Shrimp burgers and social media

Chances are that many of you arrived here via Twitter. This is quite different than last week, where most of my readership was comprised of friends and family. I expected that this transition would take much longer to occur, but Ottawa's foodie and restaurant community have really embraced the blog. A big thank you in particular to Ron Eade from the Ottawa Citizen and the gang at foodieprints.

Now to last night's creation: shrimp burgers. Shrimp burgers are a delicious, healthy burger option that are quite easy to make. Normally when I try out a new recipe that has been fairly well established, I look at 10-15 on the Internet and try to determine what the trends are. Then I can identify what is vital for the recipe, or what can be experimented with. The trouble with shrimp burgers was that there were very different opinions on how to get the right consistency. Do you grind the shrimp raw or pre-cook? Do you need a binder? Grind it to a paste or keep it in chunks?

I used my newly established Twitter account to ask a couple of these questions to Emeril Lagasse, who is a guy I thought would know a thing or two about shrimp burgers. A few years ago you couldn't simply write a guy like Emeril and expect an answer back in ten minutes. Lo, Emeril, your advice was sagely. Those suckers were incredible.

We can pay a bit more now and eat shrimp forever, or pay less now and lose these delicious decapods to overfishing. I buy Ocean Wise certified sustainably raised shrimp from Whalesbone Oyster House's retail shop on Kent and Arlington in Ottawa. If possible, look for sustainably-raised or caught shrimp in your community.

Recipe after the break.

What's for dinner? The March Burger

Canadians have been talking about how this past winter was the winter that wasn't. We've experienced an incredible March so far, with temperatures reaching into the high 20's and keeping mild and dry at night. Visitors might erroneously believe that Ottawa is temperate. In honour of this exceptional weather, I decided to make a burger to toast spring.

Historically, not much is seasonal in March because we are supposed to be buried under snow at this time. When designing a burger for spring, my mind immediately went to the spring-iest of foods - asparagus - because beef and asparagus in one mouthful is profound on the palate. Sadly, the local asparagus crop hasn't hit my grocery store's shelves yet, so I opted for microgreens instead.

I used to think that microgreens were pretty ridiculous. They grow in this sci-fi nutritional paste and require silly amounts of effort to grow for their size. Carnivore-types will view them with great suspicion: they're a bitter, nutritious, impractical food that hearkens the hippie movement. They serve a culinary purpose of course; microgreens inspire the flavour of the fallow field. So it's with this mind that I used them as the key flourish of the burger.


Burger after the break.

Petit Bill's Bistro

Intro

My wife and I had our first date at Petit Bill's Bistro, a delightful restaurant that spins French and Newfoundland cuisines together. Located at the corner of Wellington West and Smirle, Petit Bill's is one of those neighbourhood anchor joints that you get the feeling will have a long and healthy life as trends fly by.

The burger

"Bill's Burger" features a 100% beef patty from O'Brien Farms, lettuce, tomato and gorgonzola mayonnaise on a thick slice of well-toasted Art-Is-In cheddar baguette for $13. I opted for aged cheddar and double-smoked bacon, each $1.50 extra. The burger came with a good helping of thin-cut frites, the same that come with their famous lobster poutine, an Ottawa staple.

The patty was well-seasoned and moist, and at 6oz, a good portion. Despite the flavour sledgehammer that was the gorgonzola mayo, I could still taste the flavour and firm texture of the meat. The bun was fresh, ably absorbed juices and encased the burger nicely. It was toasted enough to provide a needed crunch. The cheddar in the bun was subtle and worked nicely with the cheddar on the burger - also subtle. Double-smoked bacon provided a nice dose of salt and was cooked to be nice and firm. So far so good.

It was dim, and I haven't worked up the courage to use the flash in a restaurant!

Gorgonzola mayo, like I mentioned, is serious business and it was the defining feature of an otherwise traditional offering. The cheese is an unskimmed, blue cow's milk cheese from northern Italy, and like its other blue cheese cousins provides a wonderfully sharp flavour with fungal after-notes. I should note that "fungal" is a positive term (for me) when describing cheeses. Much of the gorgonzola imported to Canada is often on the smooth rather than crumbly side, so mixed with mayo it makes a beautiful combination. That it did not overwhelm the simple beef was amazing and a big kudos in my books. It does, however, need a counterpoint.

The lettuce was unfortunately wilted and the tomato warm so they didn't provide enough crunch or freshness to balance the fat. A thick slice of red onion, or something edgier like pickled turnip, would have taken Bill's Burger from great to excellent.

I give the folks at Petit Bill's a big thumbs-up for supporting local producers of fine food products in their burger. 

Given the contemporary feel and casual-upscale stature of Petit Bill's, $13 is very good value. I would recommend adding bacon, but the cheddar is superfluous and doesn't substantially add to the burger.

The sides

Petit Bill's makes amazing thin cut fries. Soft with some residual crisp, skins on, not greasy. Served up with malt vinegar they're a great accompaniment. I paired the meal with a glass of 2009 Kingston Estate Petit Verdot from South Australia, whose full, peppery body was a great match for the burger.

BurgerDAR

Bill's Burger gets a 5/3/4. I definitely recommend.