Burger Night.... Motsiyas Burger

Motsiyas Burger

Well another Burger Night has come and gone this past Wednesday here at the Olivas home in Guam. And what a night it was. This weeks burger was a Motsiyas Burger. Was it ever fantastic!!!

Motsiyas (mot-cee-jas) is a local delicacy here on Guam. It consists of a mixture of diced up chicken parts, hot pepper leaves, tomato leaves, young green beans, mint (yerba buena), lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. You can also mix in coconut milk and hot pepper, which is usually included. There are a variety of mixes and you can believe that everyone has their own "special" mix. All these ingredients are then mixed together, fashioned into small loaves and placed into banana leaves, tied and steamed in water and coconut milk. With so many flavors going on in Motsiyas, you can be that your taste buds will be taken on one fun ride. Motsiyas are so delicious. Well with such a great dish, I just had to make a burger out of this.

I had to change the basic recipe just a little because my daughter does not eat hot pepper and is slightly intolerant to milk, so out with the coconut milk and hot peppers. However, most of the ingredients were used, allowing for a still very traditional chicken blend.

Here are the steps that I used to make this fantastic burger...

First we start our with ground chicken. This is a package of white meat. Weighed about 1.7 pounds.

Ground Chicken

Next, I went into the garden and picked tomato, hot pepper and mint leaves. These were washed, drained and diced.

Tomato, hot pepper and mint leaves.

The next step was to pick the very young and tender green beans. I have the yard long beans growing in my yard so I used these. But any fresh green bean will work. These were diced small.

Diced fresh green beans.

I mixed this, by hand, all together adding salt and black pepper to taste.

Chicken, veggie and herb mix.

Now you can squeeze about two tablespoons of fresh lemon into the mix. I used our local calamansi lemons. Great, mellow flavor.

Calamansi Lemon.

Maked sure everything is mixed well together, fashion your burger patties and slap them babies on the grill.

The patty is sizzling on a cast iron, well oiled grill plate.

The burger patty is just about ready to come off the grill.

My finished Motsiyas Burger. I used large English-style sour dough muffins for the buns. Loved the flavor those brought to the burger. Added a slice of Swiss cheese. And garnished with iceberg lettuce, onions, Roma tomatoes, tomato ketchup, Dijon mustard and mayo.

I must admit I had a hard time biting into this burger because of the size, but I managed. It was everything that I thought it would be. The chicken patty was juicy and had absorbed all the flavors of the added ingredients. The mint was great and the lemon balanced everything out leaving a little tang on your tongue. Made my mouth water as I was devouring this burger. I'm definitely making this again. And I'm not changing the bun. The sour dough was perfect.

Well another Burger Wednesday come and gone. It was a memorable one. Still haven't decided what I am going to come up with for next Wednesday's Burger Night at the Olivas home.

Until next time....

Chamorro and Portobello Burgers

Well this past Wednesday (Wednesday's are burger night in our home) I decided to come up with a burger that justs shouts out, "This is Guam". Naturally I name the burger the "Chamorro" Burger. Chamorro is the name for the indigenous people of the Mariana's Islands. 

The challenge here was to use ingredients that are common to Guam and loved by all. So I came up with a burger that started out with locally made Pork Chamorro Sausage and served in between two pieces of the local "flour titiya". These are basically a 14-16 inch by 1/4 inch thick flour tortilla with a little sugar and coconut milk added in the dough.

So let me get started on how I brought this all together....

Bought about a pound and a half of Pork Chamorro Sausage. It is a special spicy blend available at most grocery stores here on Guam.

Next I mixed in my fresh herbs from the garden. 

Mint, Oregano, Cilantro flowers and hot pepper.

All the herbs and hot pepper plus one egg and freshly ground black pepper are in the food processor ready for mixing except we need one more item....

On heaping tablespoon of Finadenne Denanche, Guam's hot pepper paste. I don't want anyone falling asleep while they're eating their burger.

Blended all this in the food processor. Then I add about a cup of Japanese Bread Crumbs (Panko) for a binding element and mixed this all together in a large bowl.

Slap the patties on the grill and cook to your spec. Lupe likes her's well done and I like my patty medium.

This puppy is ready to come off the grill.

Also grilled some portobellos for my wife Lupe because she didn't want a bun. Guess what she used for buns???

This is what I used for my buns. Guam's local flour Tatiyas.

Here are Lupe's portobellos being served.

Here is Lupe's Chamorro Burger using the portobello mushrooms. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find two Portobellos the same size. Oh well, didn't bother Lupe one bit.

Here is my Chamorro Burger ready to be put together. It is served with Lupe's Garden Fresh Salad and home made Potato Skins.

I just had to take a break from taking all these pictures and bite my burger before I resumed my photo chores. Dang was this burger delicious and hot!!!

Lupes' Fresh Garden Salad. This is also what I used on my burger.

And here are the grilled Potato Skins.

Well, Lupe told me that this was the best burger she had ever eaten. She also told me that from now on she wants Portobellos on all her burgers. No more buns for her. As for me, the heat factor on the burger was great. Not a killer heat where I could not enjoy my burger, but enough heat that it drew a little sweat on my face and gave me the hiccups. That means it was delicious. 

All this with another one of Lupe's Garden Fresh Salads and those grilled Potato Skins. This went down in our burger book as the best so far. 

People!!!!!.........as my late Uncle Sal used to say, you have got to try this. You can always kick the heat factor up a bit by adding a few of those million plus scoville unit hot peppers into the mix. Up to you if you want to melt off all your hair follicles from the inside.

Whew!!!!! This was a gooder!!!!

Unit next time....