Thursday, March 15, 2007

Wide Mouth Kitchen Aid / Big Mouth Turk-Mex Burger & softening those hard buns

I had a notion of experimenting with creating a Mexican inspired turkey burger for dinner Wednesday night. Here's what I threw together:

1 lb Ground Turkey
1 Jalapeno Chile (seeded & quartered)
1/2 Yellow Onion
3 cloves of peeled garlic
Ancho Chile Powder
Chopped Cilantro
Kosher Salt

To get the seasoning particulates preped to go into the meat, I wanted to inaugerate my brand new Kitchen Aid Wide Mouth 12 Cup Food processor. I had been lusting after this thing for months but could not justify replacing my current relatively new and functioning Cuisinart food processor/blender with a $270+ appliance. Luckily, my Mom (God bless her soul) recently sent me a Christmas gift (yes, it's March) of a Giveanything.com gift certificate for $100. The merchants on "Giveanything" are divided into categories like "Stores you know" and then there is everything else. I found a deal on my mixer at a place called efendos.com (clearly not a "store you know") Despite being a tragically ugly site, they offered a great deal on the processor I want. After my gift certificate, and the $20 rebate, I barely spent $80 bucks on a new, quieter and uber sexy food processor - did I mention this thing has 3 different integrated work bowls, the biggest feed tube in its class and a handy accessory case to keep it all organized? Heavenly . . . . back to the food.

Anyway, I threw everything but the meat into the mini bowl of the processor and chopped it finely, added it to the meat and made up 4 thick patties. While those were under the broiler, I reached into the cabinet for the Brioche Buns I had bought at Trader Joe's on Sunday. To my horror, they were hard as rocks. Yelling my dismay to my BF in the next room, I had him Google up a solution for our hard buns. Here's what we did:

Brush top of buns with cold water
Wrap tightly in Aluminum foil
Heat at 300 Degrees for 10 minutes

Woila! Dinner was saved. The BF loved the flavors in the burgers. I found the onion and garlic too overpowering so I suggest you turn those down (1/4 onion, 1 - 2 cloves garlic per Lb of Turkey max) and plus up the salt a touch. Further, even though we were able to resucitate the buns, it's best to freeze the devils until the day you need 'em to get the best flavor and texture.

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