In honour of the Hamburglar

At the beginning of February of this year, the chances of the Ottawa Senators making the playoffs were dead in the water. With their starting and backup goalies out with injuries, the team was forced to rely on an unknown call-up from the farm team. Fast forward to today - the Senators are playing their best hockey in months, and are playing the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs. This is in part due to the play of Ottawa's newest hockey hero, Andrew "Hamburglar" Hammond. In honour of his success, I thought it would be as good a time as any to celebrate the food he got his nickname from, the hamburger.

There are almost as many claims to the origin of the hamburger as they are toppings for a burger, and meats used to make the patty. As it turns out, people have been enjoying ground meat placed inside a sliced bun since the late 1800s. Whether the patty is thin or thick, square or round, you can get a hamburger pretty much anywhere. Burger purists will insist that a hamburger should only be ground beef and seasoned with salt and pepper. These people should be ignored, as a tasty burger can contain binders like eggs or breadcrumbs; be seasoned with onions, soy sauce, Thousand Island dressing, or Worcestershire sauce; and be made with ingredients such as ground lamb, bison, and salmon; or meat substitutes like tofu, or textured vegetable protein. Below is the recipe I use when I'm in the mood for some hamburgers - try and resist throwing your burger on the ice as part of a victory celebration. Go Sens Go!

Ingredients

570g ground beef (don't use lean ground beef, burgers need fat for flavour and moistness)
1 egg
breadcrumbs
onion soup mix
Worcestershire sauce
ketchup
salt and pepper

1. Combine in a bowl the ground beef with the egg, the contents of the onion soup package, a dusting of breadcrumbs, a few shakes from the Worcestershire bottle, and a few shakes/squirts from the ketchup bottle. Mix everything together with your hands. Add more breadcrumbs if you think your mixture needs it.
2. Form the meat into patties, and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.
3. Whether you're cooking the burger using a grill, or pan-frying them, flip it only once. You're looking at about 3 minutes per side for rare, 4 minutes for medium, or 5 minutes for well-done.
4. Put the burger in either a bun (or in between some toast for a patty melt), and top with your choice of condiments, vegetables, and toppings.

Hockey and Chicken Wings

I remember the first time I ever made wings. It was a Sunday in February back in 2002, I believe it was the 24th. My roommates were watching a hockey game that afternoon, and I was trying to take a nap to avoid watching the hockey game. It's not that I don't like hockey, but the team I was hoping to win didn't play all that well leading up to this important game, and I didn't want to see them get embarrassed. But the noise from downstairs and my own curiosity made me go down to the living room midway through the first. The score was 2-1 for the good guys. At the end of the first, I decided it was time to add some food to the beer we were drinking and decided that wings would hit the spot. While waiting for the wings to defrost in the microwave, I noticed a package of Shake N Bake in the pantry, and the deep fryer that was on the counter, and had a "Eureka!" moment. After cutting the tips off the wings, I coated the wings with the Shake N Bake, and dropped them into the hot oil. The results were I got some tasty, but gritty chicken wings. In hindsight, it wasn't the Shake N Bake that was the problem, it was the quality of the oil in the deep fryer. When I decided to clean the deep fryer months later, I was disgusted at the dark goopy mess I poured into the garbage. It looked like something people had to cleanup after the Exxon Valdez spilled. The recipe below is the method I use now for chicken wings. As for the game, I later watched Iginlia put the game away for Team Canada as they beat the Americans 5-3. I celebrated with along the rest of the country at 80's Night at Barrymores later that evening with my roommates. A lot of honking, hollering, flag-waving, and beer drinking was seen and done, it was one of the few times I've seen Ottawa enjoying itself. As an NHL lockout is preventing hockey fans from doing some hooting and hollering, I hope my chicken wing recipe brings you some joy - go Sens go.

Ingredients

2 eggs
2 pounds chicken wings, split and tips discarded

3 cups all-purpose flour or cornstarch
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 

enough canola oil for frying

Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl. Pour over the chicken wings in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate 30 minutes. Combine the flour with the poultry seasoning, Old Bay, paprika, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder in a large mixing bowl. Heat oil in a deep-fryer or large saucepan to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Remove the chicken wings from the egg mixture, coat them in the flour mixture. Cook in batches in the preheated deep-fryer until the wings are golden brown on the outside, and no longer pink at the bone, about 10 minutes per batch. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate, and season to taste with salt before serving.