Tag: tomato

Traditional Hot Salsa

Michael Metzler Jr.Leave a comment

Salsa makes a good snack served chips for any occasion with lots of people. This particular salsa instructable makes alot of salsa, so be sure that you plenty of people to eat it!

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While this salsa is rather hot and spicy, it is easy to change the ingredients to make it mild or medium.

 

Ingredients:

1 (14.5 oz) can of tomatoes, with juice

3 whole tomatoes

4 large clumps cilantro

4 large cloves garlic

2 jalapeno peppers (for milder salsa, use 1 jalapeno)

1 medium onion (use less for milder salsa)

½ teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 lime, juiced

 

DIRECTIONS:

Cut your fresh tomatoes into large chunks.

Pour HALF of the tomatoes from the can with their juice into the blender. Leave the OTHER HALF in the can.

Coarsely chop the garlic, as shown.

Remove the leaves of the cilantro from its stems, and throw the stems away. Its the leaves you want.

Cut open the pepper(s), and dump the seeds out. Then cut into smaller pieces.

Also prepare the onion, so that it looks like it does in the picture.

Throw all this prepared produce into the blender.

  • Lime juice into blender, and the sugar and salt.
  • Then Blend all the ingredients on medium speed until thoroughly combined.

Now that you’ve combined all the other ingredients, and pulsed them on medium speed:

Dump in all the fresh tomatoes and THE OTHER HALF of the canned tomatoes.

Pulse on LOW speed for a bit until the texture is coarse and chunky. I learned to do this the hard way, and pulverized most of the salsa….

You can store your salsa in the fridge in an airtight container.

Take out to serve at parties, lunches, dinners, breakfasts, and whatnot.

See step-by-step picture instructions on my original post of this recipe on instructables.

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Cheese-Stuffed Gourmet Hamburgers

Michael Metzler Jr.Leave a comment

Cheese-Stuffed Gourmet Hamburgers: Cheese-filled patties are smashed into a hot buttered grill to cook. Caramelized onions are mixed into the ground beef before cooking. A special hamburger sauce is smeared on both hamburger buns, and the meat is seasoned with a mixture of steak seasoning and seasoned salt.

And the nice thing about burgers is that they are easy to customize.

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SEE RECIPE BELOW:

cheese-burgers-ingredients

INGREDIENTS:

(makes 8 burgers)

2 lbs. ground beef

1 egg

1 onion, minced

Cheddar cheese

2 large tomatoes

8 leaves of Romaine lettuce

2 large Pickles

8 pairs Hamburger buns

For sauce:

½ cup mayonnaise

⅛ cup mustard

1 tablespoon sweet relish

1 teaspoon lemon juice

For Seasoning:

3 teaspoons Montreal Steak Seasoning

1 teaspoon Seasoned Salt

Additional Things:

Ketchup

Mustard

Butter for Griddle

NOTE: For higher quality beef (and for health reasons) get grass fed beef. Chances are you’ll be able to taste a difference between good quality and poor quality meat.

If you prefer to remove the egg from the meat, it will not hold together as well, but it’s still and option.

DIRECTIONS:

Mince the onion into tiny little chunks, as shown. Over a nonstick pan (or otherwise) on medium heat some vegetable oil. Once oil is hot, dump the onions in a fry, stirring occasionally, until they a browned well, as shown, about 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Making sure to drain excess juices from the beef’s container, dump the 2lbs of meat in a large bowl, and break it up with your hands. Break an egg into the bowl, and mix it in completely with your hands.

Next, add the recently ‘caramelized’ onions, and stir well into the meat.

Break the meat up evenly into 16 small balls, and situate the first 8 on wax paper. Flatten each 8 of the balls into a thin, medium-large patties. On half of the patties, place a chunk of cheese, not to thick, and be sure that the cheese is at least half an inch from the edges of the patty.

Now fold the empty half of the patties over the cheese-filled ones, and press firmly around the edges and everywhere until perfectly sealed. Take these finished patties using the wax paper, and place them onto a cookie sheet. Do the cheese-process with the remaining 8 patties, using a fresh layer of waxed paper. Once done, place these finished patties next to the other ones on the same cookie sheet, as shown. The cookie sheet is for easy transportation to grill.

Place the sweet relish, lemon juice, mayonnaise, and mustard in a small bowl, and stir well.

Stir the Montreal steak seasoning and seasoned salt in a smaller bowl.

NOTE:

The sauce and the seasoning are very similar to a copycat of Smashburger’s burgers that I found.

You should now cut up the tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, and whatever else you want on you hamburgers. Preheat the grill on medium-high heat, and put a cast iron flat griddle on top of it. Or, alternatively, a flat griddle on your stove top.

Bring you seasoning mixture, and your patties out to your preheated grill (or on your stove top, if you prefer). Melt the butter on the flat griddle. Place four of the patties on the butter. Cover with the wax paper they were on, and smash with a burger-smasher, or with a plate, or whatever else that works. Remove wax paper.

Sprinkle a generous share of the seasoning on each patty. Close the grill, and let it cook for about three minutes.

Open the grill after three minutes, and check to see if the burgers are done on the other side. It should be cooked around the edges, at least. If so, flip the burgers, and sprinkle again on the other side with the seasoning. Close grill, and let it grill for another 3 minutes. When burgers are done, transfer to a plate, and cover with aluminium foil, to keep hot while you grill the other batch of patties.

Do the same thing with the next four patties that you did with the first four. Transfer to plate, and cover with foil until ready to piece together the burgers:

  1. Place the bottom bun on the plate.
  2. spread a generous helping of the sauce on this bun.
  3.  Place a lettuce leaf on it.
  4.  Put on one of the patties, and then tomatoes
  5. Add pickles.
  6. Spread sauce on the bottom of the top bun, and smash it down on the rest of the burger.

EAT WHILE HOT.

See more pictures below. See my original recipe post on instructables.

cheese-in-patties
Put the cheese in the middle…
on-the-grill
Set up your grill…
grilling-the-patties
Grill the patties…
eaten-burger
…Eat it hot.

 

Mini Hamburger Sliders

Michael Metzler Jr.Leave a comment

These mini sliders make a great side dish for parties/potlucks/dinners, etc.

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Ingredients: (makes 16 sliders)

2 lbs. Ground beef

16 mini slices cheddar cheese

16 small leaves romaine lettuce

16 small slices of tomato

1 egg

16 mini burger buns

For sauce:

½ cup mayonnaise

⅛ cup mustard

1 tablespoon sweet relish

1 teaspoon lemon juice

For Seasoning:

3 teaspoons Montreal Steak Seasoning

1 teaspoon Seasoned Salt

Additional Things:

Ketchup

Mustard

Butter for Griddle

 

DIRECTIONS:

Break up with ground beef in a large bowl. Dump in the egg, and mix it completely in to the beef with your hands.

Shape beef into 16 even balls, and then shape into little patties.

Prepare the slices of cheddar, lettuce, and tomato on a serving platter.

For the seasoning, in a small bowl combine steak seasoning and seasoned salt.

For sauce, stir mayonnaise, mustard, sweet relish, and lemon juice in a small bowl for the sauce.

Preheat the grill, and place a cast iron flat griddle over it. Or, you can preheat a flat surface over your stove for the burgers.

When ready to grill patties, take the patties, seasoning, and cheddar cheese out with you to the grill. Spread butter over the hot surface.

Then place down burgers, and press with a burger press, or a dinner plate. But if your patties are already flat enough, you don’t need to press them.

Sprinkle patties with the seasoning.

Let grill on this one side for a minute or so.

After the first side is cooked, flip patties, and sprinkle the cooked sides with more seasoning. Place a piece of cheese over each patty.

When done grilling, take patties off the grill, and on a plate. Cover with aluminum foil.

As you can only probably grill 8 at a time, when you take off the 8, then grill the next 8 patties.

To prepare sliders, place bottom burger bun down.

Spread a small amount of sauce over it.

Then lettuce, then patty with cheese.

Then place tomato on, then ketchup and mustard.

Finally, cap it with the top burger bun, and secure everything with a long party toothpick.

Do this process to the rest of the burgers.

Serve warm.

 

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