Lamb Sliders with Date Sauce

Hey there.  Been a while!

The weeks leading up to the unofficial start of summer were hot 'round these parts.  I couldn't shake a desire for salad almost every day, meaning you folks didn't get as many posts.  Sorry 'bout that.

This one, though.  This one was worth the wait.  I'm very excited to share it with you.

Doc loves lamb.  Me, I could take it but I prefer to leave it.  Something about lamb is too greasy and strong for my tastes.  Burgers in general aren't my favorite, so when I made a second batch a few days later I made mine with falafel while using up the remaining lamb mix on his.  Either way, the sweet, barbecue-esque date sauce is the clincher, especially when paired with a few shakes of feta and some crisp, cool cucumber slices.  Alongside a glass of mint tea it was perfection.

What is it about tiny food, anyway?  Bite-sized is always better.

Lamb Sliders 

with Date Sauce

Total Time:  45-60 minutes to make the sauce (including cooling time), 20 to make the sliders, 5 to assemble.  Figure on 1.5 hours.

Weirdest Spice:  baharat.  Yes, it's substitutable.

Credit:  Spotted this one in Bon Appetit's May 2014 issue on page 20, in the RSVP section (where readers write in to ask for copycat recipes).  The original is found at Abigail Street in Cincinnati.  I've never been, but judging by their middle eastern menu and fabulous drinks list, I'm thinking there's no way I'll miss out on trying the Real Deal in person if the chance ever arises.

The Date Sauce
NOTE:  The recipe for this sauce as-is makes 3 times more than you're going to need for the sliders themselves.  So the first time you make this, please consider cutting the recipe in half or a third unless you think you're going to have a use for three cups of date sauce.  We've been using it on sandwiches at lunch time, but even so I'm going to end up freezing at least 2 cups' worth.  Just a word of warning for you.

Sauce Ingredients (full recipe makes apx. 3 cups of sauce):

• small splash olive oil
• 1/2 minced red onion 
• Tip:  mince the whole onion to save time, the other half will be used in the burger
• 1 cup tomato ketchup
• 1 cup pitted and chopped medjool dates
• Note:  this is equivalent to approximately 15-18 whole dates
• 1/2 cup pale lager, plus more for thinning the sauce (max one 12 oz. bottle)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste

Sauce Directions:

1. Heat a saucepan on medium heat.  When pan is hot, add a splash of olive oil.  When oil is shimmering, add the onions and a dash of salt.  Saute 5-8 minutes, until beginning to brown.
2. Add ketchup, chopped dates, and 1/2 cup of beer.  Mix.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, 20-25 minutes.  As needed, add small splashes of beer to prevent the sauce from thickening too much.  Aim to maintain a consistency like ketchup or just slightly thicker.
3. Remove from heat.
4. Add vinegar, stir, and set aside 10 minutes to cool.  
5. Place the sauce in a blender and puree until smooth.
6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
7. Allow to cool in the fridge while assembling and cooking sliders.

The Sliders

Slider Ingredients (makes apx. 12 miniature burgers / serves 3-4 adults)

• 1/2 minced red onion
• 2 minced garlic cloves or 1.5 tsp garlic paste
• 1 lb. ground lamb
• 1/2 lb. ground beef
• Note:  try 2 cups of prepared, unseasoned/uncooked falafel mix in place of the meats for a vegetarian version
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon baharat or other spice blend of your choice
• Note: see detailed instructions, below, for discussion and a how-to for making your own baharat
• salt and pepper to taste
• 12 slider buns or 6 pita bread rounds
• fresh spinach, feta cheese, thin cucumber slices, and other toppings of your choice for burger assembly
• other suggestions include asiago cheese, caramelized onions, and tomatoes

Slider Directions:

1. Mix the onion, meats, garlic, parsley, and spices together in a bowl until a cohesive ball is formed.
2. While a skillet is heating on medium-high, scoop out scant 1/4 cup portions of the lamb mixture to form small patties.  
3. Place patties on the hot skillet and turn the heat down to medium.
4. Cook 3-5 minutes per side, or until desired doneness / temperature is achieved
5. Can be served on toasted slider buns or warmed pita with a generous dollop of date sauce and your preferred toppings. 

I apologise for the weird, color saturated, poorly-lit picture above.  Would you believe I only got one photo of these when I did the first batch?  We had them on proper slider buns (hard to find, I spotted them by chance at Wegman's), but Doc just about stared a hole in them while I was setting up the shot so needless to say they didn't sit for long.  That was the Friday before Memorial Day.  The next morning we left early to go spend the weekend with my in-laws, who were regaled with stories of the sliders.  It wasn't until I made a second batch this week that I got some solid pictures, but by then we were out of slider buns and ended up using pita.  Which turned out even better, in my opinion.

Anyway, while these can seem time-consuming, the only part that's out of the ordinary is making your own date ketchup.  It's not hard, just takes a while for it to cook down.  You can do it ahead, the recipe says, by as much as 5 days.  So if you're whipping these up for a party or what have you, that'd probably be the way to go.

Let's get started!

The first step is to make the date sauce.  As I mention above, the recipe as-is makes more than 3 cups of sauce.  For 4 people's worth of sliders.  Either the cooks at Bon Appetit drown their burgers, or they just figured we'd all love the sauce so much that we'd want to use it on everything.  If you're not convinced you want to go that route, please do consider cutting the sauce recipe in half or in thirds.

You're going to need a 12 oz. bottle of plain light lager (any will do, though I'd avoid anything fruity).  I used Blue Moon's summer ale and found it perfect, as would be pretty much any other summer ale or pale ale.  Ketchup, pitted & chopped dates, minced red onion, and cider vinegar also make an appearance.

Be sure to clear out any pits completely or you're gonna be sad later when you flip the blender on.

First is to heat up a saucepan on medium heat.  When it's hot, add a splash of olive oil, followed by the minced onion.

Add a dash of salt (helps it cook faster) and stir it occasionally for 5-8 minutes, until it starts to brown up.

To that add your ketchup, 1/2 cup of the beer, and the dates.

Stir it all together and turn the heat down to low.

Let it simmer for about 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally.  You may also find that you want to add an additional splash of beer now and then to keep the consistency close-ish to that of ketchup.  In the end I didn't use the whole bottle, but it was definitely closer to empty than not.  Also, be sure not to answer the door at this point: if visitors see you with onion tears and an open bottle of beer in the middle of day they're bound to have questions.

(While the sauce cooked I took the meats out of the fridge to let them come up to room temp.  It's a little trick to help them cook more evenly.)

When the sauce is cooked and the dates are softened, add the cider vinegar and stir it in.

Take the pan off the heat and let it cool for about 10 minutes or so.  Then put it in the blender and puree until smooth.

When that's done, cover the sauce put it in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

To make the sliders (and really, there's no reason you can't do full-sized burgers if that's more your style, just FYI, though you'll have to adjust the cooking time), first assemble your ingredients:

Two things of note here.  As I mentioned in the quickie directions above, I think falafel mix is every bit as good as the meat (if not better because healthier).

The other thing is the spice.  The recipe calls for one tablespoon of baharat, which is a middle eastern all-purpose spice blend that differs from house to house.  If you don't have any on hand, you can either:
(1)   make a cup of it and store what you don't use for this recipe in an airtight container*;
(2)  eyeball it by using a generous pinch (1/16th of a teaspoon) each of ground coriander, cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom, plus a generous dash (1/8th teaspoon) each of ground black pepper, cumin, nutmeg, and paprika; or,
(3)  use a similar spice mix of your choice, such as ras el hanout, tikka masala, tandoori masala, harissa blend, berber spice, cajun spice, or whatever spice blend you prefer with lamb.  Just watch out for added salt.

* I went with the first option, but I doubt too many folks have a spice grinder or the patience.  Go with what works best for you.  As I always say, we don't judge here.  The point of cooking isn't to show off how hard you work, it's to enjoy something you've created.

Okay, so get your meats, garlic, chopped parsley, onion, and spice together in a bowl:

Mix thoroughly until everything is incorporated.  I find using my hands works best.

Measure out 1/4 cup of the lamb mixture and form it into a patty.  I myself only measure the first one and then eyeball the rest, but it's up to you.  The original recipe claims you'll end up with 12 patties in the end.  I had 16, so clearly eyeballing wasn't completely accurate.

Heat up your skillet to medium-high.

When the skillet's hot, put the burgers on (don't crowd 'em) and cook for 3-5 minutes per side or until done to your preference.  Don't forget about safe food temps, please.

You can toast or warm your buns/pita if you'd like.  That's your call.  I toasted the buns quickly on a separate skillet, about 30 seconds per side.  The pita I placed in a 200(F) degree oven for about 10 minutes while the burgers cooked.

To assemble the burgers, place a generous dollop of the date sauce on each bun, along with the patty and any toppings you've selected.

I liked mine with spinach, feta, cucumber slices, and tomato.  The recipe in Bon Appetit recommends caramelized onions (which I skipped since both the sauce and the lamb mix contain onion).  The online menu from Abigail Street says they use goat cheese and mint pesto.  Doc preferred asiago cheese to feta.  Whatev, it's all pretty grand.

Bawstin Baked Beans

I don't think it would be a stretch to say that every person out there holds the belief that their own corner of the world is in some way unique.  I even talked a little on the post about Morioka jajamen about how each town in Japan has something it considers itself famous for.

New England is unique, I think, in that it's an entire region that bands around a single city.  It's not to say that there aren't other cities in that corner of the States.  It's just that we all think of Boston as The City.  Our City.  Even if you're closer to some other metro area, or if you differ politically or culturally from its harsh, young, aloof, diverse, gruff, open-hearted way of life, Boston's the rally point.  Boston sports are New England sports.  Boston tragedies are New England tragedies.  So whether or not we personally knew anyone running in or helping at the marathon, we all felt that Our City had been hurt when the bombings happened.  And why, a year later, so many of my New Englander friends each took a moment to reflect in our own way.

Me, I laced up and went for a run in the morning, then came home and fired up the stove.

It may not surprise you that I have a strong connection with food.  It's my main conduit for both self-comfort and celebration -- whether I'm exuberant or grieving, food is how I express and share my feelings.  Like any number of other fat chicks out there, I eat my emotions.

So it's probably not a shock that on a sad day, the first anniversary of the Boston marathon bombings, I was feeling a little homestate pride (for our resilience) but also a great deal of grief (specifically for the victims and more broadly that there are people in the world who feel that violence is a potential avenue of expression for their anger or their beliefs).

At any rate, Boston + comfort food means one of three things:  chowdah, beans, or donuts.  Doc wasn't in a seafood mood and donuts are not very nutritious, so I put my energies into making baked beans.

The nice thing about baked beans is that they're actually super easy to make.  These work 100% as well in a slow-cooker, too, so that's an option for sure.

A more detailed description follows the recipe below.  Enjoy!

Bawstin Baked Beans

Total time:  Overnight soaking for the beans, 10-15 minutes to assemble, 4-6 hours of cooking.
Credits:  The bulk of the credit goes to A Family Feast, whose recipe for the sauce is spectacular.  Other recipes that contributed ideas are The Pioneer Woman (if it goes in cast iron, I look her up first as a rule), and of course the Boston Globe.
Note:  This recipe as-is makes a monstrous batch, enough to fill my 5-quart dutch oven.   Happily, it can very, very easily be halved or even quartered.  What I'd recommend in that case is keeping the sauce proportions the same while adjusting the amount of beans, onions, bacon, and cooking liquid.





Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. (4 cups) dried navy beans
• can sub: other white beans, but definitely don't stray into kidney bean, pinto bean, or black bean territory.  You want a small, white bean for this.
• Water for soaking, enough to cover the beans + another 3-4 inches
• note:  be sure to reserve some of the liquid after soaking!
• 3 onions, cut into thick rings or semi-circles
• 1 pound thick-cut bacon, the thicker the better
• can sub: salt pork, if desired, or if avoiding pork then possibly a smoked turkey wing or a very small amount of liquid smoke (or leave it out altogether).
• For the sauce:
• 1 bottle (12 oz.) Sam Adams Boston Lager
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 0.5 cup molasses
• 2 TBS real maple syrup
• 3 TBS dijon mustard
• 0.5 cup ketchup
• 2 TBS Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 0.5 cup brown sugar
• 0.25 tsp fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 TBS garlic paste 
• can sub: 4-5 whole/minced cloves of garlic or 1 tsp dried garlic powder

Directions:

1. Soak beans overnight in enough water to cover them plus 3-4 inches of water on top.
2. In the morning drain the beans and reserve the soaking liquid in a separate bowl.
3. Layer bacon, onions, and beans in a dutch oven or slow cooker, making 2-3 total layers.
4. Whisk together all the sauce ingredients and pour over the beans/bacon/onion mixture.
5. If the beans aren't completely covered by the sauce, add enough of the reserved soaking liquid (from step 2) so that the beans are completely covered.
6. If using a dutch oven:  place the lid on the pot and put it the oven at 325 degrees (F).  Bake 4-6 hours, checking every hour for doneness and to make sure that the beans are completely covered with liquid.  In the last hour of baking, remove the cover, stir, and turn the heat down to 300 so that the sauce can thicken up.
7. If using a slow cooker:  set heat to high and cook for 4-6 hours or until done.  Leave the lid on until the final hour, then remove lid, stir, and leave lid off so that some of the liquid can evaporate off to thicken up the sauce.
8. Beans are done when they are easily chewed but not mushy.  Cooking time will depend on the age/dryness of the beans.

Goes well with:  brown bread, coleslaw, and Sam Adams Boston Lager

-----

The thing about Bawstin, you guys, is that people theah sound a little different.  So you'll hafta fahgive my spellin' heah, is my point.  If ya havin' trouble, ask a local oah consult a guide.

Fihst things fihst: ya gawtta soak ya beans ovahnight.  That way the'ah easiah ta cook -- you ain't gawt awl day fah this nawnsense, ya know?  Plus it helps relieve somma the gases in the beans.  Bettah out than in, in this case.

Er... that's exhausting to read, isn't it?  I know it's exhausting to write.  Let's move on.  I'm not from Boston itself anyway so I'm not fooling anyone anyhow.

It's important when you drain the beans to save the liquid they were soaking in.  Set it aside because you'll be using this a little later on.

When you're ready to get started with the cooking phase, you've got two options: dutch oven or slow cooker.  These amount to exactly the same thing, since either way you're using a large dish heated to around 300 degrees for several hours.  Totally up to you.  More liquid will cook off in the oven, making for a thicker sauce, but it does heat up the house and -- if you're like me -- a slow cooker is something I'm willing have running while I'm out of the house whereas I don't like to leave the oven on unless I'm around.  It's really up to you and your needs.  I used a dutch oven here, but the exact same process applies for the slow cooker.  What we're going to do is make layers: bacon, onions, beans, repeat.

Bacon:

Onions, followed by beans (a complete layer, not just a handful as shown in the picture):

And repeat:

And, if space and supplies allow, repeat again:

You're free to use whatever you've got handy, but if I can make a suggestion I'd recommend thick-cut bacon.  Some recipes even call for salt pork.

The onions also should be fairly thick.  They'll caramelize in the sauce so it's nice to be able to get a taste of them.  Too small and they won't stand out.  Either whole or half-rings should do it.

Once your layers are all set, whisk up all the sauce ingredients in a separate bowl.

You can leave out the beer if you don't like it.  I used it to replace the vinegar in A Family Feast's recipe, since Samuel Adams Boston Lager is almost as symbolic of Boston as the Gahden or tea pahties.  It's so near and dear to locals' hearts that it's not unusual to hear sentences such as, "hey, Sean, bang a uey heah, I gawta runda tha packie for Sam."

Once everything's whisked together it doesn't look all that wonderful.  And it's strangely reflective.

I assure you it's very tasty, though.

Pour the sauce over the beans.

It's unlikely that the sauce will be enough to cover your beans completely.  Here's where the bean-soaking liquid you reserved earlier comes into play.  Use that to top off the pot so that the beans are completely covered with liquid:

And then you're ready to cook.  If you're using a dutch oven, cover it and pop it in your oven at 325F.  If you're using a slow-cooker, switch it on to high.

Depending on how old/dry/cantankerous your beans are, cooking them could take anywhere from 4-6 hours (or more).  It's not a bad idea to plan on a minimum of six.  Check the pot every hour to make sure there's enough liquid to cover the beans.  Add in reserved bean liquid as needed.

This is at the 2-hour mark.  You can see where I put a cookie sheet underneath to catch drips since I'd filled my dutch oven pretty full.

You'll know the beans are nearly done when they're al dente -- when you can bite into them easily but they've got a little resistance still.  At that point you've got about an hour left, meaning it's time to take the lid off, stir, and leave the lid off so that the sauce can thicken up.  This applies both to slow cooker and oven methods.  If using the oven, turn the heat down to 300.

After about five hours my beans were ready to stir and put them back in for the final hour at lower heat.

I forgot to get an "after" shot once I'd taken the beans out of the oven.  Apologies.  It looked a lot like the above, but thicker and a little darker.  One thing to remember is that if you want a super thick sauce you'll have to let it sit overnight in the fridge:  it's the cooling process that makes for a really thick sauce (thanks to the oil from the bacon congealing).

(Yeah, I'm grossed out, too.)

Some people thicken their sauce with cornstarch.  It works, but I find then all I can taste is cornstarch.

Anyway, that's it!  Soak, layer, bake, stir, serve.

I find it goes really well with brown bread, coleslaw, and some Sam.