Sunday 24 February 2013

Dressed in White and the Gabriel Burger.


Good day (or night) to you!

I woke up this morning to the sight of a lightly snow dusted Belgium.



Isn't she beautiful?



The Gabriel Burger was definitely better on Friday evening. The saying "more is less" definitely applies here. I've been making a burger akin to a Dagwood or a Blondie. Could "Dagwood" or "Blondie" be colloquialisms? Let me explain:

In my land of birth, a Dagwood is a burger containing at least one burger patty, a fried egg, a slice of cheese, a slice of ham and an undefined flavour pink-ish sauce. This coronary goodness is placed between two slices of toasted bread. Sometimes there’s an additional slice in the middle of the construction to give it some stability. The slices of bread used to be burger rolls. This would make it a burger, not a toasted sandwich but due to general laziness on the part of the makers and practicality of size, the rolls were replaced by said bread slices.

Now a Blondie is even more impressive! Again it contains at least one burger patty, a fried egg, a slice of cheese but then there’s the twist! Instead of a slice of ham, there’s a fillet of steak in there and then of course the mystical pink sauce of undefined flavour again. In a Blondie the structural support of an additional slice of bread is obligatory.

Either of these items can be purchased at most Roadhouses (a drive-in diner) and a particularly good one I recommend is The Apple Bite Roadhouse.

So now that we have that cleared up, we may continue. The Gabriel Burger was taking on Dagwood like proportions with a burger patty, cheese, bacon, mushroom sauce with a secret ingredient instead of the insipid pink stuff and an egg as well as garnishes of taste like tomato, lettuce and gherkins.

Since our arrival in Belgium and our access to the local grocery stores, like Delhaize and Carrefour with their (in our view) exotic ingredients, I’ve started refining the Gabriel Burger to at least make it edible without fear of that coronary. The beef for the patty (yes I make them from scratch) is leaner and both patties and bacon are fried in a non-stick pan with no oil or other lubricants added. The egg is now poached. How la-di-dah is that? The only thing that does not abide to the fat free rule yet is the mushroom sauce.

I was still not satisfied. The flavours weren’t apparent and it looked bad on a plate.

On Friday I tried something new. I denied the Gabriel Burger its bacon & egg and instead made a cheese & mushroom burger. This was far better in flavour and look!

The secret’s definitely the mushroom sauce. The next step is to refine the combinations a little more. Bacon and mushroom sauce perhaps? Perhaps *shudder* I should even eliminate the sauce altogether but that simply wouldn’t be a Gabriel Burger then.

When I’m brave enough and it looks slightly presentable I’ll post a photo of the burger.

Until then, well, no photo.

Ciao for now.

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