The Burger

Gotta love the burger. I have developed a decent consistency in my burgers, with a little variation of the available ingredients.

Ground hamburger (about 0.5 - 0.75 lb per person)
Garlic, chopped
Salt and Pepper, or better yet, Montreal Steak Seasoning
1 egg per every 2-3 burgers

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, and mix until blended with a spoon or your hands. Don't press the meat too much - the idea is to keep everything fluffy. Add whatever additional ingredients you want to flavor the burger with. Some of the things I toss in include chorizo or andouille sausage, good mushrooms (shitake, porchini, or morel), roasted garlic, or in this case, lots of chunked feta.

Form the burgers into nice big patties, and again don't squeeze the meat too much, just enough to hold everything together. Push the center of the buger in with your finger, this will keep the meat from ballooning when cooking. Toss on a hot grill, and (and this is the secret ingredient) douse liberally with Worcestershire sauce. Cook until nicely crisp on one side, then flip, add more Worcestershire sauce, and cook until done. Add some sliced blue cheese towards the end if you like, but with the feta-burger it's not necessary. Top with carmelized onions or sauteed spinach or watercress, and all the other toppings.

Pork Chops with Tomatillo Sauce

Pork chops
Nice thick pork chops
2 T gound coriander
2 T ground cumin
2 T kosher salt
2 T black pepper
2 T olive oil

Mix together dry ingredients. Add olive oil to dry ingredients and mix well. Rub mixture over pork chops, and let sit at room temperature while making sauce.

Tomatillo and Apple Sauce
Basically you combine the most sour-green fruits, and try and balance it out with spice and sweetness.

4-5 fresh tomatillos, husks removed, cleaned, and chopped
2-3 green apples, depending on size, diced
1 garlic clove
1 t ground cumin
1 T lime juice
2 T honey
1 jalapeno

In a saucepan, add enough water to tomatillos to cover completely, and simmer for 10 minutes or until soft. Cool, and in blender purée tomatillos with garlic, cumin, lime juice, honey, and jalapeno. You may want to add half the jalapeno and taste before adding the rest. Taste sauce and balance sour, spicy-hot, and sweet flavors.

Transfer the sauce and stir in the diced apples.

Meanwhile prepare grill and when hot, turn heat down substantialy and cook pork chops on coolest part of grill until done. The Man used to say to cook your pork until 160° but now says 144° will kill trichinosis. The change in recommendation is similar to how engineers use to over-build buildings (more material than necessary, thicker walls, etc.) but now they have a theoretically better idea of material strenght. I usually take pork chops (boneless) off the grill at around 130°, which is fine for everyone except those with comprimised immune systems. Also, the pork chops were frozen at one point, which is just as effective for all but the thicker pork cuts.

Serve with sauce, and veggies. I rubbed some fresh zucchini with olive oil, salt and pepper, and sun-dried tomato flakes.