Our family has always enjoyed my home made burgers, especially when grilled on the gas barbeque. While we don’t have an outside grill here, we decided to give it a go using the electric broiler in the oven. Then there was the matter of ingredients. One of the first things we were told about beef here is that it is nothing like “back home” – mostly due to two factors: beef is not typically aged here and there is a lack of fat content.  I immediately understood how aging will adjust as I used to shop at a family butcher who aged all is beef personally. I found it made a significant difference in taste.  I was unsure why the lack of fat. 

The cattle we have seen here are grass eaters. Grass cover is different to what we were used to back in Canada. The kind I’ve seen as ground cover is like a tough small leafed vine and the other prevalent type is tall grass which grows (literally) everywhere.  During our first few weeks here we drove by farmers on the side of the main road, cutting down the tall grass and stacking it in the back of their truck. We were informed this would be brought back to their cattle to help feed them. So…if you remove additives such as corn and soy and serve up a diet of mostly grass which is both tougher and hardier in its natural state, it seems logical to then deduce the resulting cattle have a totally different body make up resulting in different final product to purchase. 

Now…back to being creative with my burgers – how to give it that extra taste? Walter got what he could at the local butcher. We then decided to punch up the flavour by adding in some chopped up bacon (and the fat which came with it).  While our creativity gave it an interesting consistency, the question remained how it would affect the final results. 

Luckily we were able to find the rest of my ingredients: onion soup mix, worcestershire sauce, zesty Italian dressing, an egg, garlic powder, paprika, parmesan cheese and of course, my Newfie savoury (brought with me as a definite cooking requirement). At the last minute we realized we had no bread crumbs so I improvised and toasted a few extra burger buns and then ground them in my magic bullet.  

I’ve also noticed cooking, even grilling, does process food differently here.  Turns out water boils at a different temperature depending on what your elevation is. So, again I deduced that cooking times / temperatures may also be affected.  Where we are right now is just under a 1/2 a mile above sea level (2,254 feet or 687 metres).  Where we were in Canada was only 221 metres (728 feet).  

The end result was rated a 7 out of 10 by Walter and an 8 out of 10 by Gregory.  All in all a good first attempt.  Next time I’ve decided to bake them a bit first and then grill them to crisp  them up at the end.   We ate the result of our efforts before I could consider what I was going to write about – therefore there are no pictures this evening.   When I cook the leftovers tomorrow, I’ll submit a picture then. 

Thanks for sharing!

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