Monday, June 27, 2011

Restaurant Recreations: Granny's Apron



It's been a while since I've done a Restaurant Recreations post, so I figured I'd start the week with one!

Now, a while back, I posted on my Facebook page that I would be trekking around Louisville to find a hole-in-the-wall diner to try.  Upon just seeing the name of this place - Granny's Apron - we knew we had to give it a go.

The restaurant itself is pretty inconspicuous, it's basically a plain brick building - you wouldn't really know it's a restaurant unless you already knew it was there.

We walked in and were promptly seated.  The restaurant was about half full, so you know that something had to bring them there.  One look at the menu and it was a hard decision to pick what we wanted.  They have all your basic comfort foods, from country fried steak to meatloaf.  We decided to do two appetizers, the onion petals and some mozzarella cheese sticks.

The onion petals tasted like a spicy version of a bloomin' onion, and were served with a sauce very similar to bloomin' onion sauce.  They were tasty though.

The mozzarella cheesesticks wern't anything fancy - in fact, they probably came from a frozen package - but hey, we weren't anywhere fancy, so I didn't expect anything more.

For our entrees, Andy chose the fish sandwich and I chose the prime rib burger.

Now let's talk about this fish sandwich.  This thing was huge.  I mean - HUGE.  4 people could have eaten off of this.  And the kicker here?  The sandwich was like $6!  After the sheer shock factor of how big this thing was, Andy said the taste of the fish itself wasn't anything spectacular.

Seriously huge!
There was pretty much only one word for my burger - messy!  It was juicy though!  It had sauteed mushroom and onions on it, as well as some swiss cheese.  Then to top it all off, there was a boatload of gravy on top.  It was definitely way too messy.

Sorry about the blurry picture - but you can obviously see this thing was messy!
All in all, our meal was okay.  It wasn't anything spectacular, but for under $20, we got your typical diner food - and let's not even talk about the "entertainment" we received while people-watching.

Granny's Apron on Urbanspoon

So let's get to the recreation!

I liked the idea of my burger, loaded with goods, but the restaurant version was way too messy!  So I decided to "clean" it up a little bit and here's what I ended up with...

Ingredients:



1 lb. lean ground beef
8 oz. portobello mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, sliced
6 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
4 slices bacon, cooked and divided
Hamburger buns
Swiss cheese slices

Heat a large skillet under medium high heat and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Add mushrooms and onions and cook until softened and slightly caramelized, about 10-15 minutes.

In a medium bowl, combine the beef, orange juice, soy sauce, olive oil, apple cider vinegar.  Chop up 2 slices of bacon and gently combine in the mix, as well.

Form mixture into 8 patties and season liberally with salt and pepper.

Heat a charcoal grill under medium high heat.  Grill patties for about 4 to 5 minutes per side (for a medium rare), or until at desired doneness.  About a minute before burgers are done, add cheese slices on top (if desired) and cook until melted.

Assemble burgers and top with onions, mushrooms, and leftover bacon slices. 

These were extremely juicy burgers!  I don't normally include a lot of acidity like orange juice or vinegar in burger mixtures, but it really worked here.  And you could taste a slight orange flavor in the meat which was a welcomed change!

The burgers were still slightly messy, but manageable, due to the fact that I decided to omit the gravy.

Give these burgers a try for your next grilling adventure and you won't be disappointed!


Have a great Monday guys!

23 comments:

  1. I can't believe how big your sandwich is too! It looks amazing, but how do you wrap your mouth around it? :D Yum!!

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  2. That looks FABULOUS! I bet I could recreate it with a black bean burger made with beans and mushrooms and some rice cheese (the kind that actually melts haha). Bookmarking!!!

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  3. Oh my god I can't wait to try your recreation! I don't even think I need to try the original... that fish sandwich is GIGANTIC!!!!! I can't stop staring at the photo.

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  4. Great looking recreation! My husband would love this.

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  5. That burger looks SO good! I love mushrooms on my burger especially with melted swiss...my mouth is watering!

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  6. I love visiting those hole-in-the-wall restaurants/cafes. Most of the time they are a good surprise. :))

    The burger looks amazing... it's one of my favorites!

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  7. Love your combo of flavors for the sauce. This looks great!

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  8. I like the way you clean the restaurant version, it is always fun to recreate favorite food.

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  9. What a fun idea to recreate a dish from a restaurant! Your version looks fantastic! :D

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  10. wow, I loves all the ingredients inside the burger, yum yum.

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  11. We definitely need a fork and knife to eat this, or just forget about everything and have a huge bite. I took latter. ;-) Looks delicious Peggy!

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  12. Love the idea of restaurant recreations. Your version looks much better and healthier.

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  13. very creative in coming up with your own version but its still big for me Peggy. I only can digest about half of the chicken burger from McDonalds and the other half will be my dinner.

    Thanks for your comments on my top 2 entries at Foodbuzz, really appreciate it very much.

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  14. I am sure your burger must taste so much better, but I love the name of that restaurant.
    Rita

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  15. Your version surely looks and sounds more appetizing to me. I love when you can recreate restaurant meals at home. This is a burger I would love to try. Yummy!

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  16. Yours looks even better! And recreating recipes is such fun.

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  17. I love your recreation. The flavors sound amazing!

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  18. That is a huge fish! They really serve with 2 buns?
    I agree with another commenter, your burger looks much better!

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  19. What a juicy and tasty looking burger recreation! Perfect for this weekend's festivities.

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  20. What an incredible burger! Perfect, really! Awesome flavors... Thanks for sharing!

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  21. Your recreation looks awesome! The restaurant version would have frustrated me ( I want to eat my burger with my hands, not a knife, fork and mountain of paper towels). But Mushrooms and swiss, I think you just made my boyfriends day too!

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  22. Granny's Apron food is actually pretty good. Everything doesnt always come out perfect so if you mad cause it was messy you should have got something less messy. You held yours together with a toothpick or it'd probably be messy too. You must have no life to sit around criticizing & recreating restaurant food.

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