Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Chicken Fried Buffalo Burger

You ever get a craving for a certain food? Like you'll just die if you don't have a Double Western Bacon green chile tomato cheeseburger, or your mouth is screaming for rocky road chunky swirly foamy chocolate ice cream?

I have always had one dish I crave when I'm hungry: a plain hamburger with a sesame seed bun and pork 'n' beans on the side. This isn't my favorite dish. In fact, it's not even in the top twenty. But when I'm hungry, I'll desperately desire this odd, simple food combination. Except this urge has been missing during all the months of Celiac Hunger, until today. Today, driving down the road back from Hernia Doc, I suddenly desperately wanted a burger and pork 'n' beans.

Obviously, not gonna happen.

But I've been so foody and bloggy, developing my super-recipe-checkin'-out persona, that it got me feeling like I could do something. And I did! And more surprisingly, it worked! It was awesome. I haven't eaten food like this in months and months and it was so yummy!

It was even bad for me! Oh Glory Days!


Chicken Fried Buffalo Burger - GF, CF, egg free, corn free


What you need:
Buffalo burgers - make your own with ground buffalo, or TenderBison makes some pre-made
Quinoa flour - I used Ancient Harvest's brand
salt or other dry seasonings
oil - I used avocado oil

What you do:
1. Pour a little of the oil in a frying pan, I filled it about 1/4 inch full, and turn it up to med-high heat.
2. Pour a little of the quinoa flour onto a plate and add whatever seasonings you want to it. Mix it around with your fingers or a fork.
3. If you are making your own buffalo patty, grab some ground buffalo meat, roll it into a ball, press it flat in your hands, and slap it back and forth between your hands for a while. Supposedly, this will help it stay together better. It seems to have worked for me, but I wouldn't swear that slapping is the actual reason.
4. Rinse the meat under water, just for a sec, and immediately dredge it in the quinoa flour. The water will help the flour stick a little better. Turn it over to coat the sides, roll it along the side to get the edges, and even scoop a little flour over it and pat lightly to make sure you get a good coating.
5. Now pop that puppy into the hot oil and fry yourself a burger! For my buffalo burgers, which were about 1/3 pound each, I crisped both sides on med-high heat, and then turned it down to med/med-low to finish cooking for a few minutes.

The quinoa coating crisped really nice, and there was none of that bitter aftertaste you sometimes get with this grain, thankfully. The meat was still pink in the middle this way. For the buffalo uninitiated, this is a good thing. Buffalo gets more tough than beef when it loses the pinkness, so having a little red left is preferable, taste-wise. Health-wise, you'll have to make your own decision, eh?

Variations:
1. I imagine this coating would taste just fine for beef and fish as well, possibly chicken. Perhaps with the lighter flavor of chicken, however, there could be some hint of quinoa flavor that comes through.

2. I've heard of people using potato starch or white rice flour for their batters when they make fried chicken and the like. They seem to crisp up fairly well, I understand.

3. I'm sure there could be some fun stuff mixed into the burger to add a little health, here, too. Grated veggies, mashed beans, cooked grains, cheese (you lucky dairy eaters, you), mushrooms?



But wait, there's more!


Batterless Fried Green Tomatoes

We grew tomatoes this year; the only thing I've successfully grown in recent memory. So today, I picked a few that were just on the yellow side of green, and fried them in the oil after the buffalo was done: batterless fried green tomatoes. Hot and tangy and a little greasy, which was just wonderful today!

What you need:
unripe tomatoes - mine were just showing signs of ripening and that was just right
hot oil - probably had a nicer flavor since we used the oil left from the buffalo

What you do:
1. Slice the tomatoes into rounds about 1/4-1/2 inches thick.
2. Pop them into the hot oil and fry them up, turning periodically, until they look soft and yummy.
3. Eat while still hot.


Honestly, this was such decadence for me! I've been beaming all night. Even though this amount of oil was so much for me that it ended up like a lump in my stomach, I DON'T CARE. I refuse to let that spoil my super-duper cooking moment.

My good thought for the day: I just ate some real, actual junky food. Just...awesome.

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