30 Gourmet Sandwiches #11: Turkey Apple Burger

 Wouldn't you know it, my mum dumped a bag of cooking apples (from her friends garden) on me, just at the right time! Well i used most of them for apple pies, but I saved a couple for this recipe here.

I've got turkey mince, onion, apple, mustard, rocket, sage and burger buns.

I start by chopping some onion as fine as I can manage.

and same with the apple, I ended up just doing one apple, it looks like plenty to me.

And then the turkey mince, chopped 3 fresh sage leaves, and seasoned it all with salt & pepper. Now to get my hands really messy and make the patties.

Ah, its so much easier when you don't have to take photos halfway through. Oh, also I remembered i had half an egg in my fridge so i've added that to the mix. Honestly i would reccomend using a whole egg because there's not gonna be a lot to help bind these. Im also frying them with a bit of butter in my big pan.

While thats cooking we can get the burger bun ready. I toasted it a bit and i add a generous spread of dijon mustard and a handful of rocket, aka arugula.

These might come out a bit dry honestly, but they should be cooked through. And hey, they stayed together just fine. Sorry i rammed too much rocket in there it kinda ruins the presentation a bit but I didnt wanna make a bigger mess trying to take half of it out.

****

I like it. The peppery rocket and mustard make the whole thing, well, very peppery. You can't taste the burger quite so much under all that, maybe its a bit sour and oniony? Mostly the turkey mince is a bit dry, i think thats just how turkey works. Maybe it would be better with more sauce, but no complaints, its a perfectly fine turkey burger.

Delicious in Dungeon #62: Desire?

 A substance wrapped in a feeling wrapped in a demon.

That's desire, I guess...? How do we cook that?

The sweetness of honey can represent desire, the substance of an apple is a popular metaphor for the forbidden insights, and the demon? Well I managed to get mouflon mince patties, thats a baphomet looking animal if I ever saw one. If you've read the manga, you might remember some relevant motifs but I won't go into all that.

I'll chop the apple up into decent sized cubes, so we can fit the meat around it easier. Plus I don't want to eat the apple core.

a dollop of honey goes in the middle, and I guess I will probably need both patties to wrap it all the way around.

Nice! But... kinda cursed.

Wrapped it up into a ball and its ready to go in the oven. I guess i have to bake the remaining apple as well since it touched the raw meat.

Its looking fairly cooked but juicy, ill open up the wrapper to brown the outside a bit. Makes it a bit more appetising.

*

Hrmm.. this meat it kinda... it kinda tastes a lot like kidney meat... that pungent gamey flavour really doesn't go well with the sickly-sweet apple and honey combo. It's a nauseating pairing to be sure, maybe i'm not cut out to be a demon. Hope im not cursed.

Delicious in Dungeon #48: Hamburg Steak With Changeling Sauce

Is it me... or are dungeon mushrooms getting bigger these days?

The popular japan-german dish is back! It's a dungeon twist on the HANBAGU or Hamburg Steak which we seem to have visited quite a few times in other challenges.

This time we've got the monstrous ingredients of mixed leftover griffin/hippogriff (im using a beef&pork mince mix) and a changeling-based sauce with a bit of mandrake and frog skin.

Big load of mince, nice. And then i'm adding onion chopped as finely as I can manage, breadcrumbs, and an egg.

It says I can add whatever seasoning I want, so im adding my trusty paprika salt, pepper, mild chilli powder and ginger powder.

Now for the messy part... theres no way around it i have to knead it with my hands. Its cold and getting pork fat off your hands is SO WEIRDLY DIFFICULT. The mince seemed slightly dry and crumbly so I decided to add another egg as I went.

Now I can bust out my new MEGA ULTRA DELUXE FRYING PAN!! I could make paella in this someday.. hmm.. anyway, throw in a slightly generous portion of butter because we'll use the rest for the sauce.

These brown quite fast, so we might have to turn my overpowered hob off and on again to cook it slower. I'm not taking any chances with pork mince.

For the mandrake... in the past its been parsnips or ginger... its really whatever root vegetable we need? but i saw some whimsical looking radishes that I thought would be perfect. they come in 2 kinds!

What a nice pink and purple, very changeling.

For the changelings, I got a mix with 2 types of mushroom: shiitake and oyster, and can chop them up roughly.

For the "frog skin".. well, i don't have frog skin. but I was wondering... whats it there for? Is it to add brothy, collagen-y flavours and thicken up the sauce maybe? So I thought a good substitute would be a concentrated chicken stock.

These are getting somewhere, a bit longer and then I take the patties out and use all that oily meat juice as the sauce base..

Adding in the mushrooms and stock.

It says I can use whatever seasonings I want... so as a nod to the hanbagu recipes i've done in the past, im adding a bit of sake and soy sauce.

At the end I sprinkle in the grated radish as well. I was hoping it might add a pink sparkle, but it just looks brown and oily.

*****

Delicious! I think this came out perfectly. The mushrooms go really well with the beef and pork, and the oilyness of the sauce balances out the dryness of the mince. It's hearty and satisfying.

Stardew Valley #73: Crab Cakes

Ingredients: Crab, Wheat Flour, Egg, Oil

Item Description: Crab, bread crumbs, and egg formed into patties then fried to a golden brown.

Got some tinned lump crab. Apparantly that's the good stuff. It's not a lot though...? It never is... time to fill it out with a lot of other stuff. We've got breadcrumbs, spring onion, coriander, eggs and a chilli.

I want these flavourful vegetables chopped nice and fine, so im gonna use my blender. Will I turn it into sauce? Time to find out. Also just using half a chilli, because i don't trust ill have a lot of mince overall.

We've already got the nice colourful crumbly appearance we want! And we haven't even added the main ingredients!

In goes the crabmeat, an egg, and PLENTY of breadcrumbs to pad this out.

Why not some spices too? I'm feeling celery salt and paprika for this.

Oh! and maybe some lemon juice? adding that in as we mix it all up gently and then shape it into patties with my hands. My poor cold hands. No summer weather here this week either.

OK so far this has been a total breeze, and these are looking good as well! Frying them up with a good puddle of oil. Thought about using my deep fryer, but if this is gonna work then lets just do it.

Oops these are looking quite toasty on one side already. I hope they are cooking through OK.

*****

Well well well, don't these look good! They taste great as well, but especially because I had them with a swedish dill and mustard sauce. I'm not one to get excited about fish cakes or fritters, but there's something about making them yourself that makes em that much more appealing. It was such a quick and easy recipe as well! You could lure Elliott to your farm with these no problem.

Stardew Valley #47: Survival Burger

Ingredients: Bread, Cave Carrot, Eggplant

Item Description: A convenient snack for the explorer.

It's a burger! Simple enough. You could potentially do a veggie burger for this, but im still in my "vitamin b12 deficiency is no joke" arc so I want to do a beef and vegetable patty. We got lean beef mince, we got the eggplant, we got the carrot, we got some sesame burger buns for the bread.

First of all, lets grate this eggplant.

OK this isnt going well, you dont wanna know how long I tried to grate this thing only to get this far... Lets try something else.

Honestly even the blender is a bit of a pain (that slippery skin and spongy inner really is something huh?) But we got there in the end.

Alright we got our veg mince! Beef mince, an egg and a bit of fine breadcrumbs, this should make it nice and easy to form into a patty. I decided not to add onion, as its already like 30% vegetable and I thought itd be cool to let it have its own subtle flavour.

That said, lets add some survival spices! I think some chilli powder, salt, pepper and paprika should do it. I don't know why I have mild chilli powder but nows a good time to use a bunch of it.

Mashed it up with a fork, stand by while I get my hands really greasy and cold.

These are looking quite alright! I mean ok they sort of look like zombie diseased patties but we know they arent so shut up. I was going to fry these but you know what, I've got a grill, ive got time. 

Did you think I forgot about the cave carrot? Nuh-uh! I thought itd be fun to use the carrot as part of the burger garnish actually.

like this! 

The carrots very raw and wet, so i wanna crisp it with the patties (which are mostly cooked now). Is this something? Is this cooking?

Alright these look done, toasting the bun as well.

I want to pick some sauce. For some reason I was feeling bbq and mayo... theres something about smoky bbq sauce that reminds me of caves. You get what I mean right? 

Also sorry advance warning I kinda burned the back of the bun, agh. Pretend I didnt. ;)

***

It's an adequate burger. Good, even. I like the crunchy bite the carrot brings. It tasted kinda healthy and cheap, like a low fat burger with extra vegetables. The eggplant doesnt really bring in much contrast, so I kinda think I should have added onion or some garlic. And a fattier mince. And pickles! And maybe not overcooked it a bit. 

Is it a convenient snack for an explorer? Uhh I guess, i mean not as convenient as a sandwich tbh. Or a pasty. Or packet of crisps... loaf cake... bento... tesco fried chicken wrap meal deal... sorry what? Oh! Time to publish!