[RECIPE] Peanut Butter and Bacon French Toast Sandwich
Because every week is sandwich week, really.
This recipe works best with some nicely staled challah - we get ours from Costco. Don’t make any plans to do anything for at least a few hours afterwards.
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- ground cinnamon
- 300ml of whole milk
- 50ml of double cream
- Skippy Smooth peanut butter
- 6-8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon
- 1tbsp of vanilla extract
- at least half a stick of unsalted butter to hand at room temperature
- icing sugar
- blueberries
- maple syrup
- 2/3 stale challah rolls (or other white bread)
Method
Preheat the oven and throw the bacon in on a baking tray.
Beat the eggs, milk and cream together lightly. Add in a good dash of cinnamon and the vanilla extract.
Pour the mixture in to a flat bottomed dish.
Halve your rolls and submerge them into the dish for a minute, flip and then do the other side too. Try to get as good a covering as you can so the mixture has really soaked in.
Melt a healthy knob of butter in your favourite pan.
Batch fry the toast, making sure the pan doesn’t get too hot and brown the butter too much. 2-3 minutes per side should do it but you can flip pretty regularly. Keep going until they’re a pleasing golden brown.
Once the toast is cooked, let them cool a little and then add a healthy dollop of peanut butter. Smooth works best with this recipe since it’ll melt quickly and is easier to spread without ruining the finish of your toast.
The bacon should nicely crisp by this stage - wipe off any excess grease with some kitchen towel, snap them in two and put them on top of one half.
Apply the top half, add a liberal dose of maple syrup, a cursory handful of blueberries on the side and sieve a layer of icing sugar on top.
Cancel your plans for the rest of the day.
- Simon.
[REVIEW] Lucky Seven / Westbourne Park, London
“Unfortunately it felt like they couldn’t wait for us to get out of there…”
We’ve all got at least one - a place you want to go to, but it strays wildly from home or work.
Not on the way to anywhere. Places that have no other discernable reason for you to go to, places that you know there’s something you want to try there, but is such a herculean effort you may as well just stay at home and have a jacket potato.
Well, for us, this has been Lucky Seven in Westbourne Grove
Nestled innocuously, almost anonymously, in a small parade of shops and restaurants in Westbourne Park, you’d be forgiven for missing it. It’s pretty small - inside it only has 6 booths, so in busy periods they operate a booth share policy. Like Wagamama, but way cosier.
Walking in instantly brings a nostalgic diner atmosphere. It feels like a lilliputian small diner in Middle-of-Nowheresville, USA. They even have stick-on black and white lettering boards above the open kitchen. Score! And hip-lite fave PBR is on the menu (as “Blue Ribbon”). Oh wait, the waiter didn’t even know what we’re trying to order.
“Pee Bee Ahhhh?” he murmurs. Something tells us that hasn’t been in stock for a while.
Our Cheeseburger (with American) and Bacon Cheeseburger (with Monterey Jack) came out served open, and uncondimented with veggies on the side, which made the kitchen crime that had been committed all the more blatant.
We don’t think they should have sent a burger out in that sort of state, especially with no attempt to conceal the crime.
First rule of Cheeseburger Club is: you never grill processed cheese.
Second rule of Cheeseburger Club is: YOU NEVER GRILL PROCESSED CHEESE.
It fucking burns it - creating a tough plasticky crust that makes it really sticky and thoroughly unpleasant when it bonds itself to the roof of your mouth. Really not fun.
Saying that, the fairly chunky pre-salted patty was adequately cooked, with a cracking dark-pink medium centre, and the bun was a pretty neat, bouncy brioche. Once we’d added our desired veggies and sauces (the setback of every ‘open’ burger), the result was a relatively decent sandwich, and a good looking one too.
The Bacon Cheese definitely edged it here, with the bacon adding a salty depth to the seasoning that the cheeseburger lacked, and the jack having a better melty texture to it. Go with the jack here, you’ll thank us, seriously.
As for sides - the onion rings fared pretty well, they were chunky and the batter wasn’t greasy, although there was rather too much of it, resulting in a rather doughy middle. The chilli was a real disappointment though, being both bland, cold and having none of its alleged trademark spice. There’s more kick in a bowl of rice pudding. And there were loads of beans in it. Seriously, like way over the regular bean-to-meat ratio. Pretty uncool.
We don’t normally comment much about service unless it’s noticeably good or bad, but at Lucky 7 it’s very odd. We happened to be there at the same time as Nick from Hamburger Me and Jonathan Dale from off the telly so we all teamed up. On reflection, Nick’s order played up to L7’s strengths more than ours.
Anyway, there we were, on a weekday evening and the place isn’t busy. Not only do we appreciate what they’re trying to do, but were very susceptible to more booze. Unfortunately it felt like they couldn’t wait for us to get out of there, and the restaurant was half full the entire time. No upsells. We had to keep asking for fresh beers. Weird.
It was a satisfyingly standard burger. If you happen to be marooned in the deepest, darkest depths of West London then we can quietly recommend it.
- Simon & Rob.
[PREVIEW] MEATmarket / Covent Garden, London
MEATMarket, the latest offering from MEATrepeneurs Yianni and Scott, is a fast-food version of their one-stop-burger-shoppe model, hosting some old MEATfavourites as well as spanking new incarnations of classic American-style fast food.
If you’re at all interested in the movements of the Meat[_____] crew then you’ve probably already seen a few reports on this new site in Covent Garden that was previewing last weekend. So, to cut to the chase, here’s our take on it.
If you plonked Gott’s Roadside in a locale like DownUnder in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, we reckon this is what you’d get.
It’s the counterpoint to MEATliquor: the menu is optimised for speed and takeaway convenience. Yianni gave us a quick tour of the kitchen, explaining how it’s been organised so each dish has its own cooking station which will keep wait times to a minimum and make it a real option to the Covent Garden lunchtime crowd, as well as the post-theatre folks who don’t have anywhere to go.
The burgers are the quicker cooking dual patty versions with a few new additions. The Black Palace isn’t really a White Castle slider, more a version 2.0 of the Ibzo burger that was briefly available during the Meatwagon era eighteen months ago. How time flies.
The jalapeño poppers are a proper must-have, just like the deep fried pickles are at MEATliquor. Perfect heat.
The deep fried bacon covered Ripper Hot Dog was the surprise star of the evening.
The velocity of these guys is incredible. #MEATeasy only just closed down thirteen months ago and these guys don’t show any signs of slowing down.
Yianni is getting to indulge his love of Wendy’s and A&W with this one. We love it too. It’s a proper fast food joint with a shiny, new kitchen.
The strip lit market location makes it immediately different. And if we’re honest, underneath those lights, the burgers are more functional than aesthetically pleasing. Our suggestion? Wrap them up. Have some tongue-in-cheek fun with the packaging.
Jubilee Market is one of those especially grotty bits of Covent Garden. You’ll sit on a balcony above it, looking down upon a sea of tourist tat and Microsoft Word signage. It’s quite the juxtaposition and we can only hope tourists do stumble upstairs by accident.
It’s going to be another rip-roaring success, and it might just be the first step to making this corner of Covent Garden something to be proud of.
- Simon & Rob.
★[REVIEW] The Ari Gold & Jose Jose / Patty & Bun / Doodle Bar, Battersea, London
“The ever-improving standard of the brioche burger bun is a heartening thing, and this is one of the better examples”
It’s the era of the pop up, and burger pop ups in particular. Every week it seems we hear about another one. This is a great thing, but their limited life span means that pesky real life commitments can get in the way of checking them all out. But where possible, we will hit these places up with a vengeance. So to just South of the river, and the bowels of Doodle Bar, to see what the latest brainchild of Street Kitchen is all about.
Doodle Bar is a South London attempt at East London warehouse drinking - it has all the trademarks of warehouse chic (the wide open, semi-open space) with all the nuances of a fancy pants bar (pre-distressed furniture, brushed steel lighting, and actual toilets). It has a table tennis table. It even has a huge wall with blackboard paint you can draw on with chalk! A great spot to wireframe your next killer iOS app then.
All this seems to please the impeccably dressed clientele inside. But enough of the scene setting. From the menu, you know you are getting the ‘pride in our produce’ style of burger, with each ingredient ingredient described in painstaking detail. We went for the Ari Gold with bacon and the Jose Jose.
The service is slick as can be, everyone knowing their role, each section manned with military precision - They even have a dude with his own grill just for toasting buns. Ridiculous. But shit, they are efficient and we had our burgers in well under 10 minutes. This is a massive surprise compared to other, more shitshowy, burger popups.
Opening the branded container, the Ari Gold looked impressive; the shiny bun radiating a come-hither glisten. But, hold up, wait a second: the trepidation begins to mount as we see the translucent-yet-electric-pink onions poking out. Not letting first impression get the better of us, we chow down.
It’s pretty good. The ever-improving standard of the brioche burger bun is a heartening thing, and this is one of the better examples - bouncy and airy, yet solid, it’s a great host for the Gold’s contents. The patty was proper quality meat and was cooked impeccable accuracy across all four burgers we ordered. Impressive.
But, and here come the buts: the cheese was dying to play a more prominent role, but there just wasn’t enough of it. The slices we saw them putting on the patty being just too thin to distinguish themselves. The onions sadly justified the worry; they weren’t just vinegary, they were the physical embodiment of vinegar. Eye-scrunchingly tart when trying them on their own. They were joined by the signature barbecue mayo sauce (more mayo than barbecue) that was abundant. Both of these strong flavours, whilst kind of working with each other, floored the beef somewhat. The addition of the bacon didn’t add anything to the mix, but banging a standard rasher into a burger with such flavours, what do you expect? And forking out more cash for it, not worth it.
Although the ingredients listed in the Jose Jose promised a very contrasting experience, what we got offered no real discernible difference. All that we could figure had changed was that the rocket has been replaced by loose leaf lettuce and the barbecue mayo with a more traditional barbecue sauce which only flecked glimpses of the chorizo that the menu promised.
These are solid, saucy burgers, with great buns. They ain’t cheap, but ain’t a rip off. Worth a pop down for the next couple of Fridays.
- Rob.
[RECIPE] Bacon Pickle Animal Cheese Sauce
Last weekend, we defeated rain and spread happiness throughout Brick Lane with Hot Dog hero Big Apple Hot Dogs as part of his quasi-competitive food blogger meetup #BlogEATBlog.
We didn’t think it would be worthwhile doing anything too subtle or off-brand, so here’s our down and dirty entry. It’s a four element topping: cheese sauce with bacon, an In-n-Out style ‘Animal’ sauce, chopped pickle and bacon crumbs. Here’s the recipe for the cheese bit.
The end result looked like this on the day, so here’s the recipe so you too can make it at home. It goes great with nachos.
Ingredients
This makes about 1.5 litres. Which is way more than you probably want.
- Six tablespoons of flour
- At least a pint of full fat milk
- Frank’s Hot Sauce
- Chipotle Tabasco
- Kraft cheese
- About a dozen slices of American cheese
- A pack of streaky bacon (we like Oscar Mayer for this recipe)
- Two dill pickles
Method
Lob six tablespoons of flour and a cup of milk into a bowl and mix until smooth. Lumpy sauce is bogus.
Take your bacon, lay it on baking tray and bung that in a preheated oven at about 180-200 degrees. Lowish and slowish, since we’re after crispness here folks.
While the bacon is crisping, put the flour and milk mixture into a saucepan and bring it up to a gentle simmer. While it’s coming up to temperature, chop your Kraft block into nice manageable chunks.
When the flour and milk have combined into a nice runny sauce, drop the cheese in. It’s best to introduce it in batches. Remember, Kraft is not real cheese, so it will melt slowly. Don’t turn the heat up, keep it low and slow.
Once the Kraft has disintegrated, throw your American cheese slices in. They’ll melt much quicker and change the mixture colour in a most pleasing way.
Keep it hot and check for a nice gloopy consistency. It should look like this:
Now, grab your two best friends.
Generously apply Frank’s first. Mix well and check flavour. Frank’s adds salt, flavour and colour. So this is up to you.
Do exactly the same with your Tabasco.
Dice your pickles, then dice your bacon (which you should take out the oven about now).
Introduce half of your bacon into the cheese sauce.
Mix it all up and you’re done!
To make the dog, line the bun with animal sauce, insert your frank, dollop a healthy amount of cheese sauce on top and finish with the diced pickle and bacon.
[REVIEW / ON TOUR] Cheeez Please / Eddie Rocket’s / Galway, Ireland
“And it looked like a typical diner burger - apart from the tsunami of special sauce…”
Whenever I go to visit friends in Ireland, I always try to find a way to hit up Supermacs, the fast food burger chain of Ireland. It’s incredible - go into a big one, like Eyre Square in Galway, and you can get pizza and fried chicken too. It’s immense, and it’s an enjoyably messy scrum late on a Friday or Saturday night.
Their burgers are sauced to the max, and their chilli cheese fries are as filthy as they come. Take me here drunk and I’ll lob 20€ at food with reckless abandon. And as we all know, that’s about £50 at the moment.
However, on my last few visits, my compadres have insisted we go for a classier burger fare, and so Eddie Rocket’s it was. Now Eddie’s goes for a quasi 1950’s American diner vibe, think Ed’s Easy Diner and you’re on the right wavelength. Also, if you’ve seen last year’s excellent ‘The Guard’, then you’d recognise it. This one was plonked in a leisure park opposite a cinema, so maybe throw in a bit of out-of-town TGI Friday’s and a dash of Frankie & Bennie’s for good measure.
Buoyed by the presence of American cheese on the menu, I thought I’d hit up the embarrassingly-named Cheeez Please. The waitress promptly caused panic by looking all befuddled and saying: ‘You mean cheddar right? They’re the same thing’.
No, I didn’t mean cheddar. Hmmm.
Sitting up at the the counter, we were able to see the chef at work, pounding the meat onto the grill with a round patty smasher. Sadly, it stayed on the grill for way too long and the cheese was thrown on the patty literally seconds before it was put in the bun. Heartbreaking.
Seconds later it was in front of me. And it looked like a typical diner burger - apart from the tsunami of special sauce: a weird pale, nuclear yellow colour. Very off-putting. On first bite though, it wasn’t that bad. The patty was seasoned and had clung on to some juice, the sauce was mayo with a touch of mustardy-spice (only a tiny touch mind), and the veggies were plentiful and crisp.
The cheese had fought hard to melt, against the odds, but separated upon eating rather than stringily pulling away. But the bun. Oh, the bun. It was stale to the point of crunchy, and therefore repelled moisture. A real let down on an otherwise passable effort.
The hot wings that accompanied were solid, and the bacon cheese fries were covered in an awesome cinema-style nacho cheese, even if its main ingredient was clearly salt.
Nice try Eddie’s. But on my next trip though, the plan is most definitely Occupy Supermacs.
- Rob.
