Menu for 2/17/2011 - Green Chile Cheeseburgers (Dude2)

I had to rush it tonight, so I made green chile cheeseburgers. "Rush" might be a bit of an exaggeration, because I still made the onion buns from scratch. I just did it with instant yeast instead of my sourdough culture so I could have them done in four hours instead of 24. I took pictures, but they're on a different camera so I'll post them when I figure out how to get them off of the fancy camera. For now, here are my recipes for dinner in a pinch:


Green Chile Cheeseburgers (kitchen camping edition):
Makes 6-8 burgers, depending on size.

1. 2 lbs grass fed ground beef
2. ~1 Tbsp mustard
3. ~1 tsp thyme
4. ~1 Tbsp prepared horseradish
   
5. salt and pepper
6. several roasted Hatch green chiles
7. Good swiss or cheddar for the patties
   

Normally I would add an egg in there, but it's not really necessary if you're good at flipping the burgers without unleashing Murphy's law. Form the burgers into patties, and grill them over indirect heat from hardwood lump charcoal that's banked up against a four inch pecan log. The log provides smoke, and if you put the burgers just to the side of the charcoal they roast perfectly, getting a little crust on the outside and staying very juicy inside. Flip them after they look mostly solid, let them roast on that side for a couple of minutes and add the chile strips and cheese, in that order. The cheese will melt after about 2 minutes, at which point you should eat them.


I wish I had remembered to keep track of quantities for the bun recipe, but I didn't. I'll try to give you an approximate recipe here, but recognize that you will have to tweak it to make it into real bread. I never measure anything when I make bread, and that's the way I recommend doing it if you're a home baker. The pro's obviously have to measure for consistency, but at home I like a little variety anyway.

Whole Wheat Onion Buns:
Makes about 6 buns

1. ~2 cups organic whole wheat flour (Bronze Chief)
   
2. ~3/4 cup grass fed whole raw milk (Family Friendly Farm)
3. ~1/4 cup buttermilk
4. ~1 tsp Celtic Sea Salt
5. ~1 tsp finely diced onion per roll
6. ~1 tsp instant or active dry yeast

Mix everything but the onion together and knead for a couple of minutes, until it's uniformly mixed. It should be sticky, but it should hold together (a soft bread dough if you make bread). You'll have to adjust the flour and milk accordingly to get the texture right, because I didn't measure. Anyway, after it's mixed, let it rest for about 30 minutes to autolyze, then knead for about 5 minutes, let it rise for 2 hours, press it down, form the buns (they should be about 4 inches in diameter and about 1/2" thick), put the onions on top, and let them rise for another hour. Meanwhile, heat your oven and baking tiles to 400 degrees. When you're about 30 minutes away from eating, put the buns in directly on the tiles. They'll puff up nicely and be ready just in time for dinner. The milk and buttermilk in the dough keep it from forming a hard crust, so they are nice and tender. If you want a crustier bun, use water instead of the milk and skip the buttermilk. Sorry about the ghosts in the picture, it was taken through the oven door: