Sliders

Not being from the true Midwest, I do not have a proper appreciation of the slider. Growing up in Montana, a big juicy burger was the norm. A mini burger...what is the point? And of course burgers have onions on them. And burgers still always taste best at my grandparent's house. (I don't know if Mama pays off her butchers or what.) Some folks get an appreciation for sliders sometime in college. I can guarantee that most of us who have friends with a soft spot in their hearts for White Castle. By the time Adam and I got around to visiting a White Castle in the Midwest, our palates were probably more mature than strictly sensible and we weren't drunk or high -- which I am told is an important pre-requisite for enjoying 'Whities." We went and I ordered what I was supposed to and was woefully underwhelmed. This? This is what everyone talks about? They named a movie after this? Greasy, bland, warm... hmmm.

A few weeks ago, I ran across this post from the Paupered Chefs blog. I knew Adam would be very excited to run a slider experiment if only for nostalgia's sake and I knew that whatever we came up with at home would be vastly superior to those we'd tried before. Here are the ingredients suggested by Nick Kindelsperger and edited by me:

• * 1 pound (or 16 oz) ground chuck (or 80/20 grind) rolled into 2 oz balls makes 8 sliders.
• * 1 vidalia onion, very (very!) thinly sliced
• * Slider buns or potato dinner rolls, halved
• * Sliced American cheese ( we had our deli slice this for us so we doubled up our cheese as it was thin. Slicing American at home is a pain. Get it done for you.)
• * dill pickle chips or bread and butter pickle chips
• * salt and pepper
• * ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise (optional) (Adam says mayo on a slider is sacrilege)

We started with an 80/20 grind from one of our favorite purveyors in the Puget Sound called Central Market. Adam also procured slider buns (but as noted in the original post, potato dinner rolls would also work), pickles (Claussen whole dills, sliced later), a huge sweet onion, and sliced yellow American cheese from the deli case. I salted and peppered the meat and rolled them into roughly 2 oz balls. I weighed the first ball and it was exactly 2 ounces, so I didn't weigh any of the rest of them because I figured that once you have perfection...

I tried to stay true to the original post as closely as possible. But I did disobey in one major way. The author had a lot of trouble with his cast iron skillet and strongly recommended a non-stick for ease of use after he spent a lot of time testing various methods. I love my cast iron skillet, however, and was determined to try it. The cast iron worked perfectly for me. And mine has a pretty serious coating so I didn't have near the sticking problems that he did. We tried batches of two and four. The batch of four worked well, so in the future, I would likely make four at a time instead of just two -- although it is fun eating them straight out of the skillet -- we don't have many meals like that these days.

Setting the meatballs in a hot skillet, you then top with an egregious amount of onions. Adam used a Santoku to slice the onions paper thin and we piled them on. I waited about 30 seconds for everything to soften before smashing the onion topped meatballs into the skillet. Then I waited another minute and a half before flipping the patties over on top of the onions to finish cooking and caramelizing. Now it isn't the prettiest process -- Onions will be everywhere. I found that heating the pan closer to the medium side of medium high gave me a good caramelization and browning with just enough steam.

Once you flip the patties onto the onion side, you herd the onions back close to their original positions, then top with cheese and their buns, and then cover to steam everything. The original instructions say that you can steam from 2 to 3 minutes. Our first couple were only steamed 2 minutes and later batches 3 minutes. The extra minute really helps the texture of the buns and the egregious number of onions really helps to generate the proper amount of steam, so I recommend the full 3 minutes.

Once the three minutes are up, you de-lid the skillet and plate your sliders. I preferred mine with 3 dill pickles, a little yellow mustard and a little ketchup. Adam liked his similarly except with bread and butter pickles and warned that too much ketchup could really interfere with the burger.

We served these with some spicy roasted potatoes and homemade chimichurri sauce (cilantro, parsley, jalapeno, garlic, vinegar & oil, salt & pepper) and a bottle of Pinot Gris. I think Harold and Kumar just pulled in. Hopefully they brought Neil Patrick Harris...

New Year's Sicilian Style Pizza

This year marks the first time (in awhile) Chef Beef and I have not traveled anywhere for the holidays. I had time off during the winter holidays and I used it to embark upon the projects like drunken noodles and pork asado, but also this Sicilian style pizza recipe I had bookmarked several months earlier. It all started with this post from Slice, the Serious Eats pizza division. I wanted Sal's Sicilian style pizza in the worst way. I came home and told Chef Beef the next time we were in New York... Unfortunately, New York really isn't one of our primary travel destinations with the hours we log to both homesteads throughout the year.

When I saw that I could try to create the same magic in my very own home via this recipe, I jumped at the chance. The recipe takes 3 days to get great pizza and is worth the time -- if you have said time. Its actually an amalgamation of recipes for dough and sauce, culminating in the final product.

The most important part is the dough, starting with a sourdough or biga naturale starter to give fermentation and large air pockets to the dough. Though you can use the dough on the second day, without refrigerating, I highly recommend waiting until the third day even if you aren't using the sourdough. The dough for our second pizza (used on the third day) was much better all around in behavior, taste, and texture.

I didn't take many pictures of the dough making process, but I did document the 2 day sauce technique. In short, take 20 tomatoes and score their bottoms. Boil each for 10 seconds, then chill in ice water to loosen their skins. Peel, halve, and gut, reserving the guts for later use. Then place the tomatoes in an oiled pan with herbs, garlic, and basil leaves and roast on low heat for three hours.

Afterwards, these tomatoes are combined with some canned, gutted tomatoes and a reduction of tomato guts and parmesan rind for one of the more intense sauces I've encountered. It then marinates overnight with the vine stems from your fresh tomatoes to impart a really fresh tomato taste.

The dough rises on a sheet pan for a couple of hours with some sauce spread on top. It then gets par baked for a bit (we found 10 minutes was best) and then the toppings are added and then broiled. We shopped for a variety of toppings including hot coppa, proscuitto de parma, parmesan, fior d'lattte, buffalo mozzerella, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, red onions, and basil.

As a former Pizzaria employee, Chef Beef was in charge of topping our first attempt on New Year's eve. On New Year's day, we made the second pizza (which unfortunately was eaten too quickly to have its picture taken). It was much fluffier in crust, but both were delicious.

So the next time you have three whole days to make pizza, try it!