Thursday 28 March 2013

Burgers!! Junk Food??


As a fan of Low Carb High Fat diet I believe the French Cuisine deserves closer inspection. Firstly we must be aware of the Gascon Paradox, whereby the people of SW France consume more saturated fat than anyone in Europe, yet have the lowest rate of coronary heart disease and live to a ripe old age, thus confounding the poor medical scientists. Savoury French cuisine in general is low in carb and high in fat, they have many devious ways of enriching food with fat.  Savoury French cuisine is divine!
This is a 12oz burger (2 Costco 6oz Aberdeen Angus burger knocked together) cos I’m a big lad, my wife has a 6oz burger. The burger is pan fried in butter in a sauté pan that isn’t non-stick very important. When done the burgers rest in a warm place, the fat is thrown from the pan and the pan then deglazed with 250ml of red or white wine. Here’s the crunch for some, since the wine is then reduced it will become very acid, it does require balancing with sweetness, I use a redcurrant jelly (Fruit preserve) I only use a teaspoonful between two people! Also I ensure this contains sugar not fructose/glucose syrup. The wine and browned meat juices scraped up are now a deglassage, this has to be reduced over a high heat to half its volume, then add 250ml of full fat(40%) crème fraiche continue to reduce the sauce till it’s reached a creamy consistency, pour over the meat and serve.
Crème fraiche is used because it is tart and divine, if you can’t get full fat, then you can ferment your own. Take a big pot of double cream and a small pot of sour cream, allow to come to room temperature, then mix, it should stiffen immediately, allow to stand at room temperature for at least 8 hours, then refrigerate, it should last ages in the fridge, except it won’t cos it’s too delicious, specially on strawbs.
 

Potatoes, how dare we, well , we’re in weight maintenance, if we don’t eat some carbs we’d waste away, there’s 100g here, the broccoli and potatoes are not only optional, they are also brushed with melted butter.