Posh birthday burger

[QueenKong]

It's DH's birthday next week and as we have little cash and a 9mo DS, we are staying in to celebrate. I said I would cook him anything he likes for dinner. He thought about it and said he wanted burger and chips .

Any ideas how I could fancy up a burger and chips to make it a bit more special?

Make the burger yourself. If he likes cheeseburgers put small cubes of cheese inside the burger so they melt when it cooks - a self cheesing cheeseburger! It makes the burger nice and moist. Then a really decent roll from a bakery, proper crispy onions and bacon if he likes it, stacked with freshly slice tomatoes and lettuce. Or a fried open field-mushroom (about the same size as the burger). Then if you want to be showy - stick a skewer through it to hold it together.

Make your own chips - twice fried. Really chunky (so you'd have maybe 9-10 chips each) and stack them in a criss-cross stack.

Then a BBQ sauce or salsa as a dip. If he doesn't like onions on the burger (or as well as if he loves onions), make some home-made onion rings to have on the side.

Sorry if that went on a bit - I love a really good burger and am mad about onions!! The self-cheesing burger is something my Dad made for me a few years back!

Another option if he likes spicy things is a homemade chilli burger (chillies and chopped up kidney beans mixed into the mince mixture).

If he likes blue cheese - melt it onto the field mushroom and put that on the burger.

Hope you/he enjoy!

I'd second making the burger - cheaper and tastier, and very easy. Jamie Oliver has a few recipes which are really good tasting according to DH.

Heston's triple cooked chips are fantastic - worth the extra effort. Made them this week and they are by far the best I've ever made.

You use waxy potatoes, peel them and cut into chips. Then boil them in salted water til quite soft, but not yet falling apart, about 15-20 minutes.
Then drain carefully and put into the freezer for an hour.
Then fry in groundnut or grapeseed oil for 5 minutes - so they get a pale crispness to outsides.
Again drain (retain the oil) and put in freezer for an hour. Then move into fridge til you are ready to cook and serve.
Wen ready fry in the oil again til golden and crispy - 7 or 8 minutes.

Then are deliciously soft in the middle and crispy on the outside.

Lamb mince with cumin, chilli, garlic etc makes a very tasty alternative to beef mince and it's so easy to make your own.

Sweet potato chips could be mixed in with 'normal' ones?

Different mini burgers might be nice- just slight variations on the spices/herbs and toppings?

Hope he likes them, whatever you decide! :)

Use toasted ciabatta rolls instead of burger buns and season your chips.

Yyy to blue cheese.

Mmmm, self cheesing burger sounds great, as do the chips. Quick Q - I don't have a fryer, can I just do them in a pan of oil if I get one of those wire basket thingies?

Also, how do I do onion rings?

My DH loves a slice of crispy bacon in his burger.

Onion rings. Cut as thick as you like but not huge. Soak in milk for half an hour, then toss through seasoned flour. Shake off excess in a sieve and fry. Lightly crispy and lovely rather than coated in a big fat chewy doughy batter.

I did them in a deepish pan - you don't need a fryer or a wire basket. Think Heston says about 10cm of oil although I just used one bottle of groundnut oil, which was possible a bit less - depends on how wide your pan is I guess. The chips just need to be covered.