McDonald's Quarter Pounder Hack - that might be just the best burger to date!

This just might be a very big offence against all, who like their super posh burgers. But really, I don't care.

The story goes like that: so I went with a couple of bodies out yesterday night. And after drinking and dancing [yeah - you read right...] there is definitely a big yearning of some fatty food. And it might not be at all a big surprise, that McDonald's is not far.

In the middle of the night, even the biggest food snob don't have a big choice [except to go home and to your fridge and choose between confit chicken legs, 63ºC semi soft boiled eggs and 75 hour short-ribs... I plead guilty, milord]. But even with the most obscenely delicious and sumptuous produce in your fridge, you still don't want to invest too much time in the kitchen, when all you want is a couple of relaxing youtube videos [Fresh from the Boat is one of my favourites] and then listening to the void in space on your mattress.

So McDonald's.
One of my goto's is the Quarter Pounder. Since my hunger was bigger than what a single hamburger can handle, the McDonald's Royal with Cheese [John Travolta was absolutely right - in Europe it is not called Quarter Pounder - while it would sell eventually better than the Royal Cheese moniker] was my first choice... besides of the Big Mac.
However I do hate "American cheese". Let's face it: it is not even 100% real cheese - it is just some cheese scraps plus water, plus seasonings plus sodium citrate [or another "salt" to emulsify]. No - in this case I am not against the food additive - it is quite natural - you can make it yourself, if you are "mixing" a solution of bicarbonate and citric acid.
However the cheese usually used commercially is really crap [in the book the Modernist Cuisine at home they suggest to make your own melty "American" cheese out of super-delicious cheeses like Compte, Parmigiani, Stilton... you name it - the advantage is, that you can slice it after you melted it together and the food additive keeps the cheese from splitting].

Anyway - I am again drifting off topic, when it comes to the magics of avantgarde cuisine.

Back to the burger: I always order my QP without cheese and add real cheese at home - also today.
Previously I used a bunsenburner to melt and caramelizse the cheese - nice, but it could get better.
Since I have watched below youtube video about the best burgers in the US - one odd spot used a deep fryer with old fat, to fry the burger patties up - in the last minutes even with the cheese!

So I still had a pan with fat on my stove. Heated it up extremely hot, fried the burger patty of the QP on one side; flipped it - put cheese on [I had emmenthaler] and fried it also on the other side - napping the hot oil over the top of the burger - over the cheese!

The cheese melted obviously - but also crisped up. I just added Dijon mustard on the QP bun and added on top a bit of my homemade sriracha... and bam!

Honestly - I was surprised, how delish the burger was! The cheese was perfectly molten - but had some crisp, which was unusual. The patty was a bit overdone - but due to the [good] crumbly texture, it wasn't really a problem - much more pronounced was the crispy exterior of the meat itself.

This made me wonder - is a Shack Stack or a Johnny Rocket burger better than that?
I would say, they are different. But better? No! This is one of the most awesome burgers I ever had! It even slightly surpasses a sous vide burger [as this will be never as crispy].

So here you have it- you can make hack a simple [and comparable cheap] quarter pounder into the most delicious burger in 5 minutes or less!

Your welcome!

Chicken Hearts...

So I posted, that cleaning and prepping chicken hearts are pain in the butt.

You might ask: is it worth it.

I have breaded these little morsels in panko breadcrumbs [yeah - more work] and fried them up.

The taste - well not bad. Just alone, they are crunchy but taste like the chicken hearts in a chicken soup [a somewhat traumatic experience out of my childhood].
With these bread pickles, they taste just about right.

Well - I guess, I just cooked them wrong. When I sous-vide them, I intended to "braise" them on a rather high temperature of 72ºC. But the meat didn't became flaky and soft. Just the opposite... slightly chewy. Not enough, to make the experiment a failure. But still enough, to be a bit underwhelmed.

So next time, I will cook them at 62ºC [like a proper SV chicken] - and hope, that the texture becomes better.

But yeah - I can imagine now, why some people just raving about grilled chicken hearts...

My verdict: Almost delicious!

Delicious: Egg Yolk Butter

I like butter. No - wait, that doesn't do it justice: I love butter.

Real butter. Best is when it is French. And made out of cured milk.

Besides of being a meat addict, I could really live without it for a couple of days, when I would have fresh bread and good butter.

Everything is better with butter!

I also like eggs. And it is "more than merely likelihood when it comes to poached eggs.

And when it comes to eggs, there is only one progression to poached egg: a sous vide egg [or also called 63ºC egg]. Now if you keep the egg for 45 minutes or so, it is perfectly runny, but with an insane luscious texture - more like the most amazing sauce.

But what if you are forgetting the eggs in the waterbath and "cooking" for several hours?

Then you end up with the most amazing hard boiled egg.

Only - it isn't hard boiled. It is solidified. But perfectly smooth [not these grey, dry, crumbly Easter eggs, you know]. 

The best: you can spread these egg yolks on bread [the egg white is partly watery - but partly also solidified - however if you know sous vide eggs, you are dismissing the egg white - give it to your bodybuilder friend... and let him shut up].

It makes mayonnaise on bread obsolete. Because mayo doesn't taste so rich and intense like egg.

But there is one problem: if you are spreading the egg yolk on bread, what are you doing with the butter?

Everything is better with butter!

So I thought: why not squish both things together. And add some medium coarse sea salt [don't salt, or salt less, if you are using salted butter]. And maybe some spices - I really like shichimi togarashi - so I used it.

And? It is amazing. You have the buttery taste with the richness and amazing "egginess" of the yolk.

Don't tell your doctor. Seriously don't - he/she will not let you leave, before you are promising him/her, that you won't do it again. But - you will. Promise!

The funny thing is, that nobody yet had the idea, to do this kind of cold and solid hollandaise. At least I haven't found anything in the limitless internets...

So what would be better than butter with egg yolk?

Maybe if you add meat butter! Yes, bone marrow - would make it ridiculous. And even unhealthier. 

As I don't have bone marrow at this point, it is just speculations. Delicious speculations soon to be tested...

Fermenting things - chili sauce

Currently I am quite obsessed with fermenting. Some will say,that this is obvious due to my job (duh), but I don't mean using alcoholic products. Here I mean lactose-fermentation, salt curing, vinegar curing, pickling and so on.

And I don't really do enough in my eyes.

Yesterday I have seen Fresno peppers and cherry peppers, when I did my grocery shopping. I bought them both. I did my own siracha a couple of weeks ago, but the 200ml bottle is almost finished. This time I will do more, and with mixed peppers, for a more nuanced character (well, one cannot really complain about my siracha... It was plenty of characterful, spicy and funky. But more is better, isn't it?).

The process is simple: cut chiles into small pieces (you can use your food processor, if you have one - I don't). I took the better part of membrane and seeds out, as I wanted to taste a bit more than only fire... You can leave them in (some are even using insane hot habaneros, which are surprisingly often available here in the Middle East).

Then you can put them in a jar. Last time I used a foodsaver bag and vacuumed sealed the chilis. This is not necessary, however you have to be prepared, that mold can spread if you don't vacuum there. In a lot of forums, they tend to advise just to discard the upper part of the produce which is moldy. But I am not that far yet.

You should however not "100%" vacuum the food (e.g. in a commercial chamber sealer) - as botulinum is spreading in anaerobic environments. And this critter is about the most toxic microorganism around...

Anyway this time I put the chiles into a Kilner jar. I added the salt (use sea salt or rock salt which isn't fluorined) 3.5% of the weight, added two coves of garlic; and muddled everything. Yeah, a wooden muddled was about the right tool for this.

Then I sealed it with my nifty foodsaver jar attachment and put it on the counter.

Don't screw the jar-ring tight, as at a certain point the CO2 out of the fermentation will need some space. 

I will ferment it around 1 week.

After it is fermented, I will blend it and probably will cook it with the addition of vinegar. Point is, that it would be perfectly fine to keep it as it is... But cooking makes it more "siracha'like". If you don't heat it up, it will be healthier, though, as lacto-bacillus is very supportive for your ingestion-system as it is for your immune system.

I will decide in a couple of days...

The Fish & Chips Room

Short dinner and I took the opportunity to try the Fish & Chips room, which is only 5 minutes walk from my work place.

They have an abundance of menu choices [usually not a great sign]. From fried stuff, over to baked potatoes, over to pizza.
I took the middle approach - on one hand, I am not a big fan of fish outside of a Japanese restaurant or fine dining restaurant [so no fish for me] - on the other hand I was not really up for pizza from a British inspired place.

Hence I had:

• Onion rings
• Fried chicken steak
• Pickled onions [as side dish]
• Backed potato with butter
• and a Coke [there were not really great options of alcoholfree drinks - besides of "fresh" juices.

The waiting time was very long. I haven't used my watch, but I assume, that it was at least 15 to 20 minutes. Given that this is no gourmet food, this is long...

After the waiting time, everything came within 2 minutes and very soon I understood, that I have over-ordered.

First point I realized was, that everything was fried in the same better. Sometimes this was ok, sometimes not..

The fried onions were quite crispy - however also greasy. Not the most greasy onions I have ever encountered - but definitely a bit too greasy for my taste. Overall though they had a quite satisfying taste - though came in a giant portion. So big, that I could not finish them - so big, that I had actually a pretty bad conscience of wasting food.

The fried chicken steak was another rather big portion - however as main course it was about right. It didn't "felt" as greasy as the onion rings, but after a couple of minutes eating, the batter on the underside of the breast became soggy, and it was no fun to eat. The overall flavor was rather below average. Ok, I would say, but definitely not a highlight. They served some remoulade sauce with it, which was obviously from a bought jar.
One issue especially with the chicken fried steak: the batter tasted "fishy". Not as much that I would give it back [not fishy as old fish] - but it tasted, as they would batter fish in the same "pot" as they would batter the chicken - not so good.

The pickled onion [as side dish] was a joke: Ok - the dish cost only 2 Dhs [or so], but these were 4 or 5 pearl onions [the very small ones]. I expected at least some English pickled onions in malt vinegar - not to speak from house-pickled onions. But this dish, was a big no-no.

The baked potato tasted... quite old. Yeah - I know a baked potato had to be prepared [well it doesn't have to, if you are using the microwave technique] - but anyway - it wasn't great as well - though it was at least good - it was smothered with butter - and was rather a potato mash in a baked potato - I was happy, that I didn't ordered the one with cheese - as this seemed even for me far beyond any calorie intake, I would find adequate...

I paid around AED 80.00. This is not expensive, given, that the portions are huge. However I wouldn't consider it value for money either, as the quality wasn't really there.

One point to the service and overall comfort: they didn't seem to have really a sequence of service - I was "welcomed" with a menu and ordered while sitting down... kinda weird. While I was waiting, the waitress came just once with the drinks... and while I was eating [and after that] nobody asked me, how it was...

The room itself had a lot of flies, which were annoying. Not to the point, I would call it infested - but definitely close to it. And the restaurant didn't looked dirty on the first spot, but also was far away of being hygienically clean. The bench seating was also pretty uncomfortable and needed definitely an upholstery.

WOW or MEH:                  Meh
Ambiance:                           3
Value for Money [1-10]:     3
Deliciousness [1-10]:           4
Staff Helpfulness [1-10]:     3
Going back:                         maybe
Overall Score:                      3

Chinese chicken cabbage rolls with tofu

One of my all-time favorites dishes of German cuisine are Kohlrouladen - cabbage roulades.

These are minced meat farce [my mother always used beef] stuffed leaves of white cabbage braised and served nicely browned. They are really tasty.

Anyway - I wanted to do something new - and looked for an Asian dish - and I found several references for Chinese cabbage rolls.

Usually the Chinese variation, is just poached in broth. And instead of making a farce with egg and breadcrumbs they use tofu.

So I minced my chicken with my knives [more work - but the irregular and larger meet pieces are much better than the meat mash], added soya sauce, sautéed brunois of garlic, scallions, carrot, mushrooms and also added it to the mix and besides of seasoning [salt, pepper and some homemade Chinese 5 spice], I also added tofu. Mixed everything properly up and voilà.

I blanched the whole head of cabbage, to get easier the leaves off - and I shaved off the middle rib of the cabbage leaves, to make it easier to roll. Then I filled the leaves with the farce.

Instead of using butcher twine [which is quite a pain], I rolled them into cling film, and made a bonbon out of it [and knotted together the twirled ends of the cling film].
Then I put them into my sous vide hacked rice cooker and poached them for 1.5 hours at 63ºC.
After that I put them into a ice water bath to chill them down fast.

Momofuku Ko's Ginger Scallion sauce
via Tastespotting blog

Off course - if you like to have something tasting really great, you need to utilize the Maillard reaction (which normal people would call browning] - hence you would need to undress the cabbage rolls out of  their cling film sleeve, dry them [don't throw the liquid - put it into your sauce, it is tasty], and fry them in a smoking pan with peanut oil [or any other heat stable oil like corn oil].

Cut one open to try; delicious!

As a dish, I thought to serve it on fragrant rice, with slightly thickened miso sauce and David Changs scallion ginger sauce.

Do you need sous vide here? No definitely not, but it makes live easier - you don't have to watch over it, that it doesn't start to boil.
Well - the recipe is a go. let me see, if I will be able to make the whole dish, without eating one after the other delicious roll...

Sharpening knives

Last week I bought 2 Japanese sharpening wet-stones at Dean Fujiya Japanese supermarket. And I was beyond believe, how much I had to drop on them [you will not find one stone below AED 220!!!].


Bought a combi stone - 220 / 1000 [this is the grain fineness] and one around 6000.

My long serving Wusthof Trident Santoku

Yes my Ken Onion knife is that pretty!!!

Why? Because I have great knives, one Wüsthof GrandPrix Santoku knife and one Ken Onion by Shun chef knife. But over the time, the knives really suffered - and looking on the blades, they looked more like serrated knives, than normal chef knives.

The Ken Onion knife was also quite disappointing, when it comes to the blade strength. The steel of the blade edge looks really soft, much softer than the German knife - even after only a couple of months, it had a lot of grooves and dents...

Yes - it is still a beauty - and if sharpened properly, one of the sharpest things around.

Inspiration was the amazing youtube video of Chefsteps. Love these videos:

Well - in the video, they just took 10 minutes to sharpen a knife [even with reshaping the tip] - in reality, I needed a bit longer... for both knives I needed 2.5 freaking hours, to get them perfectly sharp.

But now I am proud again, on my jewels in the kitchen. I even tried the neat trick of shaving some hair of my arm with the my Santoku and it worked without problem!

In future, I will use much more often my new sharpening stones, that my knives are never getting in such a bad shape ever again.

And: while the stones were expensive: to buy a new knife is much more expensive: My Santoku is no more produced [in absolutely the same configuration] - however similar knives would cost definitely AED 700 and more... and the Ken Onion by Shun sets you back also more than AED 600 [and it is for the moment no more longer available - bought it at Barrel & Crate - but they don't have this exact knife anymore].

So my advise: Sharpen your knives yourself with a wet stone. Yes, it will take time, and it is definitely quite a mess [I didn't mentioned, that the whole kitchen floor was wet, due to the consistent wettening of the stone - my better part freaked out, when she came home and saw the mess]. But it is so worth it. My knives cut now better than when they were new. And: if I see my German knife, which is already older than 10 years, I think, that I can keep my two main knives for the rest of my life. I just love this idea!