Burgers Greek-style, and Pear-Bleu Cheese Salad

This evening's dinner was inspired by the following joke. Thanks, S-T for sending it on to me.

Sharing in marriage

The old man placed an order for one $1 Value Meal hamburger, French fries and a drink. He unwrapped the plain hamburger and carefully cut it in half, placing one half in front of his wife.

He then carefully counted out the French fries, dividing them into two piles and neatly placed one pile in front of his wife. He took a sip of the drink, his wife took a sip and then set the cup down between them.

As he began to eat his few bites of hamburger, the people around them were looking over and whispering. Obviously they were thinking, 'That poor old couple - all they can afford is one meal for the two of them.'

As the man began to eat his fries a young man came to the table and politely offered to buy another meal for the old couple. The old man said, they were just fine - they were used to sharing everything.

People closer to the table noticed the little old lady hadn't eaten a bite. She sat there watching her husband eat and occasionally taking turns sipping the drink.

Again, the young man came over and begged them to let him buy another meal for them. This time the old woman said 'No, thank you, we are used to sharing everything.'

Finally, as the old man finished and was wiping his face neatly with the napkin, the young man again came over to the little old lady who had yet to eat a single bite of food and asked 'What is it you are waiting for?'

She answered, “the teeth”.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That just cracked me up. So I decided tonight to make Stuffed Greek Burgers and 'share' my burger with the Dutchess. First thing on the itinerary was homemade hamburger buns. Once you've tasted these buns it is really hard to go back to store bought. As you can see it is the most basic of ingredients.

I find working with dough to be quite rewarding, especially if the texture of the bread is easy to work. Often times I'll use my bread machine for the convenience. But that doesn't mean you can just assume everything is going well. It is important to check the dough during the mix cycle to make sure it is not too dry or too wet, and adjust accordingly. For these rolls I used the dough setting.

The delay timer is the next best thing to sliced bread. Just place the ingredients into the pan, figure out when it needs to be done, set it and go.

One of my favorite tools when working with bread is shown on the cutting board. It is a dough scrapper and the edge is sharp enough to cut through the dough.

After cutting the dough into 12 pieces I shaped each piece into a tight ball and pulling the dough tightly around and pinching it on the bottom and then placed it on a parchment lined baking pan. After letting it rest for a minute or two I greased up my palm with olive oil and pressed each roll down to about a 4" diameter. I let the dough rest for it's second rising for
about 40 minutes.

If you are baking them on two pans make sure you take them out halfway through and change them around.


When they've turned an all over nice golden brown, take them off the baking sheet and place them on a wire rack to cool so they don't get soggy on the bottoms. Whatever kind of bottom you have, you don't want soggy. I was pleased with how these turned out and since it makes plenty they can always be frozen or eaten as dinner rolls with another meal.

With the buns finished I started in on the salad. I used baby lettuce, D’Anjou pear, sweet onions, and buttermilk blue cheese. Homemade dressing of red wine vinegar, olive oil, prepared mustard, garlic, salt and pepper. The crowing touch is the caramelized pecans.

There are a few things to know before you start to caramelize any nut. Basically it consists of adding some sugar and water to a pan, adding in the nuts and heating it on medium to medium high heat. But caramelizing goes through a few stages before it is done. At first when you add in the nuts everything is pretty liquid, but after awhile the nuts will take on kind of a salty look to them. And the liquid seems to be gone.




Keep stirring the nuts through this part. After that the nuts will take on a brown color and you'll notice the salty look on the nuts has liquefied again. Be careful at this point you don't burn the nuts. Just keep stirring and redistributing the liquid around the nuts.

I have had prettier looking results than how these turned out, but the flavor and crunchiness was spot on. I should have taken them a little further on letting the sugar remelt. But they were the right color and I didn't want to push it and end up burning them.

Adding just a tablespoon or two of water along with the sugar helps prevent the nuts from turning into rocks. I also like to add a tbsp of butter to the pan when I am caramelizing them just for the rich buttery flavor.


There is a wonderful restaurant in Edina, MN called Salute that my dear friend, Darcy, and I visit occasionally. My favorite is called Burger Bar American. This is my inspiration for my own Greek style burgers I make here at home.

It all starts with caramelized. onions. Take an onion, cut off the opposite end from the root, and peel off the outer layer and then with a sharp knife slice through the onion leaving the onion in whole rings. Add some olive oil to the pan and start cooking them on medium heat, stirring occasionally. Look for the nice brown coloring. Remove from heat and add in a tbsp or two of Jack Daniel's steak sauce and stir it around a bit. The steak sauce adds a wonderful sweetness to the finished onions. Set them aside but leave the pan as is to use for the burgers.

When I select the meat for my burger patties I prefer to use ground sirloin. Ground chuck is nice, too, but has a little higher % of fat, and the leanest of ground beef is round. To the 1.5 lbs of ground sirloin I added about a tbsp of Worcestershire sauce, some Kosher style salt, and fresh ground pepper, and about 2 tsp of dried parsley or 1 tbsp of fresh, if available. If you have some all purpose Greek seasoning, sprinkle some generously into the meat mixture. Take the mixture and separate into 8 pieces. Flatten one piece into a burger shape and add about a tbsp of crumbled Feta cheese in the middle. Take another flattened patty and add this over the top encasing the cheese and sealing around the edges.


After the patties are formed, take the pan used to sautee the onions and add some olive oil, and kinda deglaze the pan with the oil. When the oil is hot enough (not smoking) add the burgers and pan fry on medium heat. Leave the burgers to cook about 4 minutes per side, but don't turn them until they've formed a crust on the bottom. They will release so much better if you don't turn them too soon.
Cook both sides to desired doneness. I prefer my burgers with a little bit of pink on the inside. But to be safe, cook the meat until it reaches an internal temperature of 150. The best reason to use pure ground beef of one type such as ground sirlion is the meat comes from one source. When you buy something labled 'ground beef' it can come from several different sources. I feel it is a bit safer this way.

Since the onions had been sitting in a bowl while I cooked the burgers, I just popped them into the microwave for a few seconds to warm them up. I love my burgers with a touch of mayonaisse spread on the bottom bun.

Enjoy!!