, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, scallions, vinegar, and salt to your blender and blend on high for 2 minutes.
While the blender runs, add the olive oil in a slow stream until it’s completely incorporated, about 2 more minutes.
Strain the soup through a fine mesh sieve.
Test for seasoning and add more salt or vinegar if needed.
Chill for 2 hours or up to 1 week.
Broccoli tacos
Roasted broccoli, poblano and meunster cheese sauce, and broccoli micro greens make for a quick, nutritious, and lip-smackingly good meatless monday or taco tuesday meal.
A few weeks ago, M decided that he didn’t like tacos. He still liked tortillas and all of the fillings, but brand anything as a “taco” and he was not interested. I only cared because often, the easiest route to dinner goes right through fridge-clearing-taco-ville. Maybe if I’d offered a Chocotaco he would have been into it? We’ll never know.
But while I was making these broccoli babies for the first time, he commented, “that smells really good.” Dear reader, he ate it. The whole thing. It was definitely the poblano cheese sauce, which I would like to put on everything for the rest of my life.
Instead of making a queso with cornstarch added at the end, I make a roux to start and added the cheese once the milk had thickened. I’m sure going the traditional queso route would also have been delicious. I just chose something else because life is about choices.
A couple of notes:
Keep an eye on the broccoli after about 15 minutes. The cooking time really depends on how fresh your broccoli is, how large your florets are, and how hot your oven runs.
Add in any other bits and bobs to the tacos that you want. I used broccoli because its a favorite in our house, but other roasted veggies or proteins would be delicious here.
Double the cheese sauce. Just do it. This recipe makes enough for about 6 tacos, but the sauce makes a delicious dip for chips or raw vegetables.
Broccoli tacos
Yield: 6 tacos
Time: About 40 minutes, mostly active
1 lb broccoli florets (buy 1.5 lbs because you’ll cut off the stalks)
3-4 Tbsp olive oil
Large pinch of salt
1 large poblano chili (or 1 small can of pre-roasted chili)
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp flour
¾ cup whole milk
3 oz muenster cheese
1 oz cheddar cheese
½ tsp sea salt
¼ cup minced poblano chili
6 corn soft taco shells
Broccoli microgreens
Preheat the oven to 425. Spread out the broccoli florets on a baking sheet and toss with the olive oil and large pinch of salt. Roast for 20-25 minutes, or until the broccoli is as crispy as you’d like. Stir the florets around on the sheet pan halfway through cooking.
While the broccoli is roasting, make the sauce.
Roast your poblano pepper. Turn on the stove burner and place the washed and dried pepper directly on the flame. Have a pair of tongs handy and turn the pepper every 30 seconds or so to ensure that it’s charred everywhere. This usually takes me about 5 minutes.
Once the skin is blistered all over, place the pepper in a large bowl or paper bag and either cover it with plastic wrap or a tea towel or close the paper bag tightly at the top. Let the pepper stand for 5-10 minutes until the steam has loosened the pepper’s skin. Check by pinching some of the pepper and the skin should slip off easily. If it doesn’t, let it steam for a few more minutes and try again.
Once the pepper has steamed, remove as much of the skin as you can, the top, and the inner seeds. Chop the pepper into small pieces. One pepper should make a scant ½ cup of chopped, roasted peppers.
In a small pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and let the mixture bubble lightly until it has turned a medium golden color, about 5 minutes.
Whisk in the milk and stir thoroughly to combine. Continue to stir as the milk bubbles very slightly on the edges. If the milk bubbles up too vigorously, turn down the heat. When the milk mixture has visibly thickened and coats the back of a spoon, add the salt and cheese and stir until the cheese has melted.
Stir in the chopped roasted poblanos.
Assemble the tacos.
Heat up the tortillas in a hot, dry pan for about 1 minute each. When hot, fill the shells with the roasted broccoli and top with the cheese sauce. Top with the broccoli microgreens, avocado, grated cotija cheese, and any other toppings you like.