Dinner 2025

[Paul Bacino]

Afternoon Tea in London

 

[Norm Matthews]

This is also a copy of Hemingway's hamburger with some expanded information.  i tried this version a few years ago. It was good.  There were images including the original image but they didn't copy.

 

Matt Moore • September 10, 2019 • Last updated: June 4, 2021

How to Make Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Hamburger

 

 

 

Ernest Hemingway had a huge appetite for life. Whether pounding away at his typewriter, deep sea fishing off the Florida Keys, hunting from the mountains of the American West to the savannas of Africa, or issuing journalistic dispatches and even running his own reconnaissance patrols on the frontlines of war, he had a outsized hunger for a wide range of interests — and that included food itself.

Hemingway’s intimate connection to his food started early in his childhood. When he was just a young boy, his father introduced him to the pursuits of hunting and fishing, as well as their ethics: Ernest had to eat whatever he killed. For most sportsmen, such a rule is practical (and often delicious), especially when the game consists of rabbits, venison, elk, and fowl, all of which Ernest consumed with gusto; he had a particularly punctilious recipe for campfire-cooked trout. Yet he kept his father’s rule concerning less common and conveniently cooked game as well, consuming everything from porcupine to snake to lion.

Though Papa found his solace in the wild, he also enjoyed the culinary comforts of civilization — like dining out and sipping a nice wine or refreshing daiquiri. His posthumous masterpiece, A Moveable Feast (1964), showcases Ernest’s appreciation for describing his meals. I remember serving up this specific quote to my wife, to get her to come around to the joy of oysters:

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.

And while he wasn’t overly domestic, Hemingway sometimes cooked at home for himself and for others; as a war correspondent, he was known to fry up a pancake breakfast on a portable stove in his hotel room and invite his fellow journalists to partake. 

Most frequently though, he had his household staff cook his meals, based on recipes he had first meticulously taste-tested and formulated himself. A batch of these re-surfaced a decade ago, when in 2009 a trove of digitized documents made their way into the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. Most of these documents came from Hemingway’s time in Cuba, a roughly twenty-year period where he produced some of his literary bests, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea.

While the majority of the details in this archival material were mundane, there was one particular document, made viral by The Paris Review, that captured even my attention: the recipe for Papa’s favorite hamburger.

I’ve long been a burger purist. My philosophy has been well documented: use the best meat you can find, with a nice ratio of fat to meat, and season it with salt and pepper — nothing else. Gently mound the burger into a loose patty, and cook it up in a cast-iron pan to develop a nice char, with a medium-rare center.  

 

So I must say that I was a bit taken aback by Hemingway’s instructions when it came to preparing his hamburgers: “ground beef, onions, garlic, India relish, and capers, cooked so the edges are crispy but the center red and juicy.” Though the later cooking technique seemed on point, I felt awash in a slew of additional ingredients, some of which I naively deemed to be unnecessary.

Nevertheless, if there is one man who perhaps deserves an immense amount of trust, it is Hemingway himself. So I set about to re-create his recipe, exactly as it was written, ingredients, instructions, and all.

I inevitably hit some same snags in resurrecting this three-quarters-of-a-century-old burger formulation, however. One of the Spice Islands seasonings has since gone kaput. And India relish? I checked my local store and online, and while it’s possible to source, it’s not easy. With my beers cold in the fridge and my wife hankering for this burger, I thought it best to find the right substitute (included below). I felt less guilty about not following the recipe to a T, as Hemingway himself, or perhaps a family member, includes a slew of other ingredients scattered on the page. 

What resulted was honestly one of the best burgers I’ve had in my life. I’m not just saying that. Hell, my wife told me it was bar-none the best burger she’s ever had. The seasoned meat, when cooked exactly as described, provides a savory umami bomb of complexity, and the drippings of the burger absorbed into the bun, making condiments entirely unnecessary. I can see why a man so well-traveled, indulged, and imbibed, would go out of his way to create such a pleasure. And like most of his work, I’m simply glad he took the time to record it for others.  

The recipe is quoted in its exact form below, and I added a few substitution notes after that.

How to Make Papa’s Favorite Hamburger

From experimenting, Papa’s Favorite Hamburger. There is no reason why a fried hamburger has to turn out gray, greasy, paper-thin and tasteless. You can add all sorts of goodies and flavors to the ground beef — minced mushrooms, cocktail sauce, minced garlic and onion, chopped almonds, a big dollop of Piccalilli, or whatever your eye lights on. Papa prefers this combination.

Ingredients

I’m showing you all the ingredients here together so you can see them at a glance. But as you’ll see from the instructions, you add them to the meat in different steps when making the recipe.

• 1 lb. ground lean beef
• 2 cloves, minced garlic
• 2 little green onions, finely chopped
• 1 heaping teaspoon, India relish
• 2 tablespoons, capers
• 1 heaping teaspoon, Spice Islands Sage
• Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning — ½ teaspoon
• Spice Islands Mei Yen Powder — ½ teaspoon 
• 1 egg, beaten in a cup with a fork
• About one-third cup dry red or white wine
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil

Directions

Break up the meat with a fork and scatter the garlic, onion, and dry seasonings over it, then mix them into the meat with a fork or your fingers.

 

Let the bowl of meat sit out of the icebox for ten or fifteen minutes while you set the table and make the salad. Add the relish, capers, everything else including wine and let the meat sit, quietly marinating, for another ten minutes if possible.

Now make four fat, juicy patties with your hands. The patties should be an inch thick, and soft in texture but not runny.

Have the oil in your frying-pan hot but not smoking when you drop in the patties and then turn the heat down and fry the burgers about four minutes. Take the pan off the burner and turn the heat high again. Flip the burgers over, put the pan back on the hot fire, then after one minute, turn the heat down again and cook another three minutes. Both sides of the burgers should be crispy brown and the middle pink and juicy.

Substitution Notes/Changes

• Spice Islands discontinued its Mei Yen Powder several years ago. I substituted with 1 tsp. soy sauce, ½ tsp. kosher salt, ½ tsp sugar, combined and added into the meat mixture.
• The other Spice Islands seasonings are still available. The Beau Monde is a unique blend, but the sage can be substituted with any other good quality sage.
• India Relish. You can indeed still get this online, but often in bulk and usually for a pretty penny (for a jar of relish). The taste is described best as right down the middle, not too sour or sweet. I’m personally a dill relish guy, so I just substituted with my favorite dill relish and the result was spectacular.

[Honkman]

Fugazetta (Argentine Cheese-Stuffed Pizza) from CI recipe - dough made with bread flour, sugar, yeast and water, split up (2/3 will become the bottom, 1/3 the “top”) and left to rise for 90 minutes. Set up in a cast iron pan with a filling of mozzarella and provolone and topped with a lots of sliced onions (which you “dry” with salt and some squeezing), oregano and red pepper flakes. Baked for 40 minutes and topped with some olives. Not something we would eat everyday as it is quite substantial but nice dough with a good mix of slight crunch and softness and overall good flavor profile

[KennethT]

Chicken kapitan curry with the last of my 

 

Homemade roti canai.

[curls]

On 5/24/2025 at 7:04 PM, C. sapidus said:

Picked fresh strawberries from a local farm. Enjoyed strawberry shortcake before dinner.

 

 

Beautiful strawberries!  Which farm did you get them from?

[Tropicalsenior]

8 hours ago, Honkman said:

Fugazetta (Argentine Cheese-Stuffed Pizza)

That looks exactly like the ones that we saw when we were in Argentina. I didn't see any that had olives but possibly they aren't commercially viable. It brought back some good memories.

[weinoo]

 

I made a big batch of this Japanese curry roux (from scratch via this kit), and store it in the fridge and freezer.

 

 

Chicken thighs on the bone, carrots, Japanese sweet potatoes, red potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, stock, soy, honey, chicken stock. Starting by browning the chicken thighs, skin side down, then cooked the onions, ginger and garlic in the rendered schmaltz before adding the rest of the vegetables, stock, seasonings and chicken back in to braise along with everything else.

 

Dissolve a few cubes of the roux and add it:

 

 

Japanese curry rice, with chicken. (Although normally I would use a Japanese short-grain rice, this is Jasmine rice, with a fair amount leftover for fried rice).

[Duvel]

On 5/25/2025 at 5:03 AM, Dante said:

Ernest Hemingway burger

Is it worth getting all the ingredients ? Reading the recipe it feels like a slightly overspiced Frikadelle, but I am inclined to give it a go upon your recommendation …

[C. sapidus]

2 hours ago, curls said:

Beautiful strawberries!  Which farm did you get them from?

 

Thanks!

 

Glade Link Farms (clicky)

[liamsaunt]

Some quick dinners this week

 

Rigatoni with roasted pepper sauce and spinach

 

 

A NYTimes cooking recipe for weeknight chicken tagine

 

 

Sweet potato dumplings with broccoli, brown butter, and toasted pine nuts

 

[gulfporter]

EZPZ dinner.  Frozen mini-meatballs in a spicy sauce over pasta. 

 

[TdeV]

1 hour ago, liamsaunt said:

<snip>

Sweet potato dumplings with broccoli, brown butter, and toasted pine nuts

 

 

@liamsaunt, all these dinners look fabulous (and easy as pie)

 

I'm very interesting in these sweet potato dumplings. Have a recipe, please?

[Shel_B]

28 minutes ago, TdeV said:

 

@liamsaunt, I'm very interesting in these sweet potato dumplings. Have a recipe, please?

+1

[Ann_T]

@Honkman, that Fugazetta, looks amazing.

 

Saturday night night dinner = A quick and easy "Tapa" night. Moe is still working on organizing my cookbooks.

And my goal is to make a new recipe or at least try, to make a new recipe each week, pulled from one of my cookbooks.

Both of these recipes came out of "tapas" by Susanna Tee.

Matt made the Spanish Tortilla so I just added a couple of other tapas.

 

Dinner was ready in less than 30 minutes after I got home from work.

Garlic mushrooms and

Chorizo and fried bread with garlic, parsley and paprika.

 

I bought a smoker two years ago and have only used a few times.

Decided since I wasn't working yesterday I would do two things, a whole double chicken breast and wings.

The wings were finished first. 

 

Served with m Caesar salad that I have been making for 46 years. 

 Moe loves this salad.

Homemade dressing make with a coddled egg and homemade croutons.

Edited 20 hours ago by Ann_T (log)

[liamsaunt]

16 hours ago, TdeV said:

 

@liamsaunt, all these dinners look fabulous (and easy as pie)

 

I'm very interesting in these sweet potato dumplings. Have a recipe, please?

 

15 hours ago, Shel_B said:

+1

 

I did not follow a specific recipe.  Basically, I wanted to make gnocchi but I did not have time, so I made dumplings.  I used this recipe as a  jumping off point.  King Arthur Flour sweet potato gnocchi

 

Last night, we had grilled herbed chicken with tzatziki, salad, lemon rice and flatbread

 

[Dr. Teeth]

A bit of a kitchen fail.   I made Lima bean curry with Rancho Gordo Christmas Limas.   I had made this before with very good results, but previously I had scooped the limas out of the instapot into the large frying pan I use for curries.   This time they were made ahead of time with the beans and bean broth pit into a container in the fridge.   When I dumped the entire contents into the pan, the added broth gave the whole thing an unintended, unfortunate color.   Still tasted great, very fond of the Christmas Limas.   One of my favorites from RG.

[Shelby]

As per usual I've been really bad about taking pictures.  Maybe because I think my food is super boring sigh lol.  Also because my mom came to visit!!!  And, we get to talking and having fun and I forget pictures.

You may remember last year--she came exactly the same time as last year when we had that huge storm that cracked our barn in half and blew down a zillion trees--anyway, ANOTHER big storm was forecast so she got here around 3 I think in the afternoon.  She beat the storms again and luckily they weren't as bad as last year.  Last year we had no power for most of her stay and that was no fun.  SO, we had a really fun visit and didn't have to chainsaw a bunch of trees and not sweat to death with no air-conditioning.  

 

Charcuterie board when she arrived--radishes from our garden

 

 

Next morning we had champagne while I opened gifts from her   Blackberries in the champagne

 

 

Mexican stuffed peppers

 

 

And then my photographing became very minimal lol.

 

She made Grammy's rice-a-roni salad--we love this stuff and our husbands won't eat it so we make it when we're together.  

 

 

This was the meal on her last night here--I had fried a bunch of chicken strips for a meal and had tons left over so we had big salad night.  Mom made these delicious GORGEOUS cucumber slices topped with sour cream, caviar and smoked salmon.  Dill that Ronnie's growing.

 

 

 

 

Sad that she's gone  

 

We got our first zucchini from the garden so I made pizza stuffed boats and sigh more salad lol

 

 

 

 

[Dr. Teeth]

There have been many spectacular pictures of food in the history of eGullet.

 

The salami rose is simply in a class by itself 

[Shelby]

1 hour ago, Dr. Teeth said:

There have been many spectacular pictures of food in the history of eGullet.

 

The salami rose is simply in a class by itself 

Oh my you've made my week.  That's so nice of you to say.  

 

The bad thing is no one eats it because they say it's too pretty 🤣

[curls]

@Shelby delicious meals & gorgeous peonies! So glad that this year’s visit from your Mom included air conditioning and better weather. I find that the house is so much quieter the day after company leaves — I also don’t enjoy that first super quiet no guests breakfast. Probably a sign of a great visit… otherwise I’d be thrilled that the visit is over. 😄

[Shelby]

4 minutes ago, curls said:

@Shelby delicious meals & gorgeous peonies! So glad that this year’s visit from your Mom included air conditioning and better weather. I find that the house is so much quieter the day after company leaves — I also don’t enjoy that first super quiet no guests breakfast. Probably a sign of a great visit… otherwise I’d be thrilled that the visit is over. 😄

Thank you so much.   I am so sad that the peonies are done sigh.  Yeah.....I still feel lonely and she's been gone for days.  (hugs)

[curls]

19 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Thank you so much.   I am so sad that the peonies are done sigh.  Yeah.....I still feel lonely and she's been gone for days.  (hugs)

(hugs)

[C. sapidus]

Adobo de pollo de Lujo (red chile-braised chicken with potatoes and greens). Sauce was ancho and guajillo chiles (toasted and soaked) blended with roasted garlic, Mexican oregano, cumin, cloves, black pepper, and chicken stock. Sauce was fried, simmered with chicken stock, simmered with the chicken, potatoes, and Swiss chard, and then reduced. Topped with sauteed white onion.

 

Edit: Mrs. C's sourdough bread did an excellent job of sopping up any extra sauce.

 

I had been craving the deep rich flavors of a Mexican dried chile sauce and this hit the spot.

 

Edited 5 hours ago by C. sapidus
Sourdough (log)

[Ann_T]

We had halibut fish and chips for a late lunch.

 

I knew we wouldn't want dinner so I decided instead to bake Butter Tarts.

Dessert for dinner.

[Shel_B]

@C. sapidus That chicken dish looks and sounds great. I may try playing around with it. As I close my eyes and taste it, I'm thinking some pasilla de oaxaca might be a nice addition (maybe not for you, but I like smokey flavors), and while the difference between Mexican oregano and Rancho Gordo's Oregano Indio may be subtle, the Indio may be nice to try. FWIW, I prefer it to regular Mexican oregano in many dishes.

 

Pasilla de Oaxaca is sometimes hard to come by. One source that's been dependable thus far is 

https://oaktownspiceshop.com/products/pasilla-de-oaxaca-chiles-whole?

Edited 4 hours ago by Shel_B (log)