A Healthier Hamburger, Have It Your Way…Really

I like knowing what is in the food I eat. When I make my own hamburgers from scratch, I don’t feel I’m eating something unhealthy. That can’t be said about fast food restaurants.

Buy steak, any cut you choose, depending on the price and how good the meat looks. With the basic food processor I have in my kitchen, I turn the steak into ground beef in only a few seconds.

Add breadcrumbs and egg and blend the mixture together. Use enough breadcrumbs so that the meat is not wet and dripping with eggs. This helps the patties stay together.

Salt and pepper to taste and add a little dried oregano. If you want to jazz them up, add some diced onion and pulp a garlic clove into the mix.

There you have it: fresh hamburger.

If you have time, let the mixture chill in the refrigerator for about ½ hour and the patties will be easier to shape.

Then take the mixture out of the frig and shape your burger patties, either fat or thin, whatever your prefer and you are ready to go. Grill or fry them. Melt some cheese on top. Stack them with whatever you want.

Create your perfect burger.

Veal Scallopine With Mushrooms and Lots of Gravy

This is a dish my mother used to make for 10 people but I reduced it to dinner for two.

I put some olive oil in a big, deep stainless steel frying pan and set it to heat. Then I took two veal cutlets and tenderized the meat by pounding it with my mallet. I sprinkled with salt and black pepper. Then I cut the veal into small pieces, almost bite-sized, and dipped them in all-purpose flour.

By this time the oil was hot and I placed the veal in the frying pan. I turned the veal over once before I added one minced glove of garlic. I added some dried oregano and crushed red pepper, put the lid on and let cook over a low heat for a few minutes.

While the veal was cooking, I sliced a pint of white button mushrooms. When I added them to the pan, I also threw in the rest of the flour (a good, fat pinch) and mixed it all together. Then I covered the pan and let cook for about ten minutes on medium.

Now for the good part. I added a ½ cup of red wine and let that cook with the lid off. It reduced into gravy.

Then I added one jar of Heinz Beef Gravy and I filled the jar back up half way with water and added that and stirred it all up. I brought it to a boil uncovered and then lowered to a simmer and put the lid back on and left it alone for ½ hour to cook.

While the veal was doing its thing, I peeled and cut two big Idaho potatoes and boiled them for mashing. When they were ready, I added some salt, butter and milk and fluffed them up with the electric mixer.

I threw some frozen corn into the microwave for a few minutes.

There you have it. I put the mashed potatoes on two plates and spooned out the veal and mushrooms and gravy all over the plates and potatoes. I added the corn on the side and we devoured it.

The gravy needed three pieces of white bread each before it was almost completely gone.

Enjoy with a nice bordeaux. We had Chateau Barrabaque 2005. It was only $14.99 at Bristol Farms.

There was some leftover gravy with a few mushrooms at the bottom of the pan and we saved that in some Tupperware for future use in a risotto we are planning for later in the week.

Music to cook by: Mystery Lady by Etta James

My Favorite Saturday Breakfast

On Saturdays I love to make a traditional American breakfast. During the week I usually just have coffee or a latte which fills me until lunch. But on the weekends I like to sleep late and then cook this simple meatless breakfast.

Slow-Cooked Scrambled Eggs
* 4 large eggs
* a splash of milk
* salt and pepper to taste

Sometimes, I add a dash of a dried herb blend like Penzey’s Sunny Paris or an Italian blend. Put all ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Put a pad of butter into a small saucepan and heat until melted. Pour in the egg mixture and cook slowly over the lowest setting on your stove. Stir once in a while so the eggs don’t stick to the bottom and make sure they are cooked all the way through. Divide this between two people.

Bread
Serve with two slices of toast with a tiny bit of butter. Or substitute an English muffin. If you have a sweet tooth, try orange marmalade.

Coffee
Lately, I’ve been buying Illy in the blue-striped can (medium roast) and the green-striped can (decaf). I mix mostly caf with one scoop of decaf. I don’t take milk in my coffee but I like one packet of Sugar in the Raw turbinado sugar.

Juice
A small glass of orange juice on the side completes the meal.

What do you like for breakfast?

Reminiscences of Being Down in the Store

There were two stations allowed on the radio in the store.

950 WPEN – The Station of the Stars played the American standards. There were three categories of singers. First, there was Frank Sinatra and then there was everyone else.

The second group included Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett and of course, the Blessed Mother of the American G.I … Jo Stafford. When Jo Stafford came on the radio, my Dad required silence in the store.

Last, but not really least, were the “ass-kissers,” the likes of Jack Jones, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Steve Lawrence & Edye Gorme.

The other station was, of course, the one that  broadcast the Phillies baseball games with Harry Kalas and Ritchie Ashburn.

As a kid, hanging with my Dad in the store, I listened to more baseball games than I watched on TV.

______________________

The store was our basement. We lived on the top two floors of the three-story, end house of row homes.

DeRosa’s Sandwich Shop sold pizza, cheesesteaks, hoagies and hamburgers…and, of course, the DeRosa Special, which was simply tomato sauce on a roll with provolone cheese, sliced pepperoni and oregano, baked in the pizza oven. It doesn’t sound so special, but it was one of the best sandwiches I ever ate and it was the cheapest sandwich we had, so we sold a lot of them.

What made our Philadelphia cheesesteaks and hoagies unique and so memorable, were the rolls. I have never found the same kind of rolls again anywhere I lived outside of Philadelphia. The crust was hard, but not too hard to chew, and they never broke up under gravy or sauce.

Our cheesesteaks were different from other sandwich shops, too. My Dad wouldn’t buy chopped beef; we always used large 8 inch x 3 inch slices of sirloin…and it wasn’t covered with cheese-wiz. One of my jobs was to slice the fresh American cheese every night that was melted on top of the meat.

And the hamburgers…my Mom mixed the burgers fresh daily. She bought ground beef and handed mixed in eggs, breadcrumbs and spices…and hand molded each burger. (She once lost a diamond from her wedding ring in the mix.)

We spoiled our customers! And we spoiled ourselves, because if this was work, work was good.

Weekend Cocktail Recipe: The Manhattan

I drank my first Manhattan cocktail in Manhattan. I didn’t start drinking cocktails until I lived in New York City for a few years. I was a young man and an inexperienced drinker out to dinner with a mentor and teacher, a woman in her 70’s. She was told by her doctor that she had done enough drinking in her life and so there we sat with two glasses of water. She asked me to order a “Modern Manhattan”and sit it on the table so she could smell it.

To her a Modern Manhattan came from the 1920s and was bourbon, French dry vermouth, bitters and a lemon rind.

An “Old-Fashioned Manhattan” was whiskey, Italian sweet vermouth and a cherry and was from the late 1800s.

So I choked down my first Manhattan for her and found myself enjoying them more as I got older. It is a drink with a kick and I indulge infrequently. But when made by a master bartender, they are my cocktail of choice.

Modern Manhattan

* 2 ounces of bourbon
* 1 ounce of dry vermouth (french white)
* A couple of drops of Angostura bitters
* 1 lemon rind

Put the bitters in the bottom of a chilled martini glass. Mix the bourbon and vermouth with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake. Pour into the glass and add the lemon rind.

Old-Fashioned Manhattan

* 2 ounces of whiskey
* 1 ounce of sweet vermouth (red Italian)
* maraschino cherry

Put the whiskey and vermouth into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Pour into a chilled cocktail glass and add the cherry.

If you order a Manhattan in a bar or restaurant, they usually will bring you the old-fashioned manhattan.  If you want the Modern Manhattan, you need to specify it to the bartender.

I prefer the Modern Manhattan.

Music for boozing: This Town by Frank Sinatra

Chicken in a Pot

I’m using my round 3.5-quart Le Creuset dutch oven. These pots are expensive. I finally got mine with a gift certificate to Williams-Sonoma. But you can use any pot as long as it has a lid. Just try to stay away from non-stick aluminum pans.

In the bottom of the pot, heat a little olive oil. I have a 4.73-pound chicken and it’s going to be a tight squeeze. Rinse the chicken and then brown on each side in the hot pot. Just a couple of minutes on each side to get it started. Then turn the chicken breast-side up and sprinkle on a little salt. Put some salt inside the cavity, too. Push little bits of butter under the skin. I take one pad of butter, cut it into four chunks and use those. I don’t like too much butter.

Add your vegetables around the sides of the pot. I’m using one and a half potatoes cut into chunks, the white part of a leek cut into slices. (Always bathe your leek slices in a small bowl of water to remove any sand and grit.) Slice four garlic cloves, add some baby carrots and celery slices. I’ve also pushed some of the vegetables into the cavity of the chicken. Just a few. I’m not trying to make a stuffing, just trying to add flavor and save some space in the pot.

Add some fresh and dried herbs. You can use whatever are your favorites. I’m using some fresh rosemary, marjoram and sage. I found it in the supermarket called poultry blend. I’m also sprinkling on a dry Italian blend, which has some oregano, thyme, basil, marjoram and rosemary. A little more salt, some black pepper, and a little bit of red pepper flakes (because I can’t make anything without hot red pepper seed). But really just a touch.

Last thing I do is pour in a generous amount of dry white wine, then cover and let cook over a low heat for as long as it takes, depending on the size of the bird. It usually takes anywhere from 1.5-2 hours. It also depends on your stove.

I check it now and then to make sure it doesn’t dry out. Sometimes I add a little water or more wine. The chicken will make its own lovely juice, so you also need to check to make sure it doesn’t overflow if it gets really juicy.

By now you’ll be hearing comments from your diners about how wonderful the house smells.

When the chicken is done, remove and put on a serving dish. If you like it crispy you can put it in the broiler for a minute. Really, just a minute. You know how fast a broiler can work. Put cooked veggies in a bowl or arrange around the chicken platter. At this time, you can bring the pan juices to a boil and reduce to make a gravy. If you want more gravy, you can add more wine and some chicken broth and reduce.

It’s a complete meal in one pot. If you want a little extra, try a side dish of rice or noodles.

One time when I made it, I added cooked arborio rice to the juices and made a quickie risotto. Yummy.

We’re Italian so we share this between the two of us. But it really makes about four servings.

Enjoy with a light red wine. Tonight we had Jean Louis Chave Saint-Joseph Offerus 2006. It was $27.99 from Bristol Farms.

Music to cook by: Frenesi by Linda Ronstadt

Hello world!

Welcome to Rogue Cooking with Donna and Jim De Rosa. We are a brother and sister team who grew up in the food industry. If you have ever been to Philadelphia, you may recall our family’s sandwich shop called DeRosa’s. Our parents, Sam and Kitty, operated the store from 1963 until retirement in 1989. We can proudly say we sold the best cheesesteaks in Philly. Ask anyone from our neighborhood, Juniata Park, and they will verify. We also offered hoagies, hamburgers, meatballs, grinders, pizza…and of course, the DeRosa’s Special.

Food is our passion. We love to cook, eat, and feed others. With an Italian father and Irish mother, we were influenced by many types of meals. With this blog, we hope to share with you traditional family recipes, try out some new ones, mix a few cocktails, discuss the state of the food industry, grow our own vegetables, etc. etc. etc.

We now live in California and no longer have that quaint little store in Philly. So, we’re going rogue. Come along on our journey in food.

Jim and Donna De Rosa
Rogue Cooks