Burgers, Dogs, & Pizza, Oh My!

Archive for the ‘Home Cooking’ Category

Today I used some of their fresh Italian sausages for a home-made pizza. I only picked up two, of the “hot” not “sweet” variety, and they run about four ounces apiece at about a buck twenty per.

I have this quirk which there is no rhyme nor reason for. When I’m making a sausage pizza, I don’t buy bulk sausage, but links, strip off the casings and use hand-pulled pieces for my topping.

You don’t have to pre-cook it, but you can if you like. It cooks just fine on top of the pie in the regular baking cycle.

So I made my dough, laid on the sauce, some finely diced garlic and sliced cheeses (provolone and mozz – slices melt nicer than shreds, in my opinion).

Then I symmetrically laid out bits of sausage, a sprinkle of Italian herbs, and my personal “go-to” topping, diced green olives with pimentos.

Using fresh dough, it bakes up nicely at 500 for 10-12 minutes.

Glorioso’s hot sausage is a bit hot, it turns out. Most of the time when I select that type of sausage, “hot” means lots of fennel and Italian herbs. But this wasn’t objectional at all, had great flavor, proper about of fat and great texture.

I only bought two as I said.  I should have bought a couple dozen.

Gloriosos Fresh Italian Sausage Review

Gloriosos Fresh Italian Sausage Review

Hot Dog-aghetti Recipe

Today’s recipe from the “New Hotdog Cookbook” (McFadden Publishing, 1968) (Recipe their property)  is “Hot Dog-aghetti!”

• 8 small onions – about 1 inch diameter
• 1 1/2 c water
• 1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
• 2 cups tomatoes
• 1 cup macaroni noodles
• 1 package garlic flavored salad dressing mix
• 1/2 cup sweet pickle relish
• 8 hot dogs cut in thirds

Cut onions in quarters, boil in  water. drain. reserve water. Place onion water in sauce pan with tomato sauce and tomatoes, bring to boil. Reduce heat, add pasta, simmer for 24 minutes. Add dressing mix, relish, onions and hot dog pieces, simmer for another ten minutes. Serves 6.
place onion water in sauce ba n with tamoto sauce and tomatoes. bring to bil, add spachetti.

Pic not representative of recipe

Hot Dog-aghetti Recipe

Hot Dog-aghetti Recipe

My favorite niece found this old cookbook, the “New Hotdog Cookbook,”  McFadden Press, 1968. Thought I’d put up some of their recipes, a lot of them are pretty funky!

Bread Soup with Hotdogs

Ingredients

• 6 C hot beef stock
• 6 slices enriched white bread, lightly toasted
• 6 eggs, poached until just firm
• 6 hot dogs, cut in 1/4″ slices

Place a slice of toast at the bottom of each soup bowl. Place a poached egg on top and distribute the hot dog slices around the toast.  Pour in 1 cup of the boiling hot stock over the toast, egg, and hot dogs. Serve at once.

Random internet pic of soup, not representative of recipe

(Recipe remains copyright of publisher)

Bread Soup with Hot Dogs Recipe

Bread Soup with Hot Dogs Recipe

I like to check in with the mainstream frozen pizza choices once a year or so.  See if they’ve improved, changed at all.

For the most part, I don’t care for any of them, with the exception of hyperlocal brands like Vito and Nicks in Chicago (absolute #1 favorite), and for the pies at Trader Joes that are made in Italy and France and actually taste like they came from a pizzeria.

Why can’t US manufacturers do that?

So I saw Red Baron Deep Dish Singles the other day at a dollar store.  For a dollar. Thought I’d give one a whirl. Red Baron is a brand of Minnesota’s Schwan Food Enterprises and was introduced in 1975. It’s made in a plant in Marshall, MN (pictured below).

I am dubious about almost any food that says it can be cooked in EITHER a microwave or conventional oven, and 99.9 % of the time I’d opt for the oven.  But since they market these as microwaveable, thoughtt I’d give that a shot.

Spoiler alert:  it was horrid. In appearance, taste, and texture.  I suppose they’re acceptable for kids for a quick after school snack (except for the nutritional value part), and especially for a buck.  But if I was looking for a quick snack for a buck at the dollar store, I’d rather have White Castle burgers, which actually DO microwave well and are done in one minute.

That’s all  I learned that Red Baron frozen pizzas are every bit as awful as the last 5-10x I tried them. I see no need to try again.  (Right now, I’m eating a Screamin’ Sicilian All Meat Pie, and they aren’t so bad).  One of a half dozen brands from Palermo, in Milwaukee.

Out of the box

Colonel Kurtz: “The horror, the horror.”

Marshall, MN Factory

Red Baron Deep Dish Singles Review

Red Baron Deep Dish Singles Review

“Great Value” is one of  the in-house brands for many WalMart products. They aren’t actually manufacturered by WalMart, of course, they are contracted out to be made to Bentonville’s specifications.

I take great pride in my own meatballs, it’s a recipe that I have screwed around with for decades. When I make them, I do throw them in sauce to cook from a raw state, but I rarely, ok, never serve them with pasta. A waste of bodily capacity, if you ask me, sticking noodles in where more meat could go. But that’s just me. OK, and anybody I serve meatballs too.

But I keep looking for store bought ones to fill the gap, cause my homemade effort is a lot of work and doesn’t get done that often. I’ve found some great ones at Italian delis, but unfortunately, the two I have been to are easily an hour drive – in good traffic.

So I spotted these at WalMart, all beef, breadcrumbs, eggs, cheese, milk, spices. Relatively “pure” ingredients. They come frozen, but pre-cooked, so they are just a heat and eat product. If you had made a marinara, red gravy, spaghetti sauce, you could just toss them in the pot til they were heated through.

Verdict?  They’re ok.  Not as good as mine or the deli’s, but certainly less expensive. Handy for a harried household at least.  The flavor is fine, could be a little stronger, I  think, fennel and garlic if I was in charge, and I’d make the texture a little firmer, a little less on the bread crumb and milk mixture.

The balls are made for WalMart in Tracy, CA at American Custom Meats, a processor of meat products for retail and food service. It’s a sparkling new plant (pictured below).

Hean and eat

Dissected view

Tracy California Meatball Plant

Pork “tenderloins” are an Iowa thing.  And Indiana thing.  We’ll leave it at that.  It’s a boneless pork chop, hammered with a mallet to make it larger and thinner, dipped in batter and deep-fried, served on a hamburger bun about 1/10th the size of the ‘loin. You might also call it wienerschnitzel, of a sort. Or how about “chicken fried pork?”

So I had been out driving around Iowa and Indiana in search of great tenderloin, and it’s so important to the state, that the Iowa Pork Council has come up with the “Tenderloin Trail” so you can hit a dozen of the best the state has to offer.

I have written up the Iowa one as of yet, they were all pretty good. Soon.  In Indiana, I stopped at (and have reviewed) the Oasis Diner, and Ray’s Drive In.  They were both superb.

What sets one ‘loin apart from another is getting it thin enough, but still retaining the juiciness of the pork.  The batter. The seasoning. Length of time in the hot oil bath. These are all important.

When I set out to try it at home, I had some cheats, some shortcuts.  First off, I didn’t purchase pork chops, I bought pork “cube steaks” which were half the price of chops this week and would work just as well.

I purchased two different dry fry mixes, both Louisiana products,  Zatarain’s Seasoned Fish Fry (which I use a lot) and Louisiana Fish Fry Products Chicken Fry.

The latter suggests you mix a bit of it with 1/2 cup of water, dip your meat, and then completely cover it with more mix before frying.  I also improvised a bit with the Zat’s, in that I dunked, then dipped in egg wash, and dunked again. This would give the breading a little more depth, thickness.

Then into oil.  How long? Til they’re done!  LOL  (Not long).

On the surface, they appeared about the same when done. I plated them with some sausage gravy and a piece of Texas toast.

I liked the Zatarain’s better, simply because I’m a long time consumer and I like the pre-seasoning in it. Not a fair comparison, but it also had a bulkier breading because of the egg dip.

But I’d buy both again. There must be dozens of these kind of mixes in the grocery. You can also order both brands (and others) online from Cajun Grocer, a Louisiana company I have purchased seafood and other goodies many times.

Zatarain’s was a family owned business for decades, now it’s owned by seasoning giant McCormick and Schmidt (New Orleans area plant (pictured below) . Louisiana Fish Fry is still family owned, based in Baton Rouge. (pictured below)

Zatarain’s

Louisiana Fish Fry

Louisiana Fish Fry Baton Rouge

New Orleans area Zatarains plant

Pork Tenderloin Recipe

Pork Tenderloin Recipe

When I made my initial foray to America’s foodie wonderland, Jungle Jims in Cincinnati last week, one item I picked up was a local product, Queen City Smoke Sausage.

(The official sausage of the Reds, apparently). Sausage is a big deal in Cincinnati, as is German food in general.  So popular, the city celebrates its sausage heritage with a weekend fest in July, with two to three dozen purveyors offering their sausage and related wares.

A skinless, smoked sausage of pork and beef, mildly seasoned, is called a “Mettwurst” or simply a “Mett” in this part of the country.

A traditional Mett in Germany is usually pork only, cured and smoked, and strongly seasoned with spices and garlic.  Although even in Germany, you’ll find different versions of the “Mett.”

Two states away, in Wisconsin or Illinois, this exact flavor and texture of skinless sausage would be called a Polish, or kielbasa.  Queen City brand is one of the more popular local processors, around since 1965, and in addition to smoked sausage, they offer a Mett in a natural casing, fresh Chorizo and fresh Italian, bratwurst,  cooked bockwurst, bierwurst and smoked andouille. Different sizes of wieners and dinner franks, sliced deli meats, ham, roast beef, and a few other items.

I did mine in a cast iron skillet and put a little char on them.  I do that to emulate a natural casing, as I prefer casings to skinless.  That’s just me. They go on a plain bun with yellow mustard and/or kraut.  Ingredients are beef and pork and seasonings (first one listed is mustard), but also corn syrup solids, and that’s not a personal preference of mine at all. Sweet and savory clash, in my mind. Overall, I liked it, and I’d buy it again and like to try some of their other products.

If you can’t find Queen City’s products at a store near you,  they are also available online. I purchased the 14 oz package which contains six sausages. Larger sizes are available.

The bottom picture below is Queen City’s factory, located in the part of the city that used to be known as “Porkopolis,” due to the large number of slaughter and packing houses in the ‘hood.

Packaged

In the skillet

Queen City Factory

When you request bacon in the US, you know what you are going to get. Smoked/cured thin slices of pork belly, with streaks of fat parallel to streaks of delicious meat.

Unless you request “Canadian Bacon” which is neither Canadian nor bacon, but very lean sliced pork loin,  cured and smoked. Outside of the US, “American style” bacon is often referred to as “streaky bacon.”

Not so in other parts of the world, where you can be faced with a number of choices.  In the UK and other remnants of the Empire, where you will most often be served what is referred to in the US and Canada as “back bacon,” thin slices of smoked (or not) pork cut from both the loin and a small bit from the belly.  It is cut from the same part of the hog as pork chops.

Order a “full breakfast” in England, and it will come with a couple slices of back bacon, sausage, eggs, baked beans, mushrooms, and toast. Maybe a grilled tomato. Depends on what part of the country you are in.

All this to say, in my recent visit to the mecca of foodie groceries, Jungle Jims, there are many choices of bacon to put in your cart, including a number of selections not made from pork. (My father was a habitual beef bacon consumer. It’s very lean, pretty chewy, but very tasty).

I picked up a pack of “Winston’s Irish Bacon,” which, to my surprise, is made here in Chicago. I’ve never seen it before, but apparently, Winston’s is a fairly old company specializing in Irish foods, they are wholesale processors, but also have a couple of markets and a restaurant.

Anyhow, Winstons bacon is delish.  I’m eager to track down some of their sausages and whatever else they got. Their factory/store is on the far south side of Chicago, but probably worth a drive. I’m a sucker for new sausage suppliers!

In the end, quality bacon at my house nearly always leads to a gooey fried egg sammich. Today was no exception!

In the pan, fried for 2 minutes a side

My fried egg sammich

Chicago factory and retail outlet

Winstons Irish Bacon Review

Winstons Irish Bacon Review

While there are a multitude of styles of “BBQ” in the US, it’s generally thought that the top three are Texas, Memphis, and Carolina.

As a result, many BBQ restaurant chains have been spawned in those areas, including the mini-chain of Corky’s, born in Memphis, five minutes from Elvis’s house.

Corky’s opened the doors in the 1980s, and has spread throughout the metropolitan area and a few neighboring states.

Fairly standard fare on the menu, brisket, pork, ribs, chicken, and a few local preferences, catfish, spaghetti and more.

You can buy Corky’s grub online by the pound, and have it shipped to you, or bump into it, like I did, at WalMart. So add Corky’s to the list of restaurant branded foods that will eventually occupy every grocery shelf and freezer. That’s what the experts predict, anyway.

The 12 ounce sliced pork dinner comes with beans and applesauce. Prep is a couple minutes in the microwave or 30 minutes in the oven. I chose the latter. Given the choice, I always choose the latter. (I have this quirk, with no scientific evidence, I think microwaves tend to break down the muscle in meat, and I don’t like the resulting texture).

So thirty minutes later, out of the oven, and I tackled the beans first. They’re good. I was expecting more brown sugar taste, it wasn’t there, and for me, that’s a good thing. The have a slightly smokey flavor with is an added ingredient, not part of the process. There’s no obvious evidence of the other ingredients, meaning, you don’t see chunks of bacon and such.

On to the meat. I like pulled pork, I make it myself at home, so easy in the crockpot, throw it in before leaving for the plant, ready when I get home. This is shoulder meat, which is the right choice for pulled pork, at least most ‘experts’ say so. There’s a modest amount of sauce in the meat tray.

And the meat is restaurant perfect. Irregularly sized bits of pork, nice smoke, great texture, (which I don’t think I would have got in the microwave), mild sauce. More than an adequate amount to satisfy more appetites. I wish they sold it on its own in the grocery, by the tub, I’d be a customer. Well, maybe they do, and I’m just not aware. (You can buy it all by its lonesome online, in 3 or 6-pound tubs). It’s a little too spendy for me but at least shipping is included.

I even like the applesauce, which isn’t really a sauce, but chunks of apple “sauced.” Does include high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient in that, not sure that’s necessary.

Dinner clocked out at four bucks. Worth it, I think. I’d do it again. I will do it again.

Other varieties are available as well.

The company is obviously serious about cracking the grocery segment, as they didn’t sub the product out to some other manufacturer, but have their own USDA inspected plant in Memphis. (pictured below).

Ingredients: Bar-B-Q Pork Shoulder, Apple Filling (Prepared With Sodium Sulfite And Calcium Chloride), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Sugar, Modified Corn Starch, Contains 2% Or Less of The Following: Lemon Juice, Apple Juice Concentrate, Potassium Sorbate (As A Preservative), Cinnamon, Salt, Citric Acid, Nutmeg. Baked Beans (Prepared Navy Beans, Water, Sugar, Brown Sugar, Corn Syrup, Salt, Food Starch-Modified, Bacon, Dextrose, Spice, Caramel Coloring, Onion Powder, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Natural Smoke Flavor, Garlic Powder, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Flavorings, Seasoning (Brown Sugar, Mustard, Dehydrated Onion, Green Bell Pepper, Spice)) Bar-B-Q Sauce (Water, Tomato Paste, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Molasses, Distilled Vinegar, Brown Sugar, Salt, Worcestershire Sauce (Distilled Vinegar, Molasses, Corn Syrup, Water, Salt, Caramel Color, Garlic Powder, Sugar, Spices, Tamarind, Natural Flavors), Cayenne Peppers, Natural Smoke Flavor, Dehydrated Onions, Soybean Oil, Dextrose, Dehydrated Garlic, Spice And Spice Extractives, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Benzoate, (Preservatives), Guar Gum, Ascorbic Acid.

Out of the box

After heating

Factory in Memphis

Corky’s BBQ Frozen Pork Meal Review

Corky’s BBQ Frozen Pork Meal Review

The restaurant part of the legend of the Billy Goat Tavern began on Chicago’s South Side in 1934. Greek immigrant William Sianas paid $205 for the Lincoln Tavern.

In 1964, Sianas moved the bar to its current subterranean location, and it’s here, underneath Chicago’s Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue, that the modern part of the legend originated.

The bar was located midway between the Chicago Tribune Tower and the rival Chicago Sun Times building; it became a popular hangout of reporters trying to steal each others scoops (or brag about their own).

1978,the 3rd season of Saturday Night Live, and cast members John Belushi, Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray did a sketch about the fictional “Olympia Cafe” which paid homage to the proprietor and staff of the Billy Goat. At the Olympia there was no food choice other than cheeseburgers and chips, no drinks but Pepsi, and the refrains uttered comedically by Belushi (with a “Greek accent”) were actually heard frequently at the Billy Goat.

Fast forward today the Billy Goat has multiple locations, but the ambiance of the original remains intact. As you walk down the stairs from Michigan Avenue, you might think you’re walking into the river or some dark hell, but at the bottom the welcome neon of the Billy Goat beckons you in.

They have apparently made a licensing deal with Devanco, a Chicago foods company that started in 1993 and was purchased and amped up in 2004. Previously, they sold mostly supplies to Greek restaurants, like gyro meat, pitas, and sauces.

They’ve expanded to the retail arena, and in addition to  Greek offerings like a home Gyro Kit, they manufacture and distribute foods for Mike Ditka’s brand. Their (his) version of Italian beef is superb.

This week (4/24/17) Devanco started selling 2 pound boxes of 100% ground beef patties with Billy Goat’s name on them; there are two versions, 5 patties to a pound, or 3 patties to a pound. The two pound boxes check out at over $12, and that’s a lot.

The patties are made in Devanco’s suburban Chicago plant (pictured below).

I’ve tried quite a few ‘heat and eat’ burgers, and not really been happy with them, and especially those that are restaurant branded like Trader Joe’s, Pasture Perfect Kobe, Fatburger or Steak N Shake.There are both raw products (like Billy Goat’s) and there are some fully cooked patties available as well, like Ball Park brand‘s version. I’ve also tried maybe dozens of microwave, c-store, vending machine burgers, you can find those on the site by searching for “gas station food” or “heat and eat.”

The cooking instructions for the Billy Goat are no different than most frozen patties, skillet, medium heat, 3-4 minutes one side (until the juices start to ooze through), flip, couple more minutes.

I was eager to taste these since they have zero additives.  As in NONE. Some brands of  frozen patties include beef broth, cow heart(!!) and liquid smoke. Here I’m getting cow only.  So what’s the verdict?

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. I am not going to, under any circumstances I can think of, pay  $12 for frozen burger patties. No matter if they were the best burger you ever had, that’s a good 30-40% above their largest competitors.

Second bit of ‘bad news.’ The patties are packaged in 5 packs inside the box. Which means I have to separate, put in a different bag or container and refreeze any that I don’t use at the time. Luckily, the patties are separated by what the industry calls “patty paper,” which makes them easy to separate.

So I removed one and semi-followed the instructions. With a frozen patty at medium heat, I flipped after 3 minutes and went 2 more. I tasted the plain patty first before dressing it and putting it on a Martin’s Potato Roll (not what the Billy Goat uses, tho). Dressed with a half sour dill, raw onion and yellow mustard.

Flavor was very beefy, which is good, seems most frozen patties have some sort of strange “undercurrent” of taste, at least to me, and this one doesn’t. I’m also happy with the texture, which closely resembles the grind you’d find in grocery ground beef.  Some competitors reduce their “beef” and other ingredients to a slurry before sending them to the patty forming machine.

In other words, I’m happy with the product, and it does justice to the burger served in the restaurant. I think they’d be great on a charcoal grill.

I’ll be interested to see how this product does.  You have to be a certain age to get the whole SNL connection, and outside of Chicago, it’s not that the Billy Goat is a global iconic brand name.

I said this post was about one part of the Billy Goat legend. There’s a whole other story there. Think Chicago Cubs.  Here’s the dope if you’re interested.

Frozen Patties

3 minutes at medium, flipped

All dressed up, ready to go!

Box instructions on constructing your burger

Devanco’s suburban Chicago plant

Billy Goat Frozen Burger Review