Broiled Mini Tuna Burgers

Did you know the first burgers were made in Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut. Now, it's one of the mostly widely know and loved food all around. I've mentioned this before when I posted the 10 fun food facts for the month of April. Their burgers are flame broiled and served between two slices of toasted white bread with cheese, tomato and onion as a garnish. No ketchup allowed. It's frowned upon. I'm serious with that last sentence, which makes me want to visit the place even more.

What does that have to do with these burgers? Absolutely nothing. Thought I'd share that with you all. No...wait...I lied. Back up a bit. Ok, so I had made a mini loaf of pan de sal over the weekend. I didn't have enough room on the baking pan and thought it'd be cute to make a mini baby loaf. For those interested, I got my mini-loaf pans at Sur La Table. I bought 4 for $2 each. It's a 2"x4" size. They do look cute when the bread comes out of the oven. You just want to go "aww...".

I wanted to make crostinis with it, but I didn't really have an idea what to top it with. I got a craving for tuna, yet I didn't want it on my usual salad fix. I cut loaf into 1/8-inch slices and as I did, burgers came into mind. I had some grape tomatoes left in the fridge as well as a block of manchego cheese.

I decided to made a simple sweet and sour sauce for the "ketchup". Mixed up the tuna with an avocado instead of mayo and added some sweet relish, panko crumbs and some ground pepper.

You can make the regular sized version of these burgers. Just double up the ingredients and use regular sized bread. Adjust broiling time accordingly. These fit me just right. You can use them as starters, too.

Makes 7 mini burgers.



Broiled Mini Tuna Burgers

1 7oz can tuna in oil.
4 tsp sweet relish
1 small avocado
1 c panko crumbs
pepper
14 small slices of bread
grated cheese
4 grape tomatoes (sliced)
sweet and sour sauce


Preheat your broiler.

Make the sweet and sour sauce. This can be done ahead of time and will keep for a long time in the fridge.

Drail most but not all the oil from the tuna. Mix in the sweet relish, avocado and panko crumbs. Season it with some pepper.

Mold the tuna mixture in 7 small patties. Place on an ungreased baking sheet.

Toast the slices of bread either in the toaster oven or the conventional oven for 5 min.

Put into the broiler for roughly 10-15 min then flip and cook the other side for another 5-10 min. You want to see a good char crust on it. 2 min before removing sprinkle the cheese over the patties and let it melt into gooey goodness.


Putting it together:
Spread some of the sweet and sour sauce on both slices of bread. Top with the tuna patty and tomato slices.

Amish Friendship Bread

Again, a little reminder about the BSI challenge with this week's ingredient of choice Bell Pepper. You've got until Sunday night to enter. (here) Let's see those recipes. ;-)

----------------------------------



I remember Christo aka DoggyBloggy at ChezWhat? had made some a while back. I thought it was a neat. So when a couple of friends had offered to give me a starter of my own, I immediately said yes. For those who haven't heard of this, you can read the history of the here via wikipedia. It's really interesting. You basically receive a dated zip-lock bag full of liquid called "starter" from someone who has recently made it. Then for the next ten days, you have to mush and feed it. Mostly mush. It's a fermenting process for the yeast. Halfway through you feed it flour, sugar, milk and mush it some more. On the tenth day, you make bread as well as extra starter to keep for yourself and pass along with the instruction to three other people who you want to be friends with or keep it to yourself. Then again, that wouldn't be really friendly, now would it?

It's a fun concept. Kind of like "pay it forward". As tedious as the process sounds, it's definitely worth it. The taste of vanilla and cinnamon. The sweetness of it you can't resist. Yum, it's so good. I made a half loaf and 2 dozen mini muffins with the batch I had. I only baked it the other dayand the muffins are nearly gone.

If you don't know anyone with some starter, I found this really cool site that shows you how to make your own (here). But really, what fun would that be? It's best to get it from a friend or aquaintance. It's called "Friendship" bread for a reason. I had to do a little research as I can't really make this bread every week. Maybe once a month. I remember reading that this one person has had her starter for almost ten years and it's still going strong. I've also found out that you can also keep the starter in the freezer until you're ready to start again. It helps preserve it. So I've got myself a starter bag in the freezer. It'll take roughly 3 hours for it to defrost in room temp. Just make sure you take it out ten days prior to when you want to make the bread.



Amish Friendship Bread

These are instruction that come with your starter.

Do not use any type of metal bowls or spoons for mixing.
Do not refrigerate. If air gets in the bag, let it out. It is normal for the starter to raise, bubble and ferment.

Day 1 – Do nothing - this is the date that is on the bag – be sure the bag has been dated
Day 2 – Mush the bag
Day 3 – Mush the bag
Day 4 – Mush the bag
Day 5 – Mush the bag
Day 6 – Open the bag; add 1 cup each of flour, sugar & milk. Seal the bag. Mush the bag.
Day 7 – Mush the bag (let out excess air)
Day 8 – Mush the bag (let out excess air)
Day 9 – Mush the bag (let out excess air)
Day 10 – Mix and divide the starter as follows:

Pour the entire contents of the bag into a non-metal bowl. Add 1 1/2 c flour, 1 1/2 sugar and 1 1/2c milk. Mix well with wooden or plastic spoon. Measure out four 1 cup servings and pour each into a separate gallon zip-lock style bag. Date each bag. Keep one for yourself (if you want to do this again) and give the other three to friends along with the copy of this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 325F.

To the left over starter in the bowl add:
3 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 stick melted butter (not hot)
½ cup milk
1 c sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 large box or 2 small boxes of INSTANT vanilla pudding mix

Grease 2 loaf pans. In a small bow, mix 2 Tbsp sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Dust the bottom of the loaf pans with half of the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Pour batter into the pans and sprinkle the remaining brown sugar/cinnamon mixture.

Bake for 1 hour. Cool in pan until bread loosens… about 10 minutes. Turn out onto serving dish. Serve warm or cold.