The latest burger in the series took us to Italy. As yet, this one was by far the sauciest. For the "patty", we thought it would be fun and appropriate to divide the normal patty into a couple meatballs. Since we were using rectangular ciabatta buns, two meatballs suited the change in the shape of the sandwich. The balls just had to be cooked in a sauce, but luckily for us the ciabatta had enough crust to contain the added moisture.
Sadly, we kind of got rocked with the dinner service that night and in our determination to pull of the burger, omitted one of our intended elements - thinly shaved and shredded prosciutto. I'll still include it here because I'm convinced the omission simply meant the difference between a great an a greater burger. On the happy side, we still had pork represented in the form of pancetta mayonnaise. This followed the same formula as the brown butter mayonnaise recipe, just using rendered pancetta fat instead. As stated in that recipe, animal fat mayonnaise is very temperature sensitive - when I spread the pancetta mayo on the toasted ciabatta, it softened right up and got very cozy with the bread.
Another main feature of the burger was essentially a complete tomato and bocconcini salad on the bottom bun. It was only natural - burgers have tomatoes, burgers have cheese, and we already wanted to get bocconcini involved. To avoid overloading the burger, it was necessary to slice the tomatoes and cheese as thinly as possible. A drizzle of balsamic reduction completed the picture. The full breakdown of the burger was as follows:
The Italian Burger:
- bun - ciabatta garlic bread
- patty - meatballs (2)
- greens - arugula
- cheeses - smoked provolone (melted onto garlic bread)
- fiore de latte bocconcini
- shaved parmesan (on the meatballs)
- sauces - pancetta mayonnaise (top bun)
- basil mayonnaise (bottom bun)
- balsamic glaze
- oven roasted tomato sauce
- bacon - shaved and shredded prosciutto
- garnishes - yellow vine-ripened tomatoes
- roasted red peppers
Sadly, we kind of got rocked with the dinner service that night and in our determination to pull of the burger, omitted one of our intended elements - thinly shaved and shredded prosciutto. I'll still include it here because I'm convinced the omission simply meant the difference between a great an a greater burger. On the happy side, we still had pork represented in the form of pancetta mayonnaise. This followed the same formula as the brown butter mayonnaise recipe, just using rendered pancetta fat instead. As stated in that recipe, animal fat mayonnaise is very temperature sensitive - when I spread the pancetta mayo on the toasted ciabatta, it softened right up and got very cozy with the bread.
 |
| first the salad |
Another main feature of the burger was essentially a complete tomato and bocconcini salad on the bottom bun. It was only natural - burgers have tomatoes, burgers have cheese, and we already wanted to get bocconcini involved. To avoid overloading the burger, it was necessary to slice the tomatoes and cheese as thinly as possible. A drizzle of balsamic reduction completed the picture. The full breakdown of the burger was as follows:
The Italian Burger:
 |
| then the meatballs |
- patty - meatballs (2)
- greens - arugula
- cheeses - smoked provolone (melted onto garlic bread)
- fiore de latte bocconcini
- shaved parmesan (on the meatballs)
- sauces - pancetta mayonnaise (top bun)
- basil mayonnaise (bottom bun)
- balsamic glaze
- oven roasted tomato sauce
- bacon - shaved and shredded prosciutto
- garnishes - yellow vine-ripened tomatoes
- roasted red peppers
 |
| only ciabatta can contain this much juiciness |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Impressions, thoughts, comments? Let me know.