Sliders Nite

One of my favorite things to do, is watch food shows, with my husband. It is fun to see what other people are eating and creating. The only major problem: You start craving EVERYTHING you see (most of the time). The other night, my husband and I were watching a show on burgers from around the country. Needless to say, we started craving for those burgers. Lucky for us, we were gifted a wonderful kitchenaid stand mixer and the meat grinder attachment. Let the fun begin! I let my husband take care of the meat, while I made all the fixings (he put in a few requests as well).  Together, we made 12 sliders, on homemade burger rolls, with 10 different toppings and 2 sauces (ketchup and BBQ sauce). All served with sweet potato fries.

We had a few mishaps, learning to use the meat grinder, but all in all, we had fun. So, on with the pictures and the story of our adventure.(and where I can post recipes, I will)

The Meat:

50/50 mix of Brisket and Ground Chuck

Caramelized onions and mushrooms

1 egg

We chopped the brisket into small 1 inch pieces and ran it through the meat grinder (forgetting to put the cutting blade in–opps). After cleaning the machine out, we ran the brisket again and then the ground chuck and the caramelized onions and mushrooms. Hint: do not over grind your meat, otherwise you will end up with Pâté. To help bind the burger meat, we threw in one egg, mixed with our hands and formed the meat into small patties. We placed them onto a greased baking sheet and broiled it for about 5 minutes on each side, on high. (I broiled them, so that I could do all 12 burgers at once and get the on the table quickly..we were hungry).

The Toppings: For our toppings, we had a spread of mild cheddar cheese, provolone, yellow American, ham, tomato slices, avocado slices, shrimp, caramelized onions and mushrooms, candied bacon and Chili bacon.

 

Shrimp: On the show we were watching about burgers, I saw that a few the of the restaurants served a surf ‘n’ turf burger. Lobster tails on a burger, sounded decadent to me. I decided to make a smaller version of those burgers, using shrimp.

The Shrimp:

6 shrimp, shells removed, deveined

1 tablespoon of butter

1/8th teaspoon of garlic powder

dill

Directions:

1. Melt butter with garlic and dill.
2. When butter is hot, add shrimp and cook until shrimp is pink

Bacon: I had always wanted to try candied bacon. I had seen it done many times before but never tried it myself. I figured, if we were trying to find our new favorite toppings for burgers, why not try making some. On the same train of thought, I said to myself…why do I just have to stop at candied bacon? I figured, I have had Indian burgers, American burgers…why not do something a little Mexican..Chili Bacon!

Candied Bacon

Bacon

Brown Sugar

Chili Bacon

Bacon

1/4 teaspoon of cumin

1/4 teaspoon of chili powder

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 F
• Liberally coat both sides of bacon with seasoning
• Place bacon strips in a baking pan
• Bake for 15 minutes

The mini sliders, were made using my Homemade Onion Rolls. I cut the recipe in half and made the rolls smaller.

Sweet Potato Fries: What would make the perfect accompaniment to all these sliders? Fries! However, I don’t care too much for frying foods and I wasn’t in the mood for potatoes. The perfect substitution was baked sweet potato fries!

Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet potato, sliced thin

Olive oil

Salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Coat sweet potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt
3. Place sweet potato slices on a GREASED baking pan, making sure the potatoes are in one layer
4. Baked for about 10 minutes, each side (or browned on both sides-based on how thin/thick you made your slices)

The whole process, took us a tad longer than we expected (could be, because we were both hungry) and my fries did get a little burned. But the most important part, we had fun, the burgers tasted great and we got to try different burger styles. Would I do it again…YOU BET!

Hope you try a sliders nite and come up with new burgers to try.

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