Mini Beef Burgers with Roasted Chili Relish and Pickled Onions
I've never made sliders before. I reused the brioche recipe from last week, and changed up the beef composition ratio slightly. This burger featured Monterey Jack cheese, ancho/Anaheim peppers, and pickled onions. The burgers were handled as little as possible from the store to the cast iron, and I used a cookie cutter to shape the burgers. I would not recommend using cast iron to cook burgers at around 12am-1am in the morning-as you might set off your smoke detector and have the alarm company call you while you are trying to cook. haha. Anyways, the burger was interesting to make.
Ingredient List
ADY
bread flour
AP flour
sugar
water
salt
butter
egg
milk
sesame seeds
red onion
lime
Anaheim chile
Ancho chile
ground beef 85/15
extra virgin olive oil
fresh scallion
fresh oregano
fresh cilantro
fresh arugula
Monterey Jack cheese
To make home-made Brioche buns:
1. In a mixing bowl, combine one cup warm water, 1 ½ tablespoons warm milk, 1 teaspoon ADY, and ¾ tablespoon sugar. Let stand five minutes.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 ½ cups bread flour, 1/9 cup AP flour (approx.), and a bit of salt.
3. Soften about ¾ tablespoon of butter, and add to flour mixture. Stir well.
4. Beat one egg, and add to flour mixture.
5. Pour in yeast mixture, and stir well.
6. Using a bowl scraper, scoop dough into a ball.
7. Add some bread flour to the mixture, as it will be somewhat sticky. Add just enough to keep it sticky. The amount of flour you add may change how the dough stabilizes. Not quite certain. It did something different this week.5
8. Knead the dough with your fingers for 8 minutes. Use the bowl scraper to reshape into a ball.
9. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for an hour or more.
10. When ready, line a cookie sheet with a reusable baker’s parchment. Use a dough scraper to divide the dough into appropriate sized pieces. Roll pieces into a rough ball, and place on baker’s parchment.
11. Coat a sheet of saran wrap well with cooking spray. Cover buns very lightly with saran wrap, and let rise for another hour in a warm place.
12. When ready cook, preheat oven to 400 degrees.
13. Beat an egg with a tablespoon of water, and coat top of buns with mixture. Top with desired amount of sesame seeds, and carefully drain off excess egg mixture around buns.
14. Place a casserole dish full of water on the bottom rack of large oven, and place cookie sheet containing buns on middle rack. Cook for 15-25 minutes, until tops are lightly browned. Check frequently after 15 minutes.
15. Remove buns from oven to cool, and slice apart buns. They should not stick to parchment much.
To make Chile Relish:
1. Rehydrate some Ancho chiles about 1/2 hour or so in advance. Do this by de-stemming and de-seeding the ancho, slicing lengthwise, and toasting the dry chile in a pan for a few minutes.
2. Heat some water, and pour into a bowl. Drop in the Ancho chiles, and let them soak for 1/2 hour.
3. Toast some whole Anaheim peppers on an open flame. Let them brown and spot a bit. Remove them from heat and de-stem/deseed.
4. Slice anaheim and anchos when ready into small strips. Set aside.
5. In a bowl, combine 1 tablespoon olive oil, the white and light green part of a scallion in pieces, one teaspoon fresh oregano leaves, a few cilantro leaves in small pieces, and some salt.
6. Pour this mixture over the sliced peppers and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
To make pickled onions:
1. Slice a red onion. Add the juice of two limes and a bit of salt to a metal bowl. Mix well. Cover and let sit for a few hours.
To make burger:
1. Buy some 85/15 beef. Try to handle it as little as possible. Use a small cookie cutter to section out the beef. Trim off the edges and shake out burgers onto a plate carefully.
2. Heat a cast iron skillet (with as many windows open as possible unless you want to set off your smoke alarm!) on high heat.
3. Season burgers with salt, and place in cast iron for 1 1/2 minutes. Flip over and immediately add cheese. Cook for another 1 1/2 minutes.
4. Remove from heat.
5. When ready to serve, toast your burger buns.
6. Add some fresh arugula on the bottom bun. Top with burger, then Chile relish, and then pickled onions. Serve.