Boerie burgers: when sausage just ain't right

Hands down, if I have the choice for sausage, it’ll always be South African boerwors. Problem is that it’s often hard to find – although if you’re in the Toronto area, Oakville-based Florence Meats does the best one around, no question – and sausages are not the easiest to make, so we don’t eat it all that often.

On a recent trip to South Africa, I tried to eat boerwors at every opportunity but I’m not gonna lie, I was often let down. But . . . then there was McDonald’s. Laugh all you want but each country always has some local speciality and it just so happened that when we were there it was boerie burgers. So of course we had to have them and they turned out to surprisingly be the best boerwors of that particular trip.

As it’s now summer in the northern hemisphere, grilling on the bbq is where it’s at, and regular old hamburgers can sometimes get a bit boring. So I thought why not give it a try with the boerie burger. The thing is that the spice mixture is what it’s all about so if you don’t get it right, they aren’t going to be good. Here’s my first kick at the can. It's pretty good but can always stand a bit of refining.

Yield; 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef
1/4 cup of breadcrumbs
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp water
¾ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 ground cloves
1/2 tsp sugar
pinch of ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon black pepper

I start off mostly with whole spices and just put them all in a mortar and pestle and grind them so the flavours are the freshest. A coffee grinder also works well and gets the grind very fine.

Mix the breadcrumbs, water, and vinegar together in a bowl. Add the spices and meat and gently combine. Form into patties (whatever size makes you happy. I prefer to have slightly larger, flatter patties because they often shrink on the grill).

Heat your grill to sizzling, then turn down to medium and grill for 4 minutes or so a side for med-large patties. Serve as you would any burger (sauteed onion are grand with it - but no cheese please). However, if you really want to get that South African feeling, whip up some monkey gland sauce (no monkey involved) to top them off.

© Gail J. Cohen 2016

Potato salad with creamy roasted poblano dressing

Harvest time is prime time. Even from my small urban garden, the ripening of the vines of tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables and herbs is cause for much annual excitement and creativity.

Every year, I plant a selection of heirloom tomatoes – thanks to the seeding efforts of others much more skilled at this than I – as well as a few other things I want to try out. Space and direct sun are pretty scarce around my house so the vegetable garden is set right up on the sidewalk, where, I’m happy to report, neighbours and others are kind enough not to pilfer my produce!

The last few years, my little plot has included poblano peppers, those shiny, dark green Mexican pods that deliver what I consider one of the greatest flavours on earth: slightly smoky, fresh, a bit of heat, and a great colour!

In this recipe, all the herbs, poblanos, and the knob onion come from right outside my front door. That’s 100-foot eating if you’re counting! The salad is also best with some of the unique potatoes you can get from your local farmers’ market or that you may grow in your own garden (maybe I’ll do that next year).

The dressing is creamy but light and fresh; not cloying like many the many mayonnaise-based potato salads I am not a fan of.

And, of course, summer is the time for eating outside and grilling things on the bbq. This salad goes great with carne asada, grilled steak tacos, or pretty much anything else cooked over a flame!

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 large poblano pepper
2 pounds potatoes
1 knob onion or a couple of green onions

Dressing:
1/4 cup plain, low-fat greek yogurt
1/2 roasted poblano pepper (you only need 1 pepper in total for the salad and dressing)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove roasted
2 tbsp chopped chives
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
2 tbsp chopped parsley
juice of half a lime
salt and pepper

Roast the poblanos. If you have a bbq or gas stove, char the skin over the flame. If you have an electric stove, put it under the broiler for 10-15 minutes turning it so all sides get charred. (Get your little garlic clove into this action as well to roast and sweeten it up).

Put the hot peppers in a bowl, cover them with a tea towel, and let them sit/steam for 10 minutes or more. The skin should now come off easily when you rub it. Remove as much of the skin as you can then cut out the stem and seed. Rinse it to get all the black stuff off and remove the final few stubborn seeds.

Then roughly slice or chop half of the poblano to use for the dressing and more finely chop the other half to use directly in the salad.

To make the dressing, put the roughly chopped poblano half as well as all the other ingredients into a blender or food processor and waz it up. Check for salt. It should be a pleasingly light green, fresh, smooth dressing. Personally, I could just eat this dressing straight up, it’s so amazing.

Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into one-inch cubes and boil until fork tender in salted water. Drain.

Place the hot potatoes in a bowl with the finely chopped poblano and green onion. Dress the potatoes while they’re still hot as it really helps them absorb all the gorgeous flavour. You can eat it warm or refrigerate for a couple of hours if you prefer it cold.

Marinated flank steak quickly seared on the bbq with the creamy poblano potato salad and "solar flare" heirloom tomatoes: summer eating at its best.

6 Weight Watcher smart points per serving (using less olive oil will bring your points down a bit)

© Gail J. Cohen 2016