Now. That's a sandwich.

I had a bit of a Twitter tantrum last week because I’m just plain sick of hearing about the amazing McRib sandwich from McDonalds. Apparently the word on the street is that it’s just so disgusting that it’s somehow good.

That really doesn’t make sense to me.

That said, the idea behind the sandwich is a great one. I nice big pork patty on a hoagie bun with BBQ sauce, pickles, and onions? Sounds good to me!

So I decided to make a homemade version of the sandwich. The recipe I came up with is really simple and actually cheaper than buying the sandwich from McDonalds. Plus, now I have a bunch of them frozen so it’s faster for me to make one now than driving to McDonalds.

So let’s all please stop talking about the McRib and start talking about the NickRib.

The Nickrib

Yield: 6 sandwiches

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

2 Pounds pork butt, ground
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
2 Teaspoons black pepper
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
2 Teaspoons coriander, ground
2 Teaspoons cumin, ground
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes (opt.)
1 bottle (16-18 ounces) BBQ sauce
Pickles
Onions
Hoagie Buns

Helpful Equipment:
Food processor

Directions:

1) Cut pork butt into cubes. Try to separate fat and meat so you can grind them separately.

2) Grind or process pork. Do the fat first and grind it much finer. Then grind meat and mix the two together.

3) Add in spices to mix meat together.

4) Form six patties from the meat weighing about 5.5 ounces each.

5) Sear patties in a hot pan, over medium-high heat, for about 4 minutes per side.

6) Layer all patties in a baking dish and slather with BBQ sauce. Bake patties at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

7) Add a patty to a hoagie bun and top with extra BBQ sauce, pickles, and sliced onions.

8) Once patties are cooled, you can freeze these by putting each patty individually into small plastic bags with extra sauce. Then put all those small bags into a large gallon sized freezer bag. To reheat, just cut off the plastic from one patty and microwave for about 2 minutes.

The Original

Must to my dislike, I figured that I should probably swing by Mickey D’s and see what all the fuss was about before I tried to recreate this sucker.

I noticed a few things.

1) It costs $3. That means six would cost $18. My six homemade sandwiches cost me $13 to make.

2) It made my car smell like a BBQ sandwich farted.

3) It was much smaller than I thought it would be and didn’t look very appetizing.

This costs $3.

I did try this sandwich though and wasn’t really impressed. Obviously, the patty was super-moist because they inject it with all kinds of stuff to preserve it. The BBQ sauce tasted like chemicals. The best part of the sandwich was the pickles and there were only two.

A Patty Problem

I did some research before I jumped into this sandwich. There were a bunch of other people that thought it would be a good idea to make their own versions of this sandwich. I immediately noticed a problem with some of the homemade versions.

The versions I saw were either amazing and complex like this awesome BBQ pork belly sandwich that takes about 5 hours to make and requires 3 pounds of pork belly. On the other end of the spectrum, there were people who actually took the time to post on just microwaving frozen pork patties and putting BBQ sauce on them. That takes only 2 minutes, but you end up with basically the same thing that McDonald’s makes.

I tried to find some middle ground. I wanted a good patty, but I didn’t want to have to braise pork belly for 6 hours to get it. So, I decided to go with pork butt. For one, it’s a really economical cut of meat so I knew I’d be able to keep my costs down (even the best pork butt will run about $2.50/pound). Secondly, pork butt has a lot of fat in it, so I knew it would keep my patties nice and moist.

The process I used for making my patties is pretty straightforward. If i had a food grinder, it would’ve been even easier, but I just used my food processor. First, I cut my pork butt into fatty pieces and meaty pieces. I wanted to grind/process them separately. The fat needs to be a lot finer then the meat. I ground my fatty parts until they were almost a paste and then just pulsed my meaty parts until they basically resembled ground pork.

Shortcut: You could definitely use ground pork to make these. I might recommend adding in some processed bacon to up the fat content a bit if you do use ground pork though.

The Spices

Of course, the nice thing about making your own patties is that you can actually mix in some real flavor. I stirred in some coriander, cumin, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper.

Might as well spice it up.

Making the Patties

Since we’re going to be putting these guys on a hoagie bun, you want to make the patties kind of oblong. Each patty should be about 5.5 ounces and be about six inches long. It’s okay if they are pretty thin, they will shrink up as they cook.

I went ahead and made all of my patties and just sat them on wax paper until I could cook them.

About 5.5 ounces.

Searing the Patties

Cooking these bad boys is a two step process. It works like a charm to make a really moist and tasty patty. To start, just sear each patty in a hot pan over medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes per side. This should almost completely cook the patties because they are so thin.

The important part though is that they get a nice sear on them.

Get a good sear on these guys.

Baking the Patties

Once you get all your patties seared, add them to a large oven-safe dish and slather them with your BBQ sauce. If you have a really thick BBQ sauce, I recommend adding about 1/2 cup of water to it to thin it out a bit. It’ll thicken up again as it bakes.

This was a good idea.

Just completely coat all the patties in BBQ sauce and then bake them at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. This will completely infuse the patties with that delicious BBQ flavor.

This will smell good.

The Toppings

I kept the exact same toppings as the original: onions and pickles. I sliced my onions pretty thin though and use way more than two pickles.

Same toppings. Just more.

Finishing the Sandwich

As far as the bun goes, you can toast it or leave it soft. It’s good either way. Pile a patty on the bun with some extra BBQ sauce and then top with onions and pickles.

Done deal.

You can spring for more than two pickles.

Freezing the Sandwiches

These patties actually freeze really well. This means that you could double the recipe and have great sandwichs for a long time. I froze mine by making sure they were completely cool and then putting each patty individually in a small plastic bag with a few spoonfuls of extra sauce. Then I put all of those small bags in a large freezer safe bag.

When you want a sandwich, just cut the plastic off the patty and microwave it for about 2 minutes. Slap it on a bun with some extra BBQ sauce, onions, and pickles and you’re all set. I thought the re-heated version was just as good as on day one.

That's a real sandwich.

I was really happy with how these turned out. They cost a fraction of the original sandwich and now that they are made it takes me less time to make one then it would take for me to drive to McDonalds and buy one.

Most importantly, it isn’t even a competition when it comes to flavor.

If I wanted to make this post super-popular, I guess I could take a play out of the McDonald’s playbook and take it down for a few months and then BRING IT BACK!

Or I could just ask you all to share it. When you hear people raving about the McRib, let them know about the NickRib.

Grillin' is good.

Ever since I discovered my deep love for homemade mayo, I’ve been on a mad hunt to shove it in as many dishes as possible.

Besides the quickest application (spoon –> mouth), I thought immediately of potato salad.

Potato salad can be a bit too creamy sometimes for me. I don’t like it gloopy. I like my potato salad to have tons of flavor and lots of good crunchy textures in it with just enough dressing to hold it all together. I figured it could only be improved with homemade mayo.

Oh. And grilling the potatoes to make them crispy. That kind of takes this salad to the next level.

Grilled Potato Salad

Yield: Serves 4 as a side.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and halved
2 stalks celery, diced
3 scallions, minced
1 dill pickle, minced
Handful of parsley, minced
1/2 Cup mayo, homemade is best
1/4 Cup Greek yogurt
2 Tablespoons olive oil (for potatoes)
Salt and pepper
Pinch of cayenne (optional)

Directions:

1) Peel potatoes and cut in half. Toss with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.

2) Grill potatoes over medium heat for 25-30 minutes until they are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Turn them occasionally.

3) Chop other ingredients and add to a large bowl.

4) Let potatoes cool slightly and chop as well. Add to the bowl.

5) Stir in mayo and yogurt and taste for salt and pepper.

6) Serve immediately or chill. Will keep for up to a week in the fridge.

Cooking the Potatoes

I wasn’t entirely sure how this would work. I normally grill potatoes in foil with butter and garlic, but for this salad I wanted them to be really crispy.

I kind of just winged this, but it worked out great. I peeled my potatoes and cut them in half, then tossed them with some olive oil and salt and pepper.

Basic potatoes.

Next I heated my grill up to a medium heat and then added my potatoes straight to it!

Wasn't sure about this...

It’s important to keep the lid closed while these are cooking so they get some good general heat.

After about 7-8 minutes you can start turning the potatoes. I kind of just flipped them around every few minutes to make sure they weren’t burning on any one part.

Mine took about 25-30 minutes to get nice and crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Lookin' good!

The Other Stuff

Have I mentioned how much I love homemade mayo?

I mixed up another batch for this salad. I did it by hand, but as a number of people pointed out in my post on Monday, you can do this in a blender also and save yourself the forearm workout.

Don't forget the mayo!

Next I added some pretty standard potato salad ingredients. Really fresh, crunchy veggies are very important in my opinion.

Good textures!

Dice up all this stuff pretty finely and add it to a large bowl.

Diced and minced.

When your potatoes come off the grill, let them cool a bit and then dice them up also.

These tasted awesome. I knew I was onto something when I tried these guys.

Perfect.

Add the potatoes to the veggies along with the homemade mayo (you won’t need all of it if you make a full batch) and some Greek yogurt or sour cream.

Taste it for salt and pepper and you’re all set!

Perfect summer side!

This has a way different texture than a standard potato salad. It’s not too creamy but the mayo that’s there is really flavorful.

The salad will easily keep for a week in the fridge and gets better on day two and three. Mine didn’t last longer than that though…

Frankly, it might be my new favorite potato salad recipe!

Packed with stuff!

New Yorkers LOOK AWAY.

This post is a tribute to your windy city competitor when it comes to pizza and hot dogs (and possibly underworld crime).

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good New York street dog. The problem is that I don’t really consider them a meal. I mean, sure, you could eat two or three of them and probably be okay.

Or you could eat one massive Chicago dog and be set for awhile. I’m not exactly sure what the history is behind the dog, but I know that it has all of my favorite things packed on top of a hot dog. What’s not to love?

The Chicago Dog

Yield: 4 dogs

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

4 1/4 pound beef franks, boiled
Mayonnaise
Mustard
Pickles, sliced
Tomatoes, sliced
White onions, diced
Relish
Celery Salt

Quick Cucumber Relish:
1 Cucumber, peeled, seeded, minced
4-5 sweet pickled cherry peppers, seeded and minced
1/3-1/2 Cup vinegar (try it with apple cider vinegar or white or red wine vinegar)
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Teaspoon kosher salt (or to taste)

Directions:

1) To make relish, peel and seed a cucumber. Dice it small and mix it with the other relish ingredients. Let it sit in the fridge for at least 15 minutes before using.

2) To prep dogs, boil them in lightly salted water for 5 minutes.

3) Toast buns.

4) Build dog with mayo and mustard. Add sliced tomatoes and pickles.

5) Add dog and toppings.

6) Serve with napkins. You'll need them.

Relish the relish

A good Chicago dog has to have relish on it, but I quickly ran into a problem. When I was browsing through the store, I couldn’t find a single relish that looked good to me. They all seemed really processed and most had a huge amount of sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup, which seemed a bit unnecessary.

So I figured I’d just make my own. It turned out to be my favorite part of the dog!

Traditionally, relish is made with pickles, but I decided to use cucumbers for a bit more freshness.

Peel, seed, and dice your cucumber and stir it together with the other ingredients. Let this sit in the fridge for at least 15 minutes and you’ll be well rewarded. It’s awesome on a dog.

Make your own relish...

Other Fixings

A few other necessities for a good Chicago dog include pickles, tomatoes, and white onions. You could not use any of these I guess, but then you best not be calling it a Chicago dog.

Other needs...

As far as the hot dogs go, just toss them in some salted boiling water until they are nice and plump, probably 5 minutes. Then they are ready to go.

Building the Dog

When it comes to hot dog buns, I like mine nice and toasted. I toast them under the broiler for a minute or two to get nice and crispy. Not a necessary step, but I think it holds up to the fillings a bit better if it’s toasted.

Layer on mayo and mustard followed by sliced stuff.

Constructing...

Then stick in your dog and top with onions, relish, and a sprinkle of celery salt.

You might think that celery salt is a weird ingredient for hot dogs, but just go with it. It’s awesome.

Bring some napkins to the party. These guys are messy.

These are messy guys.

Here’s my slightly more staged version.

This is about as staged as I get people.

The staged version...

Hopefully, I didn’t just lose my entire New York readership.

Without a doubt, I give New York the pizza badge, but I think I might have to give the hot dog award to Chi-town.

My cure.

Happy 2011 everybody! I hope everyone had a safe and fun night! It’s at least in the realm of possibility that you woke up today with a bit of a headache. At least for me, champagne always gives me killer hangovers.

And this, my friends, is the best cure I know.

I used to bar tend at a spot in DC that offered all-you-can-drink Bloody Marys for brunch. I was determined to make my Bloody Marys from scratch. No mix for me thank you. After a year or so of this, I’m pretty sure I’ve nailed the best Bloody Mary mix you can make. I’d put it up against any store bought mix any day of the week.

I recommend keeping a jar of it on hand if you’re in for a long drinking weekend!

Bloody Marys from Scratch

Yield: 7-8 large drinks

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

46 ounces pure tomato juice. If you use from concentrate, be sure to shake it well.
1 lemon, juice only
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 Tablespoons Horseradish
1 Tablespoon hot sauce
2 Teaspoons celery salt
1 Tablespoon fresh black pepper
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
Vodka

Garnishes:
Celery
Pickles
Olives
Old Bay
Oysters or Shrimp (Fancy Schmancy)

Directions:

1) Mix all ingredients in a large bowl with a whisk. If you're unsure about an ingredient, add just a bit and taste it. Then add more until you get the flavor you want. Remember that the mix should be pretty strong since it gets diluted with vodka and water from ice.

2) To make a drink, add 1 part vodka to 3-4 parts mix over ice and stir well. Garnish with your choice of garnishes and enjoy!

Making the Mix

Ok. So I claim this as the best Bloody Mary mix out there, but that’s a pretty subjective statement. I like my Bloody Mary’s to be really spicy, really peppery, and have lots of horseradish. If you don’t like those things, then this probably won’t work for you.

A popular ingredient that I don’t add to my mix is clam juice. I’ve found that people are pretty split on it, so it’s something that I add to individual drinks if people like it.

An army of flavor.

Basically, I just pour all this stuff in a large bowl and whisk it well to combine everything. A few tips:

- On the Horseradish, make sure to get just jarred horseradish, NOT horseradish SAUCE. That stuff won’t work. Most supermarkets have grated horseradish next to the pickles and olives or near the mustards.

- If you’re in doubt about one of the ingredients, start with a tiny bit, mix it together and taste it. You can always add more, but it’s impossible to remove it once it’s in there!

- The mix should be almost too strong to drink straight. If you taste it by itself it should be really strong that way when it’s mixed, it still has plenty of flavor. Remember that the mix is going to be diluted by vodka and also water as the ice melts.

You know you’re in business if you can see specks of stuff in your tomato juice.

Specks are good.

Garnishes

Half the fun of Bloody Mary’s is putting in a lot of fun garnishes. Celery is pretty much a given. I’m not sure I would trust a Bloody Mary without celery in it.

I also like a pickle spear and olives in mine, but you can go crazy. One of my favorite variations is to dip the rim of your glass in Old Bay which gives the drink a certain Maryland feel.

If you want to get really high class you could add a shrimp or two to the drink!

My favorite parts.

Mixing the Drink

My general rule for Bloody Mary’s is 1 part vodka to 3-4 parts mix with lots of ice.

You can very much eyeball this, but if you want to be specific, use a shot glass to measure it. Mix all the stuff over ice and give it a good stir.

Add in your garnishes and you’re good to go.

Cure in a glass.

Now, of course, it would be best to have some foresight so you can have this already mixed up when you need it. I usually just pour my mix back into my tomato juice bottle and write over the label.

It should go without saying that a good Bloody Mary goes great with football which also happens to be in season.

Have a great weekend everyone and happy 2011!

There are few dishes I find as comforting as fried chicken tenders and honey mustard. It’s a simple dish, quick to prepare and you really can’t mess it up. Fixing a proper batch of chicken fingers isn’t the most interesting thing to do though, so I’ve decided to change things up a bit… Namely, no more chicken tenders. I’m going to focus a little more on the mustards here. I’ll be preparing four small batches of mustard and to go with the mustard we’ll be frying up a plateful of dill pickle slices and putting together a couple of turkey sandwiches. Nothing too extravagant, just nice pairings for the mustard.

There are a lot of mustard recipes out there and they’re all pretty different. Understandably there is a wide range of flavor combinations ranging from spicy raspberry to champagne infused sparkling mustard. Not only that but some call for cooking your mustard on a stove top, others say you should let it sit in the fridge over night. Through a fair bit of trial and error I’ll share a couple of tips that I’ve come across as I’ve been making my own blends of mustards in the kitchen.

First off, don’t go trying to make a croc pot full of this stuff until you really find a good blend. Realistically, you probably aren’t going to be using more than 10 or 12 ounces within a month unless you’re a mustard fanatic. And besides, the homemade stuff really only keeps about a month.

So here’s what you’ll need to get started:

I rounded up five 1/2 oz containers of ground mustard, 1/2 oz of turmeric, a bag of flour and sugar, two bottles of vinegar – one is apple cider vinegar and the other is plain distilled vinegar, and a large honey bear. I also picked up a small container of mustard seeds and a Hefeweizen wheat beer.

My preferred method of preparing mustard is to use a small food processor to mix everything up in a timely manner and then I let the mustard sit for about an hour in the fridge to let all of the ingredients mingle a bit. I’m impatient so I haven’t tried cooking my mustards, I’m pretty happy with the outcome and I figure if it tastes good, don’t fix it.

The first batch of mustard I put together was a honey Hefeweizen mustard. Essentially it’s a tangy honey mustard with a wheat beer kick and a little extra heat. I start off with my dry ingredients, putting a whole container of ground mustard (just about one tablespoon) into the food processor with an equal amount of flour and two teaspoons of sugar. Next I add a generous squeeze of honey, about 1/3 cup.

Now for the beer. It’s really best to use flat beer if you’re going to be using a mixer or food processor like me, otherwise just be prepared to wait a few minutes for the head to die down after pouring… I add equal parts beer and cider vinegar to the mix, about 2-2.5 ounces. After that you can start mixing away. This recipe will give you a light tan, slightly yellow mustard that is going to be quite runny at first. Keep mixing until you see a consistent color and texture.

Take a taste and add more sugar or honey if that tail end of the mustard’s kick is too much for you. You can always add flour but if you end up with a mix of more than 60/40 flour to mustard powder you can start to taste the flour.

When you’re satisfied with the taste of the mustard just pour it in a bowl and throw it in the fridge for about an hour. This will allow the mustard to thicken up a little and the flavors will settle down a bit. After you pull the bowl out of the fridge you’ll notice the mustard will still be a little thinner than the store bought stuff, this is my personal taste – I think this works better for dipping and pouring. If you’d prefer a thicker mustard you can cut back on the beer and cider vinegar a bit. I happen to like the purportions right where they are, the beer gives the sweet mustard a little bit of bite and the cider vinegar delivers a kick right at the end.

If you like thicker, spicier or even sweeter mustards then I’ve got you covered there as well. The steps for preparing the next three batches will be exactly the same only the ingredients will be a bit different. The Balsamic and Primitivo mustard is really the only mustard that really needed to sit overnight to properly thicken up, all the others were good to go within an hour. Here’s what you need for each additional mustard batch:

Spicy Thick Yellow Mustard

1 1/2 tablespoon of mustard powder
1 1/2 tablespoon of sugar
6 tablespoons distilled vinegar
1 tablespoon of flour
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1/2 table spoon mustard seed

Mellow and Sweet Honey Mustard

3/4 cup of honey
3 tablespoons of vinegar
3 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 tablespoon of mustard powder
1 tablespoon of flour

Balsamic and Primitivo Mustard

1/2 tablespoon of mustard powder
2 1/2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons of Primitivo or Zinfandel wine
1 tablespoon of flour
3 tablespoons of sugar

The spicy mustard recipe will leave you with a very thick, very spicy, very yellow mustard that will go well with a burger and fries. The second recipe will give you a much more mellow, sweet honey mustard that is perfect for dipping without the heat or the kick of the Hefeweizen. The final recipe will need to sit over night for the flavors to blend and for the consistency to thicken up, don’t be alarmed if it’s really runny at first. The Balsamic and Primitivo mustard wouldn’t go too well with fried pickles so we put it on turkey sandwiches the next day.

The mustard ended up being a purple-maroon color, it went well with some turkey from the deli, lettuce, onions and a little mayo on whole grain bread. The flavor of the wine and Balsamic vinegar play nicely off of each other and really class up a turkey sandwich.

Prep time for each batch of mustard was about 10 minutes. It can be a little messy with all the ground mustard and flour moving around but by the time you’re done cleaning up and you’ve fixed something to dip in your mustard, it should be properly chilled.

Note from Nick: I found this all to be amazing. I’ve made homemade ketchup before, but it’s ridiculous I’ve never tried this given that mustard is my favorite. Once I get back state-side I’ll be experimenting with some of these. Thanks Corey!