UTMC

So we have these friends that we see every month or so and it gradually turned into some sort of food contest between us. as in tv shows.
For our next meal I was thinking about hamburgers, with home made fries, as they are a local specialty and I sort of can deal with it, but I'm struggling to find a good starter course that would be in the theme.
salads ? any suggestions ? as for finger food ?
We usually cut the supper in finger food, a cold (or hot but it's summer here too) starter, a big fat main course that would be hamburgers in bacon with fries and cheddar, and then desert.
and lots and lots of wine. they are bikers.
thank you for your suggestions.
crawfish ?

Wine? Bikers? hm. (Actually we do a little wine...) Generally you cant go wrong with fresh fruit and cheese to whet folk's appetites.

Fried pickle slices.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food ... ecipe.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Could you even get crawfish over there? Anything you'd get from the states right now would be frozen garbage, they are primarily a seasonal food (spring, specifically).
Try grinding some jalapenos and mixing them in with the ground beef (before cooking, obviously) for your burgers. Maybe even a little bit of shredded cheese, something more interesting than plain old cheddar. As for sides, I cannot hlep you, I would be happy to just chow down on some burgers and a few drinks.

we have rivers, we have crawfish or equivalent, crayfish according to wikipedia, access to most of the ingredients really. it's more the cultural recipes I'm looking for. or else I'll just build some fig and italian ham salad from jamie oliver's cook book.

That sounds real good, but not very Great American. If you're looking for authentic Americana, like Route 66, doo wop, malt shop, poodle skirts & bobby socks, you don't want to make it too fancy.

Consider the menu from Sonic Drive-In... that's where I originally had fried pickles, and where Der Golgo discovered the sinful joy of a blended root beer float and chili cheese tater tots.

Personally, my favorite burger IN THE WORLD is the green chili cheeseburger from the Mean Woman Grill in Lubbock, TX. After that would probably be Five Guys Burgers & Fries, then Hamburger King in nearby Shawnee, OK.

Here are two for you.

I love a good chili cheese dog!

Use a nice whole wheat bun, and cut a wedge out of it so you can grill it with out it splitting in half. Just to toast it a little.

Use a nice polska kielbasa, or whatever your favorite grilling dog is. I like to slice 1/16th inch deep slices all over the surface so the fat drips out and the inner part of the sausage gets a little toasted too.

Heat up your favorite can of chili con carne, but add a 1/4 cup of nice red salsa, and a touch of hot sauce, just to make it seem homemade.

Toast bun, grill dog, put dog on bun and chili over dog, and top off with thickly grated cheddar cheese.

Yum!


This one is Italian, but it is easy and delicious. Capresi salad.

Slice tomatoes. lay on plate. Cover with fresh basil sliced 1/4 inch thick. Cover with sliced fresh mozzarella. Drizzle olive oil over. Sprinkle salt to taste.

That's it! Yummylicious!!!

Nachos man, nachos.

Potato salad and baked beans are pretty traditional cookout fare. The wife does up a great watermelon salad with, red onions, mint leaves, balsalmic or red wine vinegar, and feta, which we're making for the family reunion this year. I can get you the proportions and any special prep instructions if you'd like.

Mustardseed (Mrs. Jaeger) has been compiling recipes of late. Check this out:

http://www.millefiori.net/mishka/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I also need to get you my Nana's recipe for "corn pone."

Of course there's this thing called "scrapple." I'm sure you've heard the reference before. Auf Deutch it's "ponhaus." As the locals say, "they use everything but the oink."

Research "Maryland Soft Crabs."

Also, Maryland Crabcakes. (DG will vouch for the latter.)

--Jaeger

thanks for the input. nachos, definitely, salads with mint and watermelon, good idea, I'll explore the recipes from Mishka. The crabs, I'm not sure I am ready, veggie girlfriend will probably not survive.

xtian wrote:....... and then, desert.

Dunt dunt duuuuuuuuu....!

oh hey, look at that, I made a typo.

I'm gonna go big +1 for the fried pickles. Also onion rings with a ranch sauce for dipping.

My personal favorite starter at family get togethers is chips and dip. If you can get Fritos Scoops, they hold a LOT of dip. Then get a tub of sour cream, and mix in a packet of powdered onion soup mix. Salty, but damn good.

-Rench

Oh my. Love the psychological challenge of the soft shell crab sandwich. Take the exact same thing and chop it into a crab cake and nobody would think twice about it, but that arachnidal presentation... put a smile on my face.

Toonce(s) wrote:Oh my. Love the psychological challenge of the soft shell crab sandwich. Take the exact same thing and chop it into a crab cake and nobody would think twice about it, but that arachnidal presentation... put a smile on my face.

We confronted both of my kids with that exact thing last time we were on the coast. They devoured it...

That arachnidal presentation... made me lose my appetite.

Told my 6 year old about it. He doesn't like shell fish in general but was excited about the prospect of getting to eat a sandwich that looked like it was made out of a giant spider.

jae wrote:Told my 6 year old about it. He doesn't like shell fish in general but was excited about the prospect of getting to eat a sandwich that looked like it was made out of a giant spider.

I'm tellin' ya, they really are delicious.



--Jaeger

so, I couldn't find relish to make a real big mac sauce so I kind of improvised something on he same basis and used it at different stages with different combinations.
as finger food, we had pretzels, watermelon on a stick wrapped in pancetta ham, dorittos with guacamole or relish/ based pepperoni salsa, and fruity sangria.
stater were onion rings and fried pickles with another relish/horseradish sauce, salad made of watermelon, black olives, flat parsley, feta cheese and mint leaves with balsamic vinegar.
To be honest, fried pickles sounded like nothing we could enjoy but turned out pretty good, maybe I choose pickles that tasted too much like vinegar, I didn't know which one to take so I took the "traditional recipe", I just feared that oil would be too cold on our electric furnace so it turned out too hot and the onions were too crusty on the outside but not quite cooked on the inside. live and learn.
Then massive burgers of pure beef meat wrapped in bacon, salad, onion, pickles, cheddar cheese and big mac like relish based sauce. 300gr in massive buns was clearly too much at this stage so leftovers were left over. lots of home made typical Belgian fries.
Cheese cake was crap, too flat and acid, but everybody pretended it was ok as hard as everybody pretended to be surprised when they said their son had made his coming out, 2 and a half bottle of red, one bottle of white and one bottle of rose wine later.
thank you for your input.
Next time I think i'll try something vaguely italian, marinated fish, anchovies, antipastos, pastas and calf and sage rolls.

Sounds better than the real thing

I recommend you come back to this one often, until you perfect it.

Also... McDonald's special sauce? Really? Does McDonald's enjoy a different reputation over there? When I think "good hamburgers", Mickey D's is about the *last* place that comes to mind!

guitargeek wrote:I recommend you come back to this one often, until you perfect it.

Also... McDonald's special sauce? Really? Does McDonald's enjoy a different reputation over there? When I think "good hamburgers", Mickey D's is about the *last* place that comes to mind!

Not really (tho i think ingredients are different from one continent to another) but I just didn't want to go with plain ketchup or one of the dozen of aromatic mayonnaises that we have here (http://dl.be/fr/product_category/sauces/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), so mc donald "secret ingredient" seemed like a good starting point for some personal improvisation.
[media]https://youtu.be/rcu4Bj3xEyI[/media]

Sounds like a good spread. We just got home from the reunion feast weekend where I had four different types of baked beans, a wide variety of bbq/smoked meatstuff, and more berry crisp/pie/cobbler varieties than I could count. I don't plan on eating again until some time in September.