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Making a burger interesting enough for wine

A lockdown birthday is certainly different. Ordinarily we would have a family lunch and friends over for an evening feast with some extravagant wines to pair with the food. Not this year, of course. Instead, the main meal of the day had to be something everyone would enjoy and something that wouldn't be stressful to make. That means no pizza (too frantic) or Chinese food (too time consuming).

Burgers then. Always popular with children (non-vegetarian ones, anyway) but, for us, something has to be done to make them more interesting. A simple solution: cooked steak tartare.

For four people (we halved this): mix together:
Salt and pepper

1 red onion, medium, finely chopped
200g shallots, finely chopped
140g capers, finely chopped
2 tbs olive oil
15ml brandy
2tsp tomato ketchup
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Tabasco
4 egg yolks (optional)

600g minced beef (or venison) - for steak tartare (served raw, of course), the meat should be chopped rather than minced. This is easier if it is almost frozen as you can slice it much thinner then. Mix in the tartare and cook. It can be slightly sloppy so best done in a frying pan rather than barbecue. 

Serve with chips (of course), corn on the cob (oven cooked is much more interesting) and coleslaw or anything else you like, of course. The wine? For some reason, I often have Cahors for my birthday meal: Chateau Lamartine's Expression certainly hit the spot.


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