LAMB BURGERS

After no one could make dinner, I found myself long three pounds of meat meant for meatballs, one pound each of beef, rose veal, and lamb. Vassili offered up his grill, and so that's how I ended up devouring lamb burgers up on a breezy roof near Chinatown with a young Greek Austrian and his fellow McGill, fellow American school, Moroccan roommate Jais. The little packages of bread and grilled meat tasted so good that we scarfed them down while standing next to the grill instead of sitting down a few feet away on the large summery lounge furniture.

What to do with an extra pound of ground lamb meat:

Vassili had never heard of lamb burgers. I think I had my first one at Prime 16 in New Haven. This version keeps the flavors fresh by roughly chopping the ingredients, gently mixing, and not overcooking.

Mince a small onion, finely chop one large clove of garlic, measure out three very generous tablespoons of parsley and mint (we used fresh mint that had been dried and so crumbled very easily). Add these tasty ingredients to a medium bowl, add the ground lamb meat, crack an egg on top, salt very generously (very generously) and pepper. Mix together gently just enough to incorporate everything taking care not to squeeze or work the meat too much and think light and fluffy thoughts. Form into small not too fat patties and arrange on a plate. Then, place a small bit of butter on each patty, pour a few drops of olive oil on top of this, and then lightly drench each small meat mound in red wine. Heat up the grill, brush with olive oil, grill the burgers for long enough on one side to get a little charred before flipping. For the bread, we used whole wheat sandwich bread lightly doused with olive oil on both sides, generously sprinkled with dried Greek oregano on one side, and toasted on the grill until browned. Apparently oregano grows everywhere in Greece. Our only condiments were sliced tomatoes.

Best eaten around sunset on roof that feels cool because of the breeze even though it's actually quite hot, being DC in the summer.