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elleng

(130,126 posts)
Sat Jul 28, 2018, 12:05 PM Jul 2018

A Burger, but Better

(What's with all these burgers???)

'What makes a burger a burger? Is it, most essentially, a grilled or griddled meat patty? If so, where does a kebab end and a burger — that most American of foods — begin? At a moment when “American” has become shorthand for “white” and “kebab” a slur directed at Muslims, I feel moved to ask these questions. Especially because I grew up eating both burgers and ground-beef kebabs, and have strong opinions about each.

When I was young, one Sunday every month or so, my mom would load my brothers and me into our station wagon and drive 80 miles north to Orange County, where we’d meet our extended family at a Persian restaurant for lunch. Whether there were five of us or 15, everyone always ordered the same thing: chelo kebab, the Iranian national dish of chargrilled meat seasoned with onion and saffron, served alongside a heap of saffron rice and a grilled tomato. We ordered and spoke to each other in Persian, laughing loudly at the table — things we couldn’t easily do at other restaurants. When our food arrived, I’d generously butter my rice before smashing the tomato into it. Then I’d eat alternating bites of tender ground-beef kebabs, sopping rice and herbed cucumber yogurt until I couldn’t take another. A full belly and the heat of the bright desert sun streaming through the windows usually put me to sleep on the ride home.

I spent other weekends at birthday parties and cross-country meets where someone’s dad was always grilling preformed burger patties that came stacked in a plastic sleeve. Though I never cared much for the meat, I always took a cheeseburger from the platter because the glossy plastic quilt of melted American cheese enchanted me. I somehow knew even then that the real artistry of burger-making lay in careful assembly. My technique was precise: mayonnaise on the bottom bun, then the cheese-covered patty, then a crisp leaf of iceberg, sliced tomato, pickles and finally ketchup on the top bun. This order was nonnegotiable; there had to be sauce on both buns to ensure a maximally juicy burger.

My burger and kebab consumption continued to reflect my two distinct worlds until 14 years ago. Then, on the side of a dusty road in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, I tasted a chapli kebab, a thin, heavily spiced patty said to be named for its resemblance to a chappal, or slipper, for the first time. I’d just watched the cook season ground beef with chopped tomato, cilantro and fresh and dried chiles. He then flattened it into thin patties before slipping them into a shallow pool of bubbling oil. As he tended to the glowing coals beneath the wide steel pan, the kebabs browned on the surface, remaining tender inside. Once they were cooked, he slid two patties onto still-steaming naan and drizzled the whole thing with green yogurt chutney. He also handed me a small plate of chopped cucumber, tomato and onion, which I promptly dumped on top of the kebab before rolling up the entire thing and taking a saucy bite. Spicy and creamy, crunchy and chewy — the mix of textures and flavors was irresistible. It was a burger, but better.

Not long after I left Pakistan, the Taliban tried to take control of the region, now called Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and American travelers have been advised to avoid it ever since. The improbability of a return has made the memory of that chapli kebab ever more precious. Knowing nothing I might cook could ever measure up to the memory of that shockingly spiced patty, the warm, elastic naan or the pleasure of that first bite, I haven’t dared to try.

But recently I started to wonder — what if I combined what I loved most about burgers and kebabs into a chapli burger, slathered with ketchup and spicy herbed yogurt, topped with cucumbers, onions and tomatoes? I might not have fresh naan and a steel pan over coals, but I can easily find fresh burger buns and iceberg lettuce. I asked Ahmed Ali Akbar, host of “See Something Say Something,” a podcast about American Muslims, what he thought. “It’s funny how few people think of kebabs as patties, but that was by far the most common way we ate them in my house,” he said. “We never, ever made burgers. We just made chaplis, threw them on a bun and ate them with tamarind chutney.”

Inspired, I put forth another idea: What if I stirred tamarind paste into ketchup? “Yum,” he said simply. I interpreted that as permission to experiment and moved on to ask him what defines a chapli kebab. After checking with his aunties, Akbar, 30, reported back, “We have a consensus: To be a true chapli, it’s got to have crushed pomegranate seeds, chopped tomato and onion, egg and spices mixed into the beef.” And what about the corn flour I kept encountering in recipes? Could I omit that? “It’s just there to bind,” he said, “but I can’t guarantee you won’t have some uncle all up in your email if you leave it out.”'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/magazine/burger-american-muslim-kebab.html?

Chapli Burgers
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019435-chapli-burgers

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A Burger, but Better (Original Post) elleng Jul 2018 OP
Great ideas for cooking, thank you for sharing RainCaster Jul 2018 #1

RainCaster

(10,673 posts)
1. Great ideas for cooking, thank you for sharing
Sat Jul 28, 2018, 01:10 PM
Jul 2018

I may have eaten many times at that same Persian restaurant while in OC.

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