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Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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For sure!

Every year on xmas eve I make my mom and I a proper shappards pie(with lamb, all other meats would be cottage pie). Not too often that there is a full leg of lamb to be found around the grocery stores here, though I can usually find a good rack, chop or shank.
 
Rixsta

Rixsta

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Darth Omerta said:
For sure!

Every year on xmas eve I make my mom and I a proper shappards pie(with lamb, all other meats would be cottage pie). Not too often that there is a full leg of lamb to be found around the grocery stores here, though I can usually find a good rack, chop or shank.
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Lamb shank is awesome and lamb chops, well it's all awesome haha..
 
Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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Rickajho said:
Pricing has driven me right to a lot more pork. I mean jeez - paying $3.99 a pound for 80% ground "beef".
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Its insanity I tell you!

The market here is broken and we are actively making it worse with a provincial "contest" that runs the entire month of April called "Burger Love". In this so called contest, various restaurants pay a fee of $1500 to create a burger that they will sell as a special for $15(per plate) maximum and the burger patty must be made with 100% PEI ground beef. Why is this bad you might ask? Because PEI is the smallest province in Canada with only a handful of Beef farms, there are 84 restaurants entered this year and I can tell you as a chef that we would average about 100lbs or more per day of ground beef for the entire month and that was just at 1 restaurant. Extrapolate that to approximately 3100lbs per month per restaurant and we have a whopping 260400lbs of ground beef sold in 1 month Island wide. We are exhausting our local resources for one month and driving up the prices of our prime cuts which are inevitably being used to produce enough ground beef to keep up with the demand during a single month. This forces us to import our beef from other markets for the rest of the year...enter rant about gas prices driving up the prices of every single product worldwide. There are other major flaws in the execution of this "contest" which have made it a joke IMO, but its been working to drive up the restaurant industry so they continue to blindly and greedily encourage more and more restaurants to participate every year.
 
Rickajho

Rickajho

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You know, just how hard could they possibly milk this concept?:

http://peiburgerlove.ca/contest-rules

"BURGER-TO-BE-MAMA CONTEST

Starting April 18th, 2017, those Islanders currently pregnant (at any stage of said pregnancy) are eligible to enter the Burger-To-Be-Mama contest. To enter, expecting Mother’s whose primary residence is Prince Edward Island are to share a photo of themselves with their pregnant belly within the frame..."

That's borderline perverted. :facepalm:
 
SirKadly

SirKadly

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Rickajho said:
You know, just how hard could they possibly milk this concept?:

http://peiburgerlove.ca/contest-rules

"BURGER-TO-BE-MAMA CONTEST

Starting April 18th, 2017, those Islanders currently pregnant (at any stage of said pregnancy) are eligible to enter the Burger-To-Be-Mama contest. To enter, expecting Mother’s whose primary residence is Prince Edward Island are to share a photo of themselves with their pregnant belly within the frame..."

That's borderline perverted. :facepalm:
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No, "milking" it would mean the photo would have to have a bit more than just their belly in the frame. ;)
 
Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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I have not participated in this contest either through my own entry or through purchasing any of the burgers in the last 3 years that it has been going. If you look at some of the entries you will see some of the most digusting "ideas" that have been entered for pretty much "shock value" and advertising purposes. This contest is just getting worse with that "baby mama" BS.
 
Lannie

Lannie

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You guys are making me glad we have a steer in the pasture. Seriously, $4 a pound for HAMBURGER?? I think our home-raised grassfed beef comes out to about 50 cents a pound, but of course, we have to feed him until he's of butcher size, so it's more than that, but what's one more mouth around here? Pffftttthhhhh....

I love lamb but it's way too expensive for people like us. The only way we could afford lamb would be to buy one from the neighbor and have it butchered, but that ain't gonna happen. You have a cute fuzzy lamb run up and yell "MAAAAAAA!" in your face and there's no way you could ever kill it. Little shit would be sleeping in our living room... or at the foot of the bed. :rolleyes: And once it was big enough to be annoying, it would be mutton, which I've never had, but heard is not nearly as good as a tender lamb. So beef it is, at least for us. :)
 
Rickajho

Rickajho

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Darth Omerta said:
I have not participated in this contest either through my own entry or through purchasing any of the burgers in the last 3 years that it has been going. If you look at some of the entries you will see some of the most digusting "ideas" that have been entered for pretty much "shock value" and advertising purposes. This contest is just getting worse with that "baby mama" BS.
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Yeah, I saw some ...err "interesting" entries there. This contest brings forth classic examples of "just because you can doesn't mean you should."
 
Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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Rickajho said:
Maybe for next year they are working on the BURGER-AND-SAUSAGES CONTEST rules? :facepalm:
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We also have Porktoberfest which isnt nearly as popular as Burger Love but they do a whole month of sausages at various restaurants as well...to be honest...I actually like that one because it seems that restaurants get less carried away with ridiculous entries.
 
Rickajho

Rickajho

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Darth Omerta said:
I have not participated in this contest either through my own entry or through purchasing any of the burgers in the last 3 years that it has been going. If you look at some of the entries you will see some of the most digusting "ideas" that have been entered for pretty much "shock value" and advertising purposes. This contest is just getting worse with that "baby mama" BS.
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For the record: A quality burger is all about the beef, properly ground, followed by proper cooking technique. NOT fourteen inches of condiments that look like a Carmen Miranda headdress.
 
Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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Lannie said:
You guys are making me glad we have a steer in the pasture. Seriously, $4 a pound for HAMBURGER?? I think our home-raised grassfed beef comes out to about 50 cents a pound, but of course, we have to feed him until he's of butcher size, so it's more than that, but what's one more mouth around here? Pffftttthhhhh....

I love lamb but it's way too expensive for people like us. The only way we could afford lamb would be to buy one from the neighbor and have it butchered, but that ain't gonna happen. You have a cute fuzzy lamb run up and yell "MAAAAAAA!" in your face and there's no way you could ever kill it. Little shit would be sleeping in our living room... or at the foot of the bed. :rolleyes: And once it was big enough to be annoying, it would be mutton, which I've never had, but heard is not nearly as good as a tender lamb. So beef it is, at least for us. :)
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First off....Hey :D Long time no see! Hows things?!

Secondly...
I would absolutely LOVE to raise my own beef, lamb and chicken. I am therefore jealous of those who do!

I have had mutton and I found it to be delicious. I will admit that its a bit tougher if not cooked properly and I would usually recommend doing more braising with it than anything else but it also makes a great burger if you can grind it all up.;)

Rickajho said:
Yeah, I saw some ...err "interesting" entries there. This contest brings forth classic examples of "just because you can doesn't mean you should."
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Absolutely! Every year the 2 worst offenders are Hunters and The Frosty Treat. Hunters is guilty of doing what I call the Sysco Truck which is to say that they literally put anything and everything from the freezer(all products from Sysco) on their burger thus overpowering any potential beef flavor and burger texture...how can you call that "love"? The Frosty Treat puts ice cream on every entry they've ever made and often use waffles or some other gimmicky sweet bun. That does not inspire "love" in my opinion either. The point should be to make a delicious, well balanced(flavor wise) burger that while it may have a theme, all the components lend themselves to the overall flavor of a well made burger. This leads me to another rule that should be made and enforced...if the star of the dish is supposed to be Island Beef, then there should be a requirement as to what percentage of the sandwich should be actual beef. My recommendation would be 60-70%.
 
Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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Rickajho said:
For the record: A quality burger is all about the beef, properly ground, followed by proper cooking technique. NOT fourteen inches of condiments that look like a Carmen Miranda headdress.
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This....EXACTLY THIS...one trillion times THIS!

Its one thing to have a theme, for example one year I did what I called the pub fare, and every component had some sort of alcohol and it went a little something like this:

Whiskey BBQ infused Ground Beef
Guinness Cheddar Cheese
Apricot Brandy Candied Bacon
Black and Tan beer battered Onion Ring(maybe overkill in the garnish department but gave a nice crunchy contrast to the soft burger texture)
Rum reduction/roasted garlic aioli
lettuce and tomato(no booze in those but added color and flavor nonetheless)
Carmelized onion Beer Bun(made specifically for our burger by a local bakery)

I worked on it for 2 months to get the flavors to balance and compliment one another without overpowering the flavor of the beef which needed to be the star of the dish. That year we came in second place to the Goddess Burger which had a mediterranean theme and was very well balanced and very delicious.
 
Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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Another thing that ruins the contest is that the kitchens are so busy with making burger after burger that many have actually begun "par cooking" their burgers for faster service. This means that they are making their burger patty, baking it in the oven to about medium, then cooling it, refrigerating it and then "finishing" it on the grill to well done. This process robs the burger of any and all flavor and dries it out.

*Disclaimer*, In Canada, our regulations require us to serve ground beef at a minimum internal temp of 160 degrees. This prevents us from doing anything other than well done.
 
Rixsta

Rixsta

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Darth Omerta said:
Another thing that ruins the contest is that the kitchens are so busy with making burger after burger that many have actually begun "par cooking" their burgers for faster service. This means that they are making their burger patty, baking it in the oven to about medium, then cooling it, refrigerating it and then "finishing" it on the grill to well done. This process robs the burger of any and all flavor and dries it out.

*Disclaimer*, In Canada, our regulations require us to serve ground beef at a minimum internal temp of 160 degrees. This prevents us from doing anything other than well done.
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That's terrible..

Got to have a moist wet burger....Hey Emmy LOL.

I should stop drinking Champagne with lunch :)
 
Rickajho

Rickajho

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Darth Omerta said:
For the record, a good juicy burger can still be obtained when cooking it well done. It requires more care and control in your cooking process but it can and must be done.
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It's one of those necessary evils when dealing with any ground meat. People don't understand that cooties like salmonella only exist on the outer surface of cuts of meat. But once you grind it any outer surface that may be contaminated is now distributed throughout the ground meat. If you don't cook ground meat thoroughly you risk exposure.
 
Darth Omerta

Darth Omerta

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Rickajho said:
It's one of those necessary evils when dealing with any ground meat. People don't understand that cooties like salmonella only exist on the outer surface of cuts of meat. But once you grind it any outer surface that may be contaminated is now distributed throughout the ground meat. If you don't cook ground meat thoroughly you risk exposure.
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Yup! Thats exactly why our regulations are the way they are. You'd be surprised about how many people we get that are willing to throw a fit about it though....much like vaping we constantly get the "I do it all the time and Ive never had a problem".
 
Rickajho

Rickajho

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Emmy28 said:
Unbelievable. There would of been a time I would of been so embarrassed but now you really can GFY ;)

But did you know the bush is coming back into fashion !
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That one?

george_w_bush3.jpg
 
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