Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Does she have a fan club?


Cacciatore Burgers
Rachel Ray 365: No Repeats Copyright 2005

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (plus more for drizzling)
1 1/3 lbs ground chicken or ground turkey breast I used 1 pound of ground chicken
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
4 garlic cloves (2 cloves, minced and 2 cloves cracked from skins and reserved)
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 medium yellow onion (1/4 finely chopped, 3/4 thinly sliced)
2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
10 fresh basil leaves, shredded
parmigiano-reggiano cheese
salt
fresh ground black pepper
2 portobello mushroom caps, thinly sliced I used some bellas - they were on sale
2 cubanelle peppers, seeded and sliced
2 hot cherry peppers, chopped (plus a splash of the pickling juice) I used some hoagie spread
4 slices provolone cheese, deli sliced
4 crusty rolls, split
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 (12 ounce) bag prewashed mixed baby greens
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1 lemon, juice of
(I skipped the garlic butter and salad)

Preheat a large skillet or grill pan over med-high heat.

Drizzle some olive oil in a bowl; add to it the chicken, Worcestershire sauce, chopped garlic, red pepper flakes, chopped onions, parsley, basil, Parmigiano (a generous palmful), salt, and pepper.

Combine mixture; for into 4 large patties; place patties on hot skillet; cook 6 minutes, then flip burgers and cook 5 minutes on the other side.

Heat a second skillet over med-high heat; add 1 tablespoon olive oil; add in the mushroom caps, sliced onions and cubanelle peppers.

Season with salt and pepper; cook 5 minutes, stirring often.

Turn the heat off; add in the hot cherry peppers and a splash of their juice.
Place the provolone over the burgers and turn off the heat in the pan; tent the pan with foil to melt the cheese and carry-over heat.

(I skipped the toasted rolls, garlic butter and salad)

Preheat broiler to high; toast the crusty rolls until golden; melt the butter with the remaining cracked garlic in the microwave or over low heat in a small pan; brush the garlic butter on the rolls.

Place the cheese-covered patties on the bottoms of the buns; top with the peppers and onions; replace the top halves of the buns.

Toss the greens with the thyme, lemon juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Serve the greens alongside the cacciatore burgers.
_____________________

Another winner from Rachael Ray. These burgers were sooooooo good. I made the pepper, onion and mushroom mixture the day before I served these. In the morning I made the patties (I think it's good to give seasoned burgers some time to let the flavors meld - it certainly doesn't hurt.). After work I just needed to throw the burgers on the Griddler and I nuked the vegetable mixture for a couple of minutes and then threw it all together. I skipped the part where the rolls get toasted and slathered in garlic butter which I'm sure is fantastic but totally not necessary.

This reminded me of a sausage sandwich (I love sausage sandwiches) minus the fennel seed. Then I saw that she has a very similar recipe in this book, for chicken sausage patties which has fennel seed. I can't wait to try that one too.

These had a slight kick from the hoagie spread (which is basically just chopped cherry peppers) in the topping and the pepper flakes in the patty. They had so much flavor. I thought about these all day and they didn't disappoint.

In a perfect world I would have the metabolism to have eaten two of these at dinner but I soothed myself thinking of the leftover burger. Ha! There was no leftover burger. My husband ate three of these.

I'll add this recipe to my ever-growing list of awesome ground chicken recipes.

Question of the Day: Do you like Italian sausage? I think it is one of my favorite foods - hot or sweet.

7 comments:

M Smith said...

Yep. I love Italian Sausage. One reason why i can't go all vegetarian. B-)

Here in MD, if you order a Sausage, peppers and onion hoagie, they put sauce and cheese on it too. Yuk. Certainly not what I grew up with in NY and PA...

Unknown said...

Not really...it's the part of my mom's lasagna that I don't like!

Sara said...

we don't eat a lot of italian sausage, but i like the sweet better than the hot.
i've been having some good luck with rachael ray recipes too, trying another one on thursday.

Heather said...

Sounds delicious. I will have to add this to my list for next week. I am having a horrible time wanting to cook.

Gwendy said...

I made this tonight. Didn't have any peppers but otherwise patties were made according to the recipe. I sauteed slices of yellow onion in the pan along with with the patties and sauteed chunks of mushrooms in a different pan. Then I layered the onions, mushrooms and a generous slice of tomato on the browned patties. Sprinkled some Jerk seasoning on top of that and then placed the provolone cheese on last. Broiled until melted with luscious brown areas bubbling up and served them with fresh-baked grainy bread and French string beans. Delicious! Will make this again!
Thanks for the ground chicken recipes! I love ground chicken and needed more ideas!

Prakashni said...

This was so good! I didn't have the baby greens so I omitted all that (greens, lemon). I still used the peppers tho. First time using ground chicken. Um a huge fan of ground chicken now. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

We love Italian Sausage and have actually started making it from scratch along with several other types of sausage. Always looking for ways to mix it up for supper. This recipe looks so good I'm making it for dinner tonight.