Cooking with Buttercup - The Burger Sandwich
As a way of introducing a little variety in this blog and helping out those who are, like me, still learning to become reasonably competent cooks, I thought I’d give a rundown on what I pulled together today.
A couple notes about why I cooked this - I’ve been lifting weights for about a month now so my intake of red meats, fishes and dairy has really gone up. Before I stayed underweight but sans-excess body fat by subsisting on a high sugar diet of sugary tea, toast with jam, rice and readymade (sugar-loaded) sauce + pan fried chicken or something, basically bachelor crap. Lots of carbs and pick-me-ups but no substance. These days I need the high protein counts to repair my muscles, and I’ve packed in as much greenery as possible to counteract 9-5 induced downheartedness (all those minerals act as a mentality booster for reasons I won’t claim to understand).
This is food for men. It’s been noted elsewhere on the Man-o-sphere that the gym is a substitute for work that men are built to do. Sustained heavy lifting, running, hunting, machine working, craftmanship, etc. Correspondingly I’ve tried to make this as close as possible to what a traditional wholesome diet is. Generally you should be eating this kind of thing, especially since it has drastically less fat and sugar in than any sort of readymade meals. Likewise ideally you will be using up all the energy and body building proteins it provides.
This is easy as all fuck to make so I’m just going to break it down into its component parts.
THE BURGER SANDWICH
Alright here we go. Cram in as much greenery as you can. We have:
- 4 sheets of iceberg lettuce minimum - This isn’t fucking Burger King where they give you one sorry sheet that’s been kicking around for a week in a fridge. Lettuce goes off fairly quickly and loses it’s flavour fast, so we’re buying lettuces from here on out and using them In Quantity. Adds a lot of crunchy texture. You wanna wash your lettuce sheets to get the chlorine/field bugs off of it.
- Vine cherry tomatoes, sliced - Cherry tomatoes are nearly always present in hot/rich pastas and meat accompanying sauces for their rich and sharp flavour. Again grab a handful, the burger itself carries a strong flavour so we need equally strong flavours to balance it out.
- Fresh parley - Buy local one this one. Not those pathetic little shoots in plastic bags from supermarkets, but a local grocer or farmers market, they will give you a mini-hedge of thick, succulent parsley for a fraction of the price. Protip: Wash and chew a few strands to appreciate the flavour, then slice it up and wham it in with the other greenery. Slicing it up breaks it down and brings out the flavour, just putting in whole won’t do shit.
- Salad cress - These are sold growing in little tubs of soil, again cut off a load and wash.
- Cucumber slices. Cool and crunchy.
- Hellmann’s Real Mayonaisse. Our greenery has a lot of earthy or sharp sort of flavours, so we’re gonna soften it up with some Mayo, only get stuff made with real eggs, we’re after that quality flavour and all-important protein. Low-fat mayo tastes like polystyrene and has gone through a bunch of processing aswell that will take all the goodness out if it, don’t buy it.
- The burgers themselves. Lots of angus beef. Cook under a grill until the juices run clear when prodded with a knife, and slice laterally.
- Wholemeal bread - Goes without saying. White bread has all the fibre taken out of it and doesn’t have a sufficiently crunchy texture. We’re using toasted wholemeal bread to make a Burger Sandwich, not running a gastro resturant. One burger for the sandwich, the other burger to slice and eat while you’re putting the sandwich together. Hungry impatience demands it.
TATERS AND SHIT
What we have as a side is:
- “Charlotte” New Potatoes - Clean, slightly waxy and soft. Boil them but don’t overdo it, new potatoes are for salady dishes rather than mashing or anything. They should be done when you can push a knife into them without much resistance.
- St. Agur cheese. This is a real good Introductory Cheese into blue cheeses - It’s very soft and creamy, and doesn’t have that Smacked in the Face with a used sock effect. Cut a chunk to go with your potatoes.
- Hummus - Chickpeas, vegetable oil, and lemon juice. Yummy. Again this goes well with the cheese, and adds as a mixer to the potatoes. What we’re trying to avoid is the saturated fats of butter (or disgusting, artificial margerine), and instead using that real satisfying, high-protein dairy and high-mineral salad content to accompany those ‘taters carbs.
Sling it all together and eat your Burger Sandwich. The knife and fork here is for the potatoes and cheese, eat the sandwich like a sandwich. I recommend adding salt and pepper to everything on this dish aswell.
To drink: Red wine or coffee.
Also if you re-arrange these ingredients into something more presentable, you probably have a halfway decent dish you can impress your mother/girlfriend with. Just don’t expect her to eat it, women hate eating red meat.
YEAH.
Oh yeah. I forgot to add - Spring onions. I ran out of them. They go really well with the cheese. HUNDREDS OF THEM.
