Cumin Lamb Stir-Fry

My favorite Chinese restaurant in the area is owned by people from Chengdu, in the Szechuan province. It has opened my eyes to the variety in Chinese food, bringing in ingredients like homemade pickled bamboo, the increasingly present and always numbing Szechuan peppercorn, and the use of lamb, often with cumin. The first time I had lamb in a stir-fry was at P.F. Chang's, which shouldn't even really count, but it at least helped me realize that Chinese food shouldn't always just be about what sauce you want your chicken or beef swimming in. Savory, wild, and bursting with a rustic flavor that had nothing to do with General Tso or his counterparts, Pork Lo Mein and Wonton Soup, Chinese lamb dishes point out that there's something familiar and "country" about this part of China. So when I saw this cumin lamb stir-fry recipe on the NYT website, I was immediately ready to make it, and went out in search of lamb that same day.  

Naturally, this was a disaster. Somehow, despite watching Melissa Clark's video and following it verbatim, her magic did not translate into my kitchen. The resultant dish tasted almost right, but lacked body, and was a choking hazard when I just threw in a bunch of cilantro because it didn't call for chopping anything. So I had to modify the process to suit the average cook's home stove, which by no means can handle cooking a full pound of meat properly in one go. The second attempt was notably different, with properly seared and juicy lamb, and no choking hazards. It was every bit as good as food from the Szechuan restaurant, and if metering one's oil usage carefully, I would say it's probably more healthy as well. A definite win against the evils of professional recipes made in professional kitchens by people who can be snobby on a professional level.

Peruvian Chicken (Pollo a la Brasa)

If you haven't had it, Peruvian chicken is one of those hidden gems in the fast food world.  For some reason, we have a ton of different Peruvian chicken restaurants in my town; I'm told it's because we had a lot of Peruvian people come over here from a ministry exchange, and they set up shop all over town.  The history of the dish actually originates with two Swiss-Peruvians who decided to reinvent the rotisserie machine in the 1940s, and this dish took off to the point where it is now one of Peru's national culinary specialties.  The chicken is slow-roasted after being coated with a marinade, usually containing garlic, cumin, and vinegar, but with other ingredients differing somewhat based on where you look.  It is also traditionally served with flavorful spicy sauces such as aji verde, a green chile sauce.

I found this recipe in an old Food Network cookbook, and adapted it with two things in mind - I didn't have a large chicken, and I definitely didn't have a rotisserie.  Instead, I used the same exact recipe with two Cornish game hens, which ended up working out great.  I was amazed that the flavors were so close to those of the restaurant, especially since the cooking method is so different.  Granted, the skin lacked a little of the char flavor and crispy texture that you can't achieve without spinning it over an open flame for a while, but for a homemade version, I'd say this was pretty close for using no special equipment.

A more excellent mix of herbs and seasonings there never was.  Neglect the lime, that's not supposed to be in there.

Chipotle Chicken Soup with Lime Crema

You may have heard of tortilla soup, which is a strange name for what is often either a cheese-based cream of chicken soup or a brothy minestrone with chicken.  What makes it 'tortilla' soup is the presence of some tortillas shoved in there against their will, either fried or dissolved right in.  While this can be quite delicious, if you focus just on the soup itself, and not on the tortilla part, you can go one step further.

My family this recipe in some magazine years ago, but I have since tweaked it to enhance the flavor some.  It relies on chipotle chiles, which have become amazingly popular recently.  Chipotles are nothing more than jalapeno peppers that have been smoked, and they are either found dried, or canned in a spicy sauce seasoned with adobo, a latin seasoning.  But since adobo just means 'seasoning', I can't quite tell you what's in it, other than that it's good.

Save yourself some time on this one and buy a store-bought chicken.  But if you happen to have roasted your own, and you happen to have made a stock from the bones of that chicken afterwards, I'm not going to stop you from using them to make quite possibly the best combination of those things that you could get in your mouth without committing some kind of crime.

I got a bit experimental and made a lime crema this time, figuring it would balance out the soup.  As peppers are alkaline, meaning that they basic in terms of their pH level, they can be neutralized by acidic things, as well as fatty things.  This is because the capsaicin found in peppers is fat-soluble.  So, if your head didn't just explode there, the moral is that if you mix dairy and an acid, you have a powerful chile-fighting condiment that might not taste half bad either.

Chipotle Chicken Soup with Lime Crema

• 1 chipotle from can of chipotles in adobo
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 chopped red bell pepper
• 3 chopped green onions, greens and whites separated
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp freshly ground cumin
• 1 tsp powdered chiles
• 2 cooked chicken breasts or meat from a cooked chicken, about 3 cups, cut or shredded into small pieces
• 28 oz low-sodium chicken broth, or homemade
• 14-16 oz can chopped tomatoes with green chiles, such as Del Monte or Rotel
• 12 ounces frozen or fresh corn kernels
• 2 tbsp cilantro leaves
• 1/2 avocado, slices

Nothing too crazy in this, but a bit of chopping before you can start

Try to cut things up as evenly as possible to assist in even cooking.  Go for corn kernel-sized bits of pepper.

Finely mince the chipotle pepper, as well as the other vegetables.  In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add bell pepper, the white parts of the green onions, the garlic, the cumin, and the powdered chiles.  Saute for 4 minutes until soft but not browning, stirring frequently.

Next, deglaze with the chicken broth.  Stir in the chipotle chile, chicken, tomatoes, and corn.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until ready to serve.

To plate, heat bowls and then ladle in soup.  Garnish with lime crema (recipe follows), cilantro leaves, and the tops of the green onions.  Arrange avocado slices on top and serve.

Lime Crema

• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 lime
• 1/2 tbsp cilantro leaves
• 1/4 tsp salt

In a small bowl, mix sour cream, zest from the lime, and the juice of half the lime.  If desired, finely mince the cilantro and add to the crema.  Allow flavors to combine in the fridge for 30 minutes if time permits.

Pretty simple, and pairs up well with the spicy soup.

Shrimp in Black Bean Sauce

This recipe is similar to my chicken in black bean sauce, but without the marinating and with a slightly different mix of ingredients a bit more well suited to shellfish.  It's not quite shrimp in lobster sauce, which is coming soon, but it's still a solid sauce, very different from your standard Cantonese-style brown garlic sauce.

Shrimp with Black Bean Sauce
Food.com

• 1/2 lb large shrimp ( shelled, deveined and washed)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic oil (or sesame oil)
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon fermented black beans, well washed and drained
• 1 green onion, sliced thinly, white and green parts separated
• 1 teaspoon shaoxing wine (or sherry or rice wine)
• 1 tablespoon fresh coriander, minced
• 1/2 head broccoli, rinsed, cut into florets
• 1/2 can baby corns
• Steamed rice, to serve

• 2 teaspoons oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 3/4 teaspoon sugar
• Salt and white pepper, to taste
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup seafood stock

Ready your stir-fry ingredients - chop up vegetables, set aromatics aside next to wok, and gather ingredients for the sauce (oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, stock) in a bowl.  Peel and devein shrimp, and have nearby.  Smash the rinsed black beans slightly to form something between a paste and whole beans, similar to the consistency of refried beans.

Get your shrimp cleaned and at the ready

Chop up your ingredients

It helps if you line everything up in the order of use, to avoid confusion

Heat wok over high heat for 30 seconds.  Add garlic oil and coat the wok.   When a wisp of white smoke appears, add garlic, white portion of the green onion, and black beans, then immediately add the broccoli florets.  Stir-fry for about 2 minutes, until starting to turn bright green.  Now add the shrimp.  The hotter you can get your wok before adding this, the better.  And keep your stove on high!  You want to cook these guys as fast as possible.  Mix together, then leave alone for about 30 seconds.  Flip them over as best you can, then stir-fry another 30 seconds.  Add wine by drizzling around the edges of the wok, add baby corn, and mix well.

Stir-fry until the shrimp turn pink.  These guys aren't ready to go yet

Once the shrimp begin to curl and turn pink, they're basically done.  Make a well in the center of the mixture.  Stir the sauce and pour into the center of this well.  Mix to combine all ingredients, and stir while cooking on high for about 90 seconds or less, until the sauce begins to thicken and bubble.

Turn off the heat, and add the minced green onion tops.  Remove to a heated dish, sprinkle with minced coriander and serve.

Thai Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam)

If you've never tried it, papaya salad is a refreshing (but spicy) first course served in Thailand.  It's got something for everyone's food allergy, too - peanuts, shrimp, and cilantro.  So be careful who you serve this to.  And don't worry if you can't find shrimp paste, since I didn't feel that it added much to the dish, plus it smells... strange.

The recipe provides a fun exercise in taste testing, wherein you get to adjust at the end for sweetness, saltiness, and tartness using three different ingredients.  So even if you abandoned your dreams of culinary school, you can still practice working out each group of your taste buds and feel like a chef for a fleeting moment.

And if you need even MORE reasons to make this, well, let me tell you about papaya.  Did you know that it is a digestive aid?  That it's high in vitamins B and C, dietary fiber, and other minerals?  That it's being studied as a suppressor of liver cancer, and as a contraceptive?  That it has antifungal properties, and its leaves are used to treat malaria?  Or my favorite bizarre 'fact':

"Harrison Ford was treated for a ruptured disc incurred during filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom by papain (made from papaya) injections."  -Wikipedia, citing the book Harrison Ford: The Films

This recipe was taken practically verbatim from About.com's Thai food page, which is a really good source of information if you're looking to branch out.

Papaya salad - a good way to wake up your taste buds

Thai Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam)
by Darlene Schmidt

• 1/2 tsp. shrimp paste (if vegetarian, substitute 1/2 Tbsp. Thai golden mountain sauce OR 1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce)
• 2 Tbsp. good-tasting oil, such as olive
• 2 Tbsp. fish sauce OR 2+1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce for vegetarians
• 3 Tbsp. lime juice
• 1/2 to 1 Tbsp. liquid honey, to taste
• 1 small green papaya, OR 1/2 large (your papaya should be very firm, the flesh white to light orange in color)
• 1/2 cup roasted peanuts, or cashews
• 1-2 cups bean sprouts
• 1 to 2 tomatoes, cut into long thin strips, or 1/2 pound cherry tomatoes
• 1 red chili, minced (seeds removed if you prefer a milder salad)
• 3 spring onions, sliced into long matchstick-like pieces
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped if leaves are large
• handful of fresh cilantro

This is what papaya looks like.  I believe the seeds are black when it's ripe

Most of the remaining ingredients.  The shrimp paste is particularly scary

I used a couple of cherry tomato varieties rather than large tomatoes

Prepare the dressing by mixing together the first five ingredients together in a cup. Make sure shrimp paste (if using) and honey dissolve fully.  Set aside.

Peel the green papaya, then slice it in half and remove all the seeds.  Using the largest grater you have, grate the papaya.  If you have a mandoline, things will be a lot more consistent and will go a lot faster, plus you get the opportunity to get stitches.  Place in a large bowl.

Papaya, after a run through the mandoline.  Note the absence of fingertips from the mandoline blade

Shred the green onions to the same shape as the papaya

Add the sliced tomato, spring onion, chili, bean sprouts, and most of the basil.  Add the dressing, tossing to combine.  Add only as much dressing as you think will be necessary - this makes a bit more than I thought should have been in there, and as a result it became too watery by the end.

Add the peanuts / cashews (I prefer to chop, but you can leave them whole).  Toss again, and taste.  If not sweet enough, add a little more honey.  If not salty enough, add a little more fish sauce.  If too sweet or salty, add more lime juice.  If you prefer it spicier, add more fresh-cut chili or dried crushed chili.

To serve, scoop the salad into individual bowls or onto a serving platter.  Sprinkle with remaining basil leaves plus fresh coriander, and serve immediately.

Tomatillo Salsa and Homemade Tostadas

Do you ever wake up and think, wow, I need some tomatillo salsa!  Well, I did recently, and decided that rather than traveling to Mexico, I might make some of my own.  Recently some friends of mine made a batch, and it made me realize that I need to stop eating the jarred version.  I put this stuff on everything - burritos, nachos, tacos... well, basically anything that's a tortilla covered in meat, cheese, and/or vegetables.  What I have since learned is that made well, it's tangy, a little sweet, spicy, and incredibly fresh, more like pico de gallo than jarred salsa.  Made poorly, and it's often tart and no better than what you can buy from a jar.

Last time I tried to make this, I ended up with option b above.  I tried to oven-roast the tomatillos, and in the process just cooked the heck out of them, losing their fresh taste.  This time I switched recipes and went for the broiler, mostly because it was threatening to rain outside and I didn't want to turn on the grill.  If you have a gas oven, I recommend the broiling option, which seemed to work pretty well.

Tomatillos.  A nightshade like tomatoes, but they grow in a husk, are much more tart, and remain green.

For once, I didn't want to build a menu around meat, so this meal was all about everything else.  I opted to make tortillas from scratch, use some pickled onions from my recent poblano burger recipe, and whip up a quick beef filling to serve as the protein.  But trust me, you could use anything here - roasted vegetables, tofu, refried beans, whatever.  I will present the recipes for the tomatillo salsa (courtesy Rick Bayless), the tortillas (courtesy of my friend German from Mexico), and the beef tacos (from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook).

Tomatillo Salsa

unmodified from Rick Bayless recipe

• 1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed
• 4 to 5 serrano chiles, stemmed
• 1 small (4 oz) white onion, sliced 1/4-inch thick
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro, loosely packed
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tsp salt (approximate)
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)

Heat the broiler. Lay the whole tomatillos and serranos on a broiler pan or baking sheet lined with foil. Set the pan 4 inches below the broiler and let roast until the tomatillos are softened and splotchy black in places (the skins will split), about 5 minutes; your goal is to cook the tomatillos through while they roast, which means they'll have begun their transition from light bright green to olive color on the top side. With a pair of tongs, flip over the tomatillos and chiles and roast the other side for another 4 or 5 minutes or so. Set aside to cool.

Broiled tomatillos and peppers.  Notice the hints of bright green still seen in some parts - this means I didn't overcook them.  Try to get the char on as quickly as possible!

Turn the oven down to 425 degrees. Separate the onion into rings and, on a similar pan or baking sheet, combine them with the garlic. Set in the oven. Stir carefully every couple of minutes, until the onions are beautifully roasted (they're going to look rather wilted and translucent, even have a touch of char on some of the edges); the garlic should feel soft and look browned in spots. Total roasting time will be about 15 minutes. (If you like smoky flavors in your salsa, try roasting the onion and garlic on a perforated grilling pan over a moderately low charcoal fire.) Cool to room temperature.

In a food processor, pulse the serranos (no need to peel or seed them) with the onion-garlic mixture until moderately finely chopped, scraping everything down with a spatula as needed to keep it all moving. Scoop into a big bowl, then, without washing the processor, coarsely puree the tomatillos and their juice. Stir them into the bowl. (If you're making the largest quantity, you'll have to do the tomatillos in two batches.) Stir in the lime juice and enough water to give the salsa an easily spoonable consistency-in Mexico they like this salsa spicy and pretty runny, the kind of salsa you dribble on rather than scoop up with chips. Stir in the cilantro.

Taste and season highly with salt.  Taste again and, if you wish, add just enough sugar to take the edge off the tomatillos' very bright tanginess. If you're planning to use your salsa right away, simply pour it into a bowl and it's ready, or refrigerate it and use within 5 days.

Tomatillo salsa, coarsely pureed and seasoned to my liking.  Best recipe I've found so far.

Homemade Tortillas (enough for 4 small)

• 1/2 cup Maseca tortilla mix
• 1/3 cup water
• pinch (1/4 tsp) salt

In a bowl, combine all three ingredients.  Stir with a clean hand to combine (there is a reason for this).  You want to make sure the mix is the right consistency.  What is this consistency, you ask?  Ah, now THAT is hard to describe.  Perhaps a picture will help:

Tortilla dough, mixed to the right consistency

This is why I say mix with your hands.  You want to make sure the dough is coming together, and not too wet.  Odds are, you will need to add more water than the recipe.  But don't go crazy - add 1 teaspoon at a time until everything just comes together, and forms a relatively dry ball with no small grains that can't be incorporated.  But if it's too wet, it won't cook right, so be patient and be one with your dough.  For the record, this type of guesswork is the same process for making crepes and, to a certain extent, pancakes as well.

Now just whip out your tortilla press.  What, you don't have one?  Well why are you following this recipe!  You need a press to make tortillas, they can't just be rolled out with a rolling pin.  I suppose you could put two plates of metal down and then drive over them with your car, but that's fairly inefficient.  No, what you want is one of these:

My tortilla press, safely wrapped in plastic bags to make getting the tortillas out of them a lot easier.

My Mexican friend gave me one that he bought south of the border for like $5, although Amazon will charge you $12 for one.  Homemade tortillas taste pretty great, and you can make them very easily from basically one ingredient, so I think it's a worthwhile tool to keep in the kitchen.  Anyway, separate the dough into 4 equally sized pieces, and form them into balls.  Place one ball in the press, closer to the hinge side than the center, and work your magic:

Pressing out a tortilla.  It's a fun way to take out some frustrations, up there with tenderizing meat and shelling walnuts

Once you've got your tortillas pressed, cook them in a dry skillet set over high heat, about 2 minutes per side.  You're looking for a little char, but not full-on bursting into flames.  I tried an electric skillet this time, which is great for the surface area, but a large skillet set over a gas flame would be better.  You may need to do just one or two at a time.  As they finish, place them in a towel, basket, or some other storage vessel to keep them warm.

Homemade tortillas, warming in my tortilla basket.

Beef Taco Filling

America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

I put this recipe here to convince you that the packet of taco seasoning from the store is not the only way to make tacos.  It's mostly salt and MSG in that stuff, anyway, and this recipe had a nice balance of flavors that I look forward to nursing for the next few days.  It also didn't take much time to make.  However, it does assume that you keep chile powder on hand.  Note well - chile is not the same as chili!  Chili powder is an uncreative mixture of spices that you buy pre-mixed.  Chile powder is exactly that - powdered chiles.  I make my own by grinding a mixture of ancho and guajillo chiles.

Chile powder, not chili powder.  Note the dark color and lack of spices like salt, pepper, etc.  That's because it's just chiles!

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, minced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons chile (not chili) powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• salt
• 1 lb lean ground beef (or chicken, or tofu, or vegetables, or anything you like)
• 1/2 cup canned tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup low sodium broth (beef, chicken, vegetable)
• 2 tsp cider vinegar
• 1 tsp light brown sugar

To begin, grind up any spices you might need to prepare, and set everything at the ready.  Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. 

Sauteing onions for taco filling.  Don't cook them much more than this

Stir in the garlic, spices, and 1 teaspoon salt.  Cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Stir in the ground beef.  Cook, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the tomato sauce, broth, vinegar, and sugar.  Simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with salt to taste.

Final skillet of beef taco filling

The Final Product - Homemade Tomatillo Salsa over Homemade Beef Tostadas

So now let's put it all together.  To serve, I like to let everyone assemble their own dish, but the general idea is to layer everything on the tostada so you can get a hint of all the flavors in every bite.

Here's what I like to bring to the table.  Nice serving size, right?  Left to right, you've got the tomatillo salsa, cilantro, sour cream, pickled onions, grated cheese, and hot sauce.  Up top are the homemade tortillas and beef taco filling.

And here's what a couple of finished tostadas looked like.  This is definitely knife and fork food.

Here's what a vegetarian version looks like, from my last round.  Sub the meat out for zucchini, peppers, and black beans.

Spicy Poblano Burgers with Chipotle Cream and Pickled Red Onions

Well, after an overly long hiatus, I'm back.  Life is good, thanks for asking.  I mean, how bad could it be, considering that I was finally able to make a crazy hamburger recipe without my good friend and former housemate lamenting "why would you ever put something in a burger besides salt and pepper?!"  Because it's awesome, that's why.

Show me potato salad!

Tonight's post liberates and modifies a burger recipe from Cooking Light, wherein ground beef is augmented with spices and a roasted chile pepper.  To top it off, it calls for a chipotle cream, as well as pickled red onions.  For those of you who haven't had either of these things, a) I weep for you, and b) you need to try them.  Chipotle peppers, being jalapenos that have been smoked and either dried or preserved in a spicy sauce called adobo, are more than just the namesake of your favorite mission-style burrito.  They are also a small piece of heaven, and make for an incredible flavored mayonnaise that's very easy to whip up at home.  And pickled red onions are a garnish traditionally served in Latin cuisine, with a slight bit of tang and a crisp, refreshing bite.  The idea of throwing these things on a burger sounded too good to pass up, and I assure you, the combination is fairly impressive when you're done.

The chipotle - a smoked / dried jalapeno.  And you thought it was some kind of crazy mystery pepper!

Pickled red onions.  I use my own recipe, which is easy and fast, and requires about 4 things you have around the kitchen.

The recipe calls for roasted poblanos in the burger meat.  This is a simple process that can go horribly if you don't follow the directions.  Let's walk through the process quickly:

1. Take your peppers and char them over an open flame.  Do not bake them, don't put them in a pan and sear them.  Char them, over a gas burner, on a grill, or in a broiler.  Turn them regularly, to make sure they are well blackened.
2. Take the still hot peppers and put them in a bag.  You're trying to get the skin off, which you don't want to eat.  To do this, you want the steam coming from the peppers to work its way throughout the membrane keeping the skin attached, so that even the non-charred bits give up their fight and let go.  Translation: place in a sealed plastic zip-top bag, and let the peppers sit for 15 minutes.
3. Peel the skin off.  Try to get as much as possible removed, or the final product will both look and feel weird.

The mostly charred peppers.  I used cubanelle, because I'm lazy and couldn't find poblanos.  About the same heat level and flavor in a pinch.

The peppers, after steaming in a ziploc bag.

Look, the skin comes right off in sheets!

If you're lucky, you can get most of the skin off in one pull.

The finished product, peeled, seeds removed, and sliced open.

We all thought the burgers were great, although I would have cooked them slightly more rare on a better grill.  Regardless, the tart chipotle cream, the slightly sweet, slightly sour pickled onions, and the savory burger come together in what I thought was a well-rehearsed symphony of flavors.  Make sure you are sitting when you eat the hamburger, and please, remember to eat responsibly.

The recipe calls for making a few subassemblies, which need to be prepared in a certain order to get the flavors and consistency correct.  I will outline the recipe in the order in which you must complete everything for maximum awesomeness.  Besides changing the order of the recipe, I replaced white bread and milk with panko crumbs, which gives the burger just a bit more body and a less mushy meatloaf-y texture.

Spicy Poblano Burgers with Pickled Red Onions and Chipotle Cream

Adapted from Cooking Light, July 2010

• 2 poblano chiles
• 1 oz panko crumbs
• 3 tbsp minced fresh cilantro, divided
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, divided
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 1 pound ground sirloin (I used 90/10 chuck)

• 1/2 cup light sour cream
• 1 tbsp minced shallots
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice
• 1 (7-oz) can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (you will just need 1 chile)
• 4 (1.5-oz) hamburger buns, toasted

• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• pinch red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp dried oregano

First, get the pickled onions pickling.  You can do this a day ahead, but a few hours is better than nothing. Most importantly, slice your onions thinly and uniformly.  For this, I use a mandoline, also referred to in my kitchen as 'the finger slicer'.  This medieval torture instrument is valuable not only for injuring yourself, but also for making precisely sliced foods.  Observe:

The mandoline - observe nature's cruelest mistake

I recommend using the finger guard, unless you have excellent medical insurance

These perfectly sliced onions were created in about 10 seconds total.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, add vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes and salt, heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add onions and dried oregano. When mixture is cool pour into a quart container. You may need to add a bit of water just to cover. (If you have time, keep at room temperature for about 6 hours, then place in the refrigerator).

Next, prepare the chipotle cream.  Combine the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons cilantro, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon black pepper in a medium bowl. Stir in sour cream, shallots, and juice. Remove 1 chipotle pepper and 2 teaspoons adobo sauce from can; reserve remaining chipotle peppers and adobo sauce for another use. Chop chile. Stir chopped chipotle and 2 teaspoons adobo sauce into sour cream mixture.  Set aside and allow flavors to combine.

Now you can get the poblano peppers roasted.   Preheat broiler, or use a gas / charcoal grill.  Either grill, turning frequently, or place poblano chiles on a foil-lined baking sheet, and broil for 8 minutes or until blackened, turning after 6 minutes. Place in a zip-top plastic bag; seal. Let stand 15 minutes. Peel chiles, and discard the seeds and membranes. Finely chop.

Now, prepare your spices.  Naturally, you use whole spices, right?  What's that, you don't?  Well, throw out your spices, because they are undoubtedly bland and gross.  Instead, go to a latin market and pick up fresh coriander (the seeds of the cilantro plant) and cumin (the seeds of some other plant), and grind up fresh as needed.  I specifically purchased a coffee mill that I use just for latin spices, which would produce some of the worst coffee ever at this point, but which does an excellent job at making fresh ground spice.

Grind your spices fresh for the best flavor

Combine panko, poblano chile, 1 1/2 tablespoons cilantro, cumin, coriander, paprika, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, and beef, tossing gently to combine. Divide mixture into 4 equal portions, gently shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty.  Make sure to shape the burgers thin and wide, so that they won't contract into a sphere when cooked.  A trick I learned on Food TV - press a small indentation in the center of each patty, which helps prevent this 'burger bulge' and results in a completely flat burger after cooking.  Cover and chill until ready to grill.   Also, if you're going to the trouble of making this recipe, shell out for decent buns.  A burger that takes this long to make deserves to be on bread without preservatives, that doesn't cost 25 cents, has some flavor, and won't turn to complete paste if looked at incorrectly.  Like a good CEO, burger buns should have some integrity.

Place patties on a grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 3 minutes or until grill marks appear. Carefully flip patties; grill an additional 3 minutes or until desired degree of doneness.  Don't be that person that squishes the burger with your spatula - yes, it sounds great, but all you're doing is wringing the flavor and moisture out of the burger, along with potentially cross-contaminating your cooked burger implement with raw beef bits.

I try to make the burgers wide, so they don't shrivel up into small burger balls that are gross when you get them to a bun.

Place 1 patty on bottom half of each bun; top each serving with 3 tablespoons chipotle cream and 1 tablespoon Pickled Red Onions.  Serve with whatever sides you like, and enjoy your hard work - you earned it.

Chipotle pickled red onion roasted pepper burger