Every Breath You Tikka Masala

Mary had a little lamb.... and we ate it.


Quick overview: If you need to catch up This Is The Thing We're Doing, and This Was Burger 1

On Friday, we drew a page number from the burger roulette bowl and found that Burger 2 was the Every Breath You Tikka Masala burger. Earlier in the week our friends T & K asked if they could play along this week and since we wanted to get together and play cards anyway, we made a night of it.

Now, the Every Breath You Tikka Masala burger calls for either ground beef or ground lamb, but highly recommends the lamb. Anyone who has ever met me or eaten a meal with me knows how weird I am about food. But, being a good sport and since the book recommended it, Husband and I hauled ourselves to the butcher to pick up some ground lamb. That's right...we decided on lamb.

The butcher was super helpful, as I had never cooked ground lamb before, I cornered him and asked lots of questions, he was stoked to hear about our challenge and gave us some tips on how to get the most out of our burgers.

The recipe itself was highly Indian infused, which... I've never really eaten Indian food, but Husband has and was excited.

Here we go:

Burgers: Ground lamb with tikka masala rice and basil.

Side: Sweet and spicy potatoes.

<~~~Work goes quicker when everyone helps.

<~~~ Sweet and spicy potatoes with the masala gravy.

<~~~ Look at this magnificent burger.

<~~~ Gorgeous

<~~~Preparing to eat. Even Baby A enjoyed a Curry chicken something or other baby food thing. Also some of the rice we had.

<~~~ OMG I'M EATING LAMB!

<~~~ So apparently it was good.

<~~~ Baby A had a good time!


Since we involved friends we fully involved them.

Their thoughts:

T: Potatoes were great-- good heat and texture. Burger was good -- a bit bland, salt at the table helped. Maybe a bit more pepper on the lamb. 

                                                  8/10

Husband: Overall a very good burger. The lamb burger texture had good mouthfeel. The basil did seem to add much to the flavor, but not overpowering. Potatoes were very good.

                                                  8/10

K: Was expecting more from the burger considering all the spices involved. Kind of bland, but with salt it wasn't bad. Potatoes were good.

                                                    7/10

Now my thoughts. Generally, I agree with everything. I went light on the salt when I made everything, but the addition of some salt once at the table brought some of the flavors of the burger to life. Curry, ginger, cumin and garam masala spice went into the rice, and eventually on top of the potatoes, but I didn't find the rice to be particularly flavorful. The basil helped, but I don't particularly like basil so this wasn't great for me. 

Surprisingly enough I quite liked the lamb. It's texture was not much different from beef, and it cooked very similarly. The potatoes were good, we used a serrano pepper instead of just a hot chile pepper, which kicked up the heat quite a lot, but the masala sauce really brought it the heat to a manageable level.

                                                   6/10

This wasn't strictly the best burger I've eaten, but it wasn't the worst by far. I learned that I can be brave and try new things and sometimes it works out well. We're two out of two in the liking previously untested foodstuffs for me.

I'm thrilled that we've dragged friends into it with us, at least occasionally, as it's good to get varying opinions on things.

Thanks to T&K for continuing to be great guinea pigs, and for the use of your kitchen and every pan and flat surface that it held. Seriously, this meal required a lot of dishes to make. Make sure to check back next week for burger 3 in our Bob's Burger Burger Book Burger Roulette game. Can we make it 3 burgers in a row?

Until next time... Keep Sizzlin'

L xo