(Author's Note: Okay, Mitch has had a chance to look at this blog and there are now MAJOR edits to the cooking information. Please note changes to recipe and to marinating/seasoning process. All I can say is that the man takes his meat and cooking very seriously.)
It's hard to believe, but I'm back in California and just spent an entire week in Alabama with my bestie, Smule duet partner, and biz partner Mitch B.!! Can you imagine? And that week went by so quickly. I will have PLENTY more to write about in the next few days, but for now, I would like to concentrate--not on singing, which is the object of this blog--but on cooking. More specifically, how to properly cook meat in the south.
Now anyone who knows me or Mitch through our Facebook pages, knows that we have both had some pretty interesting conversations about how to properly prepare and cook meat products.
It all started about 5 months ago, when Mitch was preparing steaks to be "grilled" (aka, "barbequed" here in the West). As we always do, we were talking on the phone and Mitch told me that he was lighting the charcoals and would soon be used to make steaks. I mentioned something to him about being the "Q-master" in my family too, and that I loved to put steaks on the grill, but it takes so long for the charcoals to heat up that I didn't do it often.
That's when Mitch advocated that steaks should always be grilled and that it was all about time management when cooking. He advised me to start up the grill (okay, barbeque), and then tend to the marinades and seasoned rubs for your meat while the coals got hot. This prompted me to ask...
"So how do YOU prepare your steaks, Mitch."
"Oh, you poke holes in the meat with a steak knife or fork five to six times on each side, marinate each side for about 20-30 minutes, then add rubs to the outside, and then you grill it slowly in the center of grill until it's pink in the center and tender." He added that the he would even use a squirt bottle of water to "douse" any flames that might flare up to burn his steaks.
"Wow! And how long does this entire operation take?"
"Oh, 2 hours, I guess..."
There was a long, noticeable silence from me (okay, truth be told, it was like 30 nanoseconds of no sound, but as Mitch will tell you, I'm the veritable "wall of sound" when it comes to conversations so ANY silence from me is "noticeable"), followed by the exclamation "TWO HOURS!! Are you kidding me??????"
"No..." said Mitch calmly. Mitch always says everything calmly, in fact, if Mitch were a car, he'd have only three gears..."calm," "giggle/laugh" and "asleep." By contrast, he will admit that I have about 60+ different gears ranging from deliriously happy to volcanically pissed off and he's seen ALL of them and lived to tell the tale...but again, I digress.
"SERIOUSLY? You take TWO HOURS to make a steak??"
"Yes, if you want it done right, it takes time," Mitch replied even more calmly to counter me. Then he asked me, "Why? How long does it take you to make a steak."
"Truthfully, it takes me maybe 8 minutes...you salt and pepper both sides, then throw it in the broiler for about 4 minutes per side depending on the thickness of the steak."
"Broiled?" Pregnant pause of disbelief from Mitch, "Oh...my...god! Why would you do that to the steak?"
In the following minutes, I learned that NO ONE, in his/her right mind should EVER broil a steak and ruin the meat in such an undignified manner. In Mitch's world of culinary skills (and he is, in fact, a cook with experience in this field), the only acceptable "second best" method to cooking the steak would be to pan fry the meat in a skillet.
So when my husband's birthday came around in August and I announced I would be making him a steak for dinner, Mitch firmly advocated that I--just that one time--please do the steak "properly" on a grill. I told him "no" to the grill (due to high fire danger in drought stricken California), but I would at least agree to pan fry the steak with seasonings. Much to my surprise, my son and husband BOTH declared the steaks "super tasty", which prompted Mitch to exclaim "I TOLD YOU SO" so loudly over the phone that even my husband could hear it.
As a result, when I went for my SECOND visit to Alabama last week, my husband made me PROMISE that I would get at least one recipe on how to cook meat with Mitch. So on Thursday evening, last week, after we went grocery shopping, Mitch and I decided to make a hamburger, and Mitch showed me how HE makes a hamburger. Let me say that it was one of the BEST burgers I've ever had.
For all of our friends, here is Mitch's Southern Styled Hamburger Meat Recipe as I observed it. Do keep in mind that I'm going to ask Mitch for some additional information, so this may change slightly in the next few days.
Ingredients:
2 lbs or about 70 Kg of Ground Beef (this will make 5 very large and very juicy hamburgers)
Dash of Salt
Dash of Pepper
Dash of Lowry's Season Salt
Dash Garlic salt (optional)
Bread Crumbs made from 2 Pieces of White Bread (optional)
2 Eggs (optional)
5-7 Drops of Barbeque Sauce Per Burger (Mitch suggests Sweet Baby Ray's Original Flavor)
Dale's Steak Sauce (this is optional, it was good without it, but Mitch said it just adds "zing" that is super important). Dale's is NOT available everywhere, so you might only be able to get it in Alabama. If you can't find it, then purchase Moore's.
Directions:
(Optional) Mitch says the meat sticks together better if you mix the bread crumbs and eggs into the hamburger before seasoning or marinating. This step is more important if you will be grilling/barbequing the hamburgers.
Using approximately 1/4 lb of ground beef (about 20 kg), pat the meat first into a ball and then flatten evenly so that it's a good sized patty of meat. Mitch's hamburgers were about 5 to 5.5 inches in diameter. If you have the Dale's Steak Sauce, you can marinate the hamburgers for about 20-30 minutes.
(Optional) Mitch prefers grilling his burgers rather than pan frying. If you use the grill, let the charcoals get hot and the flames to die down, and then place the hamburger patties on the grill. Use a squirt bottle of water to douse any flames.
Heat fry pan to medium high. Mitch used a non-stick pan from his new Farber cookware set (a thoughtful house warming gift from his best friend--me).
Put the meat patty into the pan and sprinkle salt, pepper, garlic powder, Lowry's salt and 6-9 small drops of barbeque sauce to the top of the burger.
A few minutes later, he flipped the burger and added the barbeque sauce to the cooked side.
The burgers were flipped a couple more times until "done" to your taste.
We topped our burgers with slices of American cheese and condiments, which, with Mitch means "ketchup" only and serve it on your favorite burger bun or roll.
YUMMY and delicious! Give it a try! I know you'll love it!
Singers Mentioned Here:
@_Mitch22_ is my duet partner, best friend and biz partner Mitch B., who is serious about singing and cooking. He has edited this blog so that everyone can duplicate his version of the "Mitch Burger." By the way, my family ate the burger this evening and declared it "delicious."
Me, I'm Grace @Pokeypal and live here in San Jose, California. I've just returned from a trip to Alabama where I spent a week with my friend, Mitch. Join me and Mitch for great songs on Smule Sing!
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