Pannbiff Med Lok – Hamburger style Beef Patties with Fried Onions

I’ve never been a pro at cooking hamburgers. When I’ve tried using the grill, I generally over cook them and they come out like hockey pucks. When I cook them indoors on the stove, besides the grease splatter, they come out sloppy and under cooked in the middle. So, what do you do?

Unfortunately there are fast food burger joints all over the place. It’s easy to just grab a couple of hamburger when I’m out. The thing is, I’m really trying not to do fast food. Not just for the health reasons, but for the money. In the long run it’s cheaper to make the meals at home, it tastes so much better, and it is healthier. Plus, I actually know what ingredients I’m putting into my mouth.

One of the worst experiences in making a hamburger was the time I tried to make the popular Swedish burger, Biff a la Lindstrom. It sounds amazing, beef combined with capers and pickled beets. However, after I got done mixing it, it was just a giant slop of purple goo! It has been my nemeses! I’ve never been able to get it right. I get nightmares over it! The shakes just thinking about it. However, I’m still working on it so one day I’ll conquer it! I refuse to wear a Detroit Red Wings Niklas Lindstrom jersey until that day! I know it’s a different guy that invented the open-faced burger but its the principle of it. Phew!

While searching Instagram of all places, I found a different way to make a Swedish style burger – the Pannbiff med och, or hamburger with onions. After researching it a little. I worked on a recipe and it’s amazing! I can see why it’s considered a true comfort food for Swede’s. Plus, it’s so easy to make. I had all the ingredients already in my pantry and spice rack, you might too. It’s excellent with roasted potatoes, a vegetable, and a side of buttered bread. I’ve also included how I roasted diced potatoes with this recipe below.

If you happen to be traveling to Sweden and wish to have a hamburger at a restaurant, make sure you order the one that says “biff”, not the one that says “hamburgerkött”. Hamburgerkött is a thinly sliced, salty, and smoked piece of horse meat, like a piece of salami. And you won’t find a recipe for that here…

Here’s how I made my pannbiff med lok:

Slice about 3-4 yellow onions into rings.

Saute the onions in butter until softened.  Add a sugar.

Keep going until the onions carmelize and turn a golden color.  Then set aside.

Mix together ground beef, an egg, milk and spices.

Form the meat mixture into four equal-sized patties.

Once the onions are done, in the same large pot, add more butter and the hamburger patties.

Once the bottom has browned, flip and brown the other side.

Add a cup of water to the pot.

Cover and let simmer for about 20-minutes.

After removing the cooked patties from the pot, reserve the juices to spoon over each piece.

Here is the perfectly cooked, amazing tasting burger.  I served it with roasted diced potatoes.  That recipe is below.

Don’t forget to add the carmelized onions on top of the burger.

 

PANNBIFF MED LOK – HAMBURGER WITH FRIED ONIONS

1 lbs ground beef
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
3 tbsp bread crumbs
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp sage
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
3-4 yellow onions, sliced into rings
4 tbsp butter, divided
1 tsp sugar
1 cup water

Melt just 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced onions and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and continue to saute until carmelized. Set aside.

Mix together the ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, milk and spices and form into 4 equally-sized patties. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat in the same pan as the onions were in and fry the patties until brown. Flip and brown the other side, about 3-4 minutes. Add the water, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until cooked through.

To serve, top the cooked meat patties with carmelized onions. It goes great with roasted potatoes, baked potatoes or noodles. Don’t forget the lingonberry jam!

ROASTED DICED POTATOES

4-6 potatoes, any type will do, peeled
olive oil
salt and pepper
dried thyme
paprika

I never measure out the salt, pepper, thyme or paprika, so it’ll be based on how you like the potatoes flavored.

Preheat the oven at 400 degress F. After peeling the potatoes, dice them into 1/2-inch pieces. Spread the diced potatoes out across an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet. Lightly drizzle with olive oil. Then shake salt and pepper over the potatoes along with the dried thyme and paprika. After doing so, using your hands, mix the potatoes up making sure all the pieces are coated.

Place the potatoes in the oven for 30 minutes. Afterwards, mix up the diced potatoes carefully so you don’t rip up the aluminum foil. If the edges are burning, place those pieces in the center. Return to the oven for 20-30 minutes longer, or until all pieces are nicely golden. Enjoy!

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Welcome to my new blog.

Or I should say valkommen!

Erik the Red got his name from his fiery temper and red hair and beard. He was exiled from his homeland of Norway. He went on to a viking settlement in Iceland where he was later banished for murder. He went further than other vikings and founded Greenland in the year 985. Erik the Red was also the father of Leif Eriksson – who went on to be one of the first Europeans to land in North America.

While the vikings from Norway and Denmark pillaged Western Europe, the Swedish vikings moved eastward through what is now Russia. The Swedish vikings, or Rus, are said to have been the founders of Russia. The word “viking” is also Swedish. It comes from the Swedish work for bay, “vik”.  Their stories, or sagas as they were called, told the tales of voyages, battles, feuds.  They were passed down along with the writings left in the rune stones and further lead to the viking mythology.

This Eric the Red, me, doesn’t have red hair or beard and I don’t think I have a fiery temper.  I became “Red” from my other blog, Red Beans And Eric.  No I didn’t get banished and forced to move on and discover a new blog.  This is just a way for me to talk a little more about my other love, Sweden.  This is actually my second blog on the topic.  A few years ago I stated one called COOKING LIKE A SWEDE.  I shared a few recipes then stopped.  I had a nice following in the beginning but it’s hard to dig deep into since I cannot read or speak Swedish.  I wasn’t frustrated, I was just too involved with my New Orleans blog to handle a Swedish one.

I feel like I’m stuck between too cultures and in no place to be in either of them.  Red Beans And Eric mainly is about a New Orleans kitchen in my Detroit home.  I share Creole and Cajun recipes from the Crescent City along with ones it has inspired me to create.  I’ve been blogging there since 2011.  Along with the recipes I share, I always interview popular New Orleanians asking them, “How Do You Red Bean?”  I also do red beans and rice product reviews, cookbook reviews and more.  But I’m in Detroit.  I’ve been to NOLA a few times and love it.  However, am I a New Orleanian?  No.

Chicago has a big Swedish population.  So does Minnesota.  Detroit?  No much.  There are a few small clubs.  I always say I’m going to join one and take their language course but it’s a drive to get out there.  Like New Orleans, I like to read about Sweden.  I like to research it’s histories and stories.  But I can only do so much since I can’t read Swedish.  So, do I feel like I’m of Swedish heritage? Kinda.  I like pickled herring and use ligonberries.  My bedroom set is from IKEA!  In fact, I fit the bed, two night stands and a 12-drawer dresser in a Ford Focus.

With ERIC the RED beans and err… rice? I want to dig deeper into my Swedish heritage, share some fun recipes, and hopefully create a little community of others stuck between a couple of cultures.  My “sagas” won’t be of sharing bloody battle stories or feuds, but of a voyage into recipes I love to cook and mixing the two unique cultures together.  I’ve done it once with my Swedish Meatball Po’boy sandwich recipe that was published in the fine book by Todd-Michael St. Pierre, The Southern Po’boy Cookbook, along with a couple of others!

So if you follow me from my Creole and Cajun Red Beans and Eric blog, or you’re finding me for the first time cooking to find something Swedish, thanks for stopping by and let’s go pillage the pantry and cook something!

-ERICtheRED