Cooking In, Lunch, Quick PostKerry Alaric CheeseboroMay 07, 2010Angus, bacon, balsamic, beef, buns, burgers, chili, chuck, cider, curry, garlic, ground, honey, hot, juice, lemon, madras, mayo, mayonnaise, mini, paste, pepper, powder, Quick Post, sandwich, sauce, shrimp, sliders, spicy, tomato, vinegarComment

My Little Burgers

"Surf 'n' Turf" Sliders | Bacon-Studded Mini Burgers Stuffed with Large Shrimp | Sweet Curry Mayo, Spicy Balsamic Ketchup

SO THERE I WAS IN my local Food Emporium, remiss over the fact that they had sold out of this artisanal brand squid ink pasta that I had wanted to use to make dinner with, and was ambling up and down each aisle looking for inspiration. I did find it, surprisingly, when I came across a stand featuring new Pepperidge Farms Sliders: Mini Sandwich Buns.

It is that burger/hot dog time of the year, and although I've made more than my share of burgers, I couldn't remember if I've ever made sliders. And being smack in the middle of the meat section and the seafood section, a quick scan of the proteins within my periphery quickly led to the idea of Surf 'n' Turf Sliders.

Getting home, I added some cooked bacon bits, fresh cracked pepper, and a couple drops of worcestershire sauce into so 80/20 ground beef Angus chuck and gave that a thorough hand-mixing. I arranged the pre-cooked shrimp into yin/yang couples and sandwiched them between two thin rounds of the ground beef.

The raw sliders getting salted on their exteriors, brushed with butter, and then placed in a very hot skillet. Meanwhile, I made two separate sauces to go on the sliders. For one, I mixed together some mayo, red curry powder, hot Madras curry powder, garlic powder, salt, white pepper, honey and cider vinegar; for the other, I mixed together tomato paste, balsalmic vinegar, lemon juice, paprika, chili powder, hot pepper sauce, salt and pepper.

I lightly toasted the tops and bottoms of the mini sandwich buns, smeared three of the bottoms with the curry honey mayo and three with the spicy tomato sauce, placed a slider on each of the bottom buns, then topped them with wild arugula and the top bun.