I had a deep-fried hamburger last night.
Prince of Wales at 54 Cuna Street in St. Augustine.
It was amazing!

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The weather is finally warming up. Grilling time is around the corner.

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Exchanging my 22.5-inch Weber charcoal grill at Home Depot. More food to come soon!

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I wonder how a fried burger would taste… Hmm…

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Turkey burgers with datil pepper hot sauce. (Pre-grilling)

Don’t get me wrong, I love hamburgers. Nothing is more classic than good juicy burger.

But I’ve been trying to eat a little healthier lately, and my parents turned me on to turkey burgers. They are made the same way, but use ground turkey, rather than hamburger.

Here’s how the experiment went.

Ingredients

• 1/3 pounds of ground turkey breast. (If you don’t mind dark meat, you can get just ground turkey. It’s a little cheaper, but I don’t think it tastes as good.)
• A green and a red bell pepper (optional)
• One white onion (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• 4 buns (I like water rolls, but you could always use a low-carb bun to boost the healthfulness.)
• Mild hot sauce (optional)
• Sliced tomato
• Lettuce

Step 1

Take the red bell pepper, the green bell pepper and the onion and dice half (or less) of each of them.

Step 2

Place the diced pepper and onions into a large bowl. Add the turkey breast and a pinch of salt and pepper. Crack an egg into the bowl, as well, and mix all of the ingredients thoroughly (Be careful, though. Overmixing can lead to burgers that won’t hold up well on the grill).

Some recipes may also tell you to mix in breadcrumbs, but I think they only add unnecessary carbs to the meal. In order to avoid that, just leave them out.

Step 5

Break up the meat into 4 parts, and press each part into a patty. I bought a cheap burger press about a year ago, and it was the best $5 I ever spent. The one I have looks similar to this. It makes up to a 1/3 pound burger, but you can always make it smaller. The benefit of a burger press is that it makes all of the patties the same size. And that’s important because they they all cook evenly.

Step 6

(Optional) Add hot sauce onto the top of the patties. Keep the hot sauce out, though, because you will want to add more to the other side of the burger once it is flipped over on the grill. I chose to use datil-pepper-based sauce. Because I live in St. Augustine, Fla., it only seems natural to use a local sauce.

Step 7

Put the patties onto the grill at medium to medium-high heat. You’ll want to cook the patties for about 6-7 minutes a side. You want to make sure they are thoroughly cooked through. (If you are using hot sauce, remember to put more on the other side of the burger once it is flipped over)

Step 8

About a minute before taking the burgers off the grill, put the buns on the grill flat side down and lightly toast them.

Step 9

Take everything off the grill. Now you can garnish the burgers with lettuce and tomato. If you chose to use the hot sauce, you shouldn’t need any condiments on the burger.

Hindsight

I thought the burgers were delicious, but I can see how they could get dry if they were overcooked. Add some Worcestershire sauce into the mix would probably help keep it moist and add some nice flavor, as well.

You could also add a mix of hot peppers if you wanted to change the flavor. Some diced jalapenos could add some heat without having to add hot sauce. Red onions, instead of white, might also give it a better flavor, more subtle onion flavor.

-Adam

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I love most seafood, and I’ll take any chance to grill it. I heard a co-worker mention grilled shrimp recently, and I realized I had never had it. I didn’t have a recipe for it, but I figured I could wing it. I mean, how complex can grilled shrimp be? Anyway, here’s how the experiment went:

SUPPLIES:
1 pound of fresh shrimp
BBQ sauce of your choosing
Skewers (I used metal ones, but bamboo skewers would probably work the best)

STEP 1
Take your fresh shrimp, and de-shell them. I chose to leave the tails on, mostly because they look nicer with the tails on. Also, I thought leaving the tails on might help the flavor a little. It is probably more practical to totally de-shell them, though.

STEP 2
De-vein the shrimp. It sounds pretty gross, but it’s true. The digestive tract of shrimp runs along their backside. I chose to remove it, but it’s your preference. It is not harmful to eat, and it seems to have very little taste, if any.
But if you are removing it, there is a pretty simple way to do it. Take a paring knife and run it along the backside of the shrimp. That will allow you to access the digestive tract.

STEP 3
After you have it sliced open. Take your fingers and pull apart the meat. Then run it under water to clean it out. That’s about it for cleaning.

STEP 4
Put each shrimp on the skewer. I figured spearing them directly through the middle would be the most effective. I put about 10 shrimps on each skewer.

STEP 5
Grab your BBQ sauce. I chose to use Sweet Baby Rays. It is probably my favorite sauce, and I figured it would work well because it is a pretty thick and sticky sauce.

STEP 6
Brush the shrimp with the sauce. As I said before, I figured a stickier sauce would work the best. I also put a little salt and pepper on the shrimp.

STEP 7
Put the shrimp on the grill. I had heard about 2.5 minutes a side works well, but I am always fearful of under-cooking food, especially when it is the first time I have cooked it. I ended up cooking the shrimp for about 3.5 minutes a side.

STEP 8
Baste once with barbecue sauce while the shrimp are on the grill.

STEP 9
After 2.5 minutes, turn shrimp and baste again. Pull the shrimp off after another 2.5 minutes (5 minutes total). You’ll probably want to eat them pretty soon after you take them off because they seemed to cool down rather quickly. I made some white rice to go with the shrimp along with some grilled asparagus. (Don’t worry. We’ll have a posting on that soon.)

Heinz Sight:
Although I said to cook the shrimp for 5 minutes, I ended up leaving them on for about 7 minutes, which caused them to be a little dry. They tasted pretty good, but that extra time on the grill definitely did some damage to the taste. I think next time I’ll stick with the 5-minute rule. I’d also suggest brushing the shrimp with sauce maybe one more time while they are on the grill to keep them moist.

I’d also suggest using a fruitier sauce with the shrimp, depending on your tastebuds. Something with mango would probably work well.

-Adam

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What better way to start things off than by talking about kebabs. Meat and vegetables mixed together in delicious harmony.

This cooking adventure took place back in June. We planned ahead to cook the ‘bobs, so we decided to let them marinate — for maybe about 6 hours. We used sliced beef tenderloin, which seemed to work well. I’m still not sure what cut of meat is best to use on skewers. If you have any ideas, let us know.

While the meat was marinating, we sliced the veggies (Green, red and yellow peppers, as well as tomatoes). I’m sure we did other things during that six hours, but I can’t remember now.

Now when it comes to veggies, I always like to put a little olive oil on them before grilling. I think it helps them cook more evenly on the grill. I have never really done any research on it, but it seems to work out. It seems like every time I try to cook veggies sans olive oil, they get scorched.

After the oil bath, we skewed the meat and veggies, making sure to leave some space between the meat to allow for even cooking. I’ve heard theories about the distance between the meat, but we had so many veggies that we tried to make the most out of it.

After everything was skewed, we threw it on the grill. With the grill set on medium heat, we cooked them for about 12 minutes — 6 on each side.

Then, voila! Beef kebabs!

Next time I cook kebabs, I’m thinking they’re going to be shrimp.

-Adam

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Get your tastebuds ready. Delicious content is coming.

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