Sometimes it is too much hassle to try and convince the manager at your local MaccyDs to give you a large cup full of Big Mac sauce. So, with the guidance of a few handy websites, we figured out a way to make our own. Enjoy.
The nice folks at Waitrose asked us to pick a side and come up with a football-inspired burger, so we banged our heads together and came up with the ultimate Belgium burger.
Belgium has a strong entry for a national sandwich - the Mitraillette (which translates as the machine gun).
It's traditionally a combination of meat and veggies covered in fries served with a curious burger sauce which just happens to be called 'Brésil' sauce.
We've eschewed the traditional baguette for a classic bun, but a huge baguette could work well for large groups.
So without further ado, we bring you our adaptation.
Le Fusil de Dembele AKA The Burger Anarchy Mitraillette
Ingredients
- 200g minced chuck (70%) and skirt (30%) beef (ask your friendly Waitrose butcher to help with this)
- 375ml Duvel Golden Ale
- A couple of lemons
- Golden Granulated Sugar
- Waitrose Frites
- Sliced Dutch Gouda (Belgian cheese is hard to find)
- Sliced Port Salut cheese
- 250g good French mayonnaise
- Tomato puree
- 2 onions
- 2 carrots
- Romaine lettuce
- A large white giant bap
- Jack Hawkins slicing tomato
- A bunch of flat leaf parsley
- Salt and pepper
- Unsalted butter
- Tin of pineapple chunks in juice
Method
There are a number of things we need to prepare before the meat can hit the grill on this one, so let's tackle each in order.
Brésil sauce:
- Mix together in a medium bowl 250g Mayonnaise, 2 tbsp finely chopped onions, 2 tbsp Tomato Puree.
- Drain and chop the pineapple chunks, retaining about half the juice.
- Add the pineapple chunks to a saucepan on a high heat with 1 tbsp of sugar. Stir regularly and cook until the fruit is soft and caramelised.
- Puree the fruit in the saucepan using a small immersion blender (or a food processor if you don't have one).
- Allow the pineapple to cool down to room temperature then add to the other ingredients with 1 tbsp of lemon juice and then add salt to taste.
- Add to your sauce bottle if you want to get fancy.
Sweet bière onions:
- Halve and slice the onions (but don't dice them, you want to be able to see the half moon slices)
- Add the Duvel, 1 tbsp sugar, and bring to a steady boil in a cast iron pan.
- Add the onions and simmer until liquid reduces down (about 20-30 mins).
- Once reduced and no longer runny, place in a bowl and keep warm.
Carottes Râpées:
- Peel and finely grate 2 carrots (a Magimix is really handy here for speedy grating)
- Place in a mixing bowl, add 1 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of sugar.
- Coarsely chop the parsley and add to the carrot mix.
- Mix it all together, add salt and pepper to taste and more lemon juice if it needs it.
NB. The carrots should only have a very light coating of dressing, you don't want them dripping otherwise it will oversaturate the burger.
Frites:
- Cook according to instructions on packet.
Seriously, boxed chips these days are so good, you don't want to faff about triple cooking some chips for this recipe.
The patty:
- Wet your hands and gently form 200g of mince into a patty roughly the size of the bap.
- Thumb a divot into the centre of the patty (to stop it from shrinking when cooking).
- Liberally salt the bottom of the patty and place in very hot cast iron frying pan or grill pan. Non-stick pans are useless to you here.
- Liberally salt top of the patty and flip halfway through cooking to your preference.
- 1 minute before the patty is ready, place a slice of gouda and port salut on top, add water to the pan and cover with a cloche or large pan lid to melt it.
The bap:
- Slice the bap, spread with butter and lightly toast in a dry frying pan.
Assemble the sandwich:
- Sauce the bottom bun
- Lettuce leaf
- Tomato slice
- Carottes Râpées
- Patty with cheese
- Sweet Biere onions
- A healthy handful of frites
- More sauce
- Add the top bun
- Rob & Simon.
- Extra special thanks to Waitrose for their help with this recipe, and the poor butcher at the Westfield branch who withstood our double mincing demands with aplomb.
- A few of the others are worth a shot, you can find them over on the Waitrose site.
Realistically you aren't going to make something as ridiculous as our Mexi Mac. But the magic behind the monstrosity is the meat that goes into the quesadilla, each of which is fucking delicious.
So we thought we'd impart how we made each one to you. Make sure you've got a fair whack of fresh coriander, jalapenos and fuck tons of cheese for the quesadillas. Make sure you brush the outside of the tortillas with oil, and then pan or oven cook depending on you preference. We cooked ours in the oven because we'd filled them so much that pan cooking became logistically tricky as balls. Get a bit of Mexican in you and give them a go.
And seriously. Buy a slow cooker. Only good things come from one.
La Anarquía Carne
(for about 8 peeps)
- 1 1/2 pounds flank/strip steak
- 40 ml white vinegar
- 60 ml soy sauce
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- juice of a lime
- 60 ml olive oil
- 1/2 tsp of:
- salt
- ground black pepper
- ground white pepper
- garlic powder
- chili powder
- dried oregano
- ground cumin
- paprika
1. Flop the steak in a glass baking dish.
2. In a bowl, lob together the vinegar, soy sauce, minced garlic, lime juice, and olive oil. Throw in the salt, black pepper, white pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, oregano, cumin and paprika. Whisk everything until well blended, then slosh it over the steak in the dish. Flip reverse the steak to coat both sides. Cover with plastic wrap, and marinate for as long as you want, overnight worked for us.
3. Take the steak out of marinade and fry in a hot pan until cooked medium. Slice into strips.
La Anarquía Carne
La Anarquía Cerdo
(for about 10 peeps)
- 1 (4 pound) boneless pork shoulder roast
- 475ml chicken broth
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 bay leaves
1. Combine the salt, garlic powder, cumin, oregano, coriander, and cinnamon in a bowl. Seductively massage the spice mixture into the pork.
2. Place the bay leaves in the bottom of a slow cooker and plonk the pork on top. Pour the chicken broth over the pork, being careful not to rinse off the spice mixture.
3. Cover and cook on Low until the pork shreds easily with a fork, about 10 hours. Turn the meat after it has cooked for 5 hours. When the pork is tender, remove from slow cooker, and shred with two forks. Use the liquid in the cooker to moisten the meat if you need to. We did, it totally did the trick.
La Anarquía Cerdo
La Anarquía Pollo
(for about 6 peeps)
- 6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
- 1 (20 ounce) jar salsa
- 3 cloves crushed garlic
- 2 tbsp of:
- ground cumin
- lemon juice
- chili powder
- oregano
1. Preheat oven to 205°C.
2. Chuck the chicken into a baking dish. Throw together the salsa (it ain't just for dipping chips people), cumin, lemon juice, chili powder, oregano and garlic. Slop the mixture over the chicken and cover. Bake in the oven for an hour or so.
3. Chop into small chunks.
La Anarquía Pollo
*All recipes adapted and modified from recipes on the online foodcyclopaedia that is allrecipes.com*