recipes

For the record:

1. My Sister's Hamburger Patties from Scratch
Brought it to the office to microwave for lunch, and the smell drove my colleagues to ask for the recipe... so you know it's good!

Ingredients:
- minced beef, 200-300g (lean or whatever you like)
- about a spoonful of chicken liver pate or pork pate
- some mushroom sauce / beef gravy seasoning mix (powdered form, McCormick's is good)
- garlic salt
- coarsely ground black pepper
- Mixed herbs or Italian seasoning
- minced garlic
- mustard (Dijon, English or honey mustard--whatever you like)
- for super hamburger steaks, add in a few finely chopped button mushrooms (white or brown)
- 1 egg (small egg for 200g of beef, larger egg for 300g)
- Japanese-style breadcrumbs

1) Dump minced beef into mixing bowl.
2) Season beef liberally with garlic salt, black pepper, some Italian Seasoning, some gravy seasoning mix, a spoon of minced garlic, a spoon of pate and a squirt/teaspoon of mustard (depends on type of mustard - the teaspoon is generally for hot English mustard).
3) Mix the beef and seasonings together, then add in the egg (and finally chopped mushrooms if you are having them).
4) Mix in the egg until everything is well combined. The mixture will be rather gloopy at this point.
5) Add in some breadcrumbs to the gloopy beef mixture, mix and add more breadcrumbs until the beef mixture starts to become more dough-like and you can shape patties from it. (200-300g of beef will give you around 4 patties. The thickness of the patty is up to you. The thicker the patty, the longer the cooking time.)
6) Heat a frying pan and slosh in some olive oil and a bit of minced garlic.
7) Do not burn the garlic, turn the heat down to low.
8) Place one of beef patties into the pan and cook for a few minutes and flip it over with a spatula. (The side that has been cooked will show some browning.)
9) Turn over the hamburger steak a few more times in the pan before placing on paper kitchen towels to drain off some of the oil. Do the same for the rest of the patties.
10) Using the same pan, fry some chopped button mushrooms.
11) Add some water to the pan, sprinkle on the rest of the beef/brown/mushroom gravy mix and turn the heat up so that gravy can boil and thicken.
12) When the gravy thickens, turn off the heat and transfer the gravy into a bowl before serving with the hamburger steaks. Serve with hamburger buns and cheese or a nice salad by the side.


2. BlueMoo's Oreo Shake
It's a small world, as we know. Turns out my colleague tended the bar at BlueMoo many years ago, and was behind the all-famous, crave-inducing Oreo Shake!!

Ingredients:
- 120ml cold milk
- 1-2 scoops Nestle vanilla ice cream (use more for a thicker shake!)
- 3-4 Oreo cookies

1) Crush the Oreo cookies into pieces.
2) Dump cookies, milk and ice cream into a blender.
3) Blend on HIGH for about 30 seconds, pour and sink into creamy, chocolatey bliss.