The Feta with Roasted Red Pepper Aioli Patty Melt

It’s funny what we sometimes build meals around and for this supper, it was rye bread.  We still had some good rye bread from Pigeon Forge’s Old Mill Pottery House Café & Grille and Bev wanted to turn it into patty melts.  However, I’d recently saved and wanted to try the recipe for Feta Burgers with Roasted Red PepperAioli from Jenn’s Food Journey, so we decided to have both – we had everything on hand with a few minor ingredient changes (parentheses).  Please check out Jenn's fine blog (above link) for some great shots of her sandwich.

Ingredients:

1½ lbs. ground beef (ground chuck)

½ tsp. onion powder

¼ tsp. garlic powder

1 Tbsp. crumbled feta cheese (I like feta and used 2T)

½ tsp. pepper

4-6 hamburger buns 2-4 oz crumbed feta cheese (sliced rye bread for us)

leafy lettuce (optional)(we omitted)

tomato slices/cucumber slices (optional)(we omitted)

¼ red onion, halved and thinly sliced (our addition)

For the aioli -

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 roasted red pepper, roughly chopped

1 garlic clove, quartered

1 teaspoon olive oil

salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, add the ground beef, onion powder, garlic powder, 1 tablespoon feta cheese and pepper.  Using your hands, mix everything together and form into patties (half pounders to cover the large bread slices).  Cover and place in refrigerator until about 20 minutes before you are ready to cook them.

2. Add all the ingredients for the aioli into a food processor; pulse until everything is chopped and well mixed (we used a bowl and the immersion blender – much easier to clean up).  Place in small bowl, cover and store in fridge.

3. Heat 1 tbsp. oil in a 12" cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and browned, about 10 minutes. Transfer the onions to a bowl and wipe out skillet if needed. 

4. Working in batches, heat 1 tbsp. oil in skillet over med-high heat and add 2 burger patties; cook, flipping once, until well browned and at desired doneness - top with additional feta after flipping (I like feta and added a lot). 

5. Transfer patties to a plate and keep in a 125* toaster oven while other patties cook.

6. When all patties are cooked, wipe grease out the skillet and rewarm over medium heat.  

7. Put the patties between two slices of rye bread, butter the top slice, and put this side down in the skillet – butter the top slice.  When bottom is golden, flip and cook the other side to golden brown. 

8. When done, remove from the pan, top with the aioli and onions (if desired), and enjoy.

The classic patty melt includes sautéed onions but since I wasn’t sure how they would go with the other ingredients, I added them to only half my sandwich. Both halves were on the verge of roll-my eyes-back good and I liked the half with onions just a wee little bit better, as did Bev.  This was truly a delicious meal and a nice adaptation of Jenn's dish - I can imagine many uses for the aioli..

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry        

3/25/13 meal date