French Fridays with Dorie: Café Salle Pleyel Hamburger
It’s Friday again. It was down to the wire this week for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe: Café Salle Pleyel Hamburger, but the burgers got made and the post got written just in time. Burgers were the perfect thing to make while sipping margaritas.
This recipe was quite simple: a dressed-up hamburger. A variety of aromatics were mixed in with the ground beef. The sun-dried tomatoes, capers, cornichons, and fresh herbs dotted the meat with lovely flecks of red and green. The grilled burger was nestled in an eggy role and layered on a bed of homemade onion marmalade and sliced pickle and topped with coarsely grated Parmesan.
I thought it was pretty good, though in the fantastic August lineup, probably not my favorite for the month. I made the burgers about half the size called for, which is a good portion size at our house. Unfortunately, I think the roll was then too big for the burger (my fault), so each bite was a little too bready. I should have picked up slider rolls. I tasted the burger on its own, and it was packed with flavor, so I might lose the roll when I have another for lunch tomorrow.
I was also on the fence about the onion marmalade. Despite the interesting ingredients, in the end, I found the marmalade bland and boring. That might get left out from the leftovers too.
I served the burgers with ears of super sweet corn and a bowl of panzanella (bread salad) made with farm fresh tomatoes. A peach and berry crisp was the perfect dessert for a summery dinner.
To see what other FFwD bloggers thought about the French burgers, check out their links at French Fridays with Dorie. I always discover new inspirations and ideas from the other cooks. We don’t post the recipes, but consider getting your own copy of the book, Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table.
Now we’ll spend the weekend waiting for Hurricane Irene’s arrival, hoping she’ll mellow out by the time she gets to the Boston area. For my family and friends in the Mid-Atlantic and point further south, stay safe!
Summer Simplicity
I’ve been feeling a little blog malaise. For a while, I was easily posting two, or even three, times a week. Then, last October, I joined an on-line cooking group, which gave me a certain topic for one post each week. Still, I was posting on my own topics during the week. This summer, I noticed that I’m not doing much more than the Friday posts for French Fridays with Dorie. I’m obsessed with food, and we eat very well at our house, so I started to wonder what was up with that. Why haven’t I had much to say?
I think I finally figured it out. As food-centric as our household is, in the summer, it’s not so much about the cooking. In fact, I don’t think I’ve tried many new recipes this summer. I wait all year for summer fruits and vegetables. From June through October, we frequent the local farmers markets. Favorites are the Tuesday market here in Lexington and the Thursday market in nearby Belmont. On weekends in Maine, we stock up at the Chipman Farmstand.
For the most part, we’ve been eating things as is, raw or steamed, without any fancy preparations. I am big on making chopped vegetable or bean salads, but I mostly make the “old favorites”, ones I can do without recipes since I’ve made them dozens of times: Howard will grill steak, burgers, or fish once or twice during the week, but we’re mostly vegetarian in the summer. Our meals are what Howard calls “grazing”. I think of it as a picnic at home.
With some ears of steamed corn, a plate of sliced garden-fresh vegetables, some cheese and fresh bread on them table, what more does one need? At the same time, posting about the first perfect tomato, the sweetest ear of corn, or the berries picked in the backyard seems like it could wait for another day, and so the malaise sets in.
Summer in New England is so fleeting. The local produce available is special, and we give it our full appreciation. I can already feel a hint of autumn in the air. As it cools off, I know I’ll feel the call to be nesting more, simmering pots of soup or roasting vegetables or baking cookies. There’s plenty of months in the year for that. In the meantime, I’m happy to graze my way though the rest of the summer.
Spiced Salt for Raw Vegetables
¼ cup kosher salt
1 tsp cayenne
½ tsp freshly ground pepper
Stir ingredients together and store in a sprinkle jar. Sprinkle over sliced vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and radishes.
A Plateful of Happiness 