Bookworm is happy

This Sunday I went for business in Dubai, and since the Magrudy's were having a clearance sale we decided to check it out. Ah, it was a bookworm heavn, mountains of books... tons and tons, all starting from 5 AED~. Took me an hour to pick 4 books, and the total cost was 60 AED! I got Sharpe's Fury, the one I was lusting after since forever, for 15 AED; that's 90 AED less!, it's like it was free; my basket had also Man and Wife, The worst case scenario: x-mas, Pretty Straight guys and some English reading material for grade 5. After I went home I regretted not buying more books as gifts *selfish mai* and it was too late to go back, next time in sha'a allah I'll make sure I come out with a box full of books.

how big is your mouth

Ever since I started cooking, my golden rule was "never handle meat", the mere thought of cooking meat scared me, I always had this feeling that cooking meat needs some talent and experience, once I see a recipe that calls for meat I sigh and flip the page. One day I was craving beef burgers and my mum was out, so I had to summon my courage and make my own burgers; after flipping in some cookbooks and scraps of magazines I decided to use a recipe in James Martin's easy British food , but I did some modifications and 'till now I made burgers with the same recipe four times, and every time my family ask " when will be the next time you make more", hah~.

so yesterday I made some, and as always I remembered to take a picture after I started to eat, a trend is starting.

Beef burgers (Mai's way)

(makes 6 good sized burgers)

1 Fry the chopped onions in a little oil to take off the rawness.
2 Mix the minced beef with the onions, chopped gherkins, mayonnaise, mustard, Tabasco... then season well with salt and pepper.
3 Take a ball of the mixture and shape it into a burger then make a small indentation in the middle of it, put the cheese in it and enclose it and reshape into a burger.
4 Put in the fridge to firm for a 30 minutes.
5 Fry in a hot saucepan for 6 minutes on each side, for a well done burger, if you like it medium done cut out the cooking time to 4 minutes. If you are lazy (like me) you can just throw it in a 190C oven for 45ish minutes or less, and they will be perfect, just remember to splash some olive oil on the burgers before you pop them in the oven.


Ingredients
2 small onions, finely chopped
700 g minced beef
8 Gherkins (pickled cucumbers) chopped
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/2 tbsp mustard
splash of Tabasco, depending on how hot you want it
slat and pepper
6 slices of cheese, fold each to make a slice that is similar to a coin in size