They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. This Father's Day, we get Singapore's most dude-friendly restaurants and bars to share their recipes for indulgent meat feasts, manly drinks and other creative mash-ups that you can recreate at home as a very special treat for Dad.
About the chef
Bjorn Shen is the chef-owner behind three boisterous local eateries - modern Middle Eastern restaurant Artichoke, Thai street food-inspired Bird Bird, and cheeky popsicle line Neh Neh Pop. He has also authored a cookbook, and lectures regularly at the Culinary Institute of America in Singapore. He's a key driver of the "dude-stronomy" movement in Singapore - which is really just a fancy way of saying he spends his time retooling junk food into hilariously original culinary creations.
For the first of our 5-part recipe series, he shares tips for this easy-breezy Cheeseburger Pie. Slap it together and kick back for some quality time with Dad while the football is on TV, or dress it up with some salad and vinaigrette as a satisfying Sunday treat for the whole family.
What makes this perfect for Father's Day
“The cheeseburger pie cooked with filo pastry is dad-friendly because it's ingredients are simple to comprehend and source, and it's a culinary mash-up between a cheese burger and a meat pie – two dishes that most guys absolutely dig. I don’t think it gets much more ‘daddy’ than this,” says Bjorn.
Cheeseburger Pie by Bjorn Shen
Photo: Shaun Tan
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 12 sheets frozen filo pastry, thawed
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 4 fresh hamburger patties, approx. 120g, from the supermarket or your friendly butcher
- 8 slices processed American cheese
- 2 tbsp American mustard
- 2 tbsp tomato ketchup
- 8 slices hamburger pickles, from a jar
- 1 white onion, finely chopped
- 4 slices white bread, cut into circles the size of the burger patties
- Oil and butter for frying, approx. 1 cup each
If you're a fancy pants (all optional):
- Rocket
- Thinly sliced red onion
- Thinly sliced breakfast radishes
- Beef gravy (the instant kind from the supermarket that might involve you mixing some kind of powder with hot water)
Method:
- Brush 3 sheets of filo pastry with melted butter and stack them on top of each other.
- Season both sides of a burger patty with salt and pepper, flatten it a little (to about 1.5cm if you want to get all technical) and place it in the middle of the stack of filo pastry. You may choose to grill or pan fry the burger patties very quickly to get a nice crust before placing them on the pastry, but this step is optional.
- Top the patty with 2 slices of cheese, 1/2 tbsp each of mustard and ketchup, 2 slices of pickles and 1 tbsp of chopped onion. Place a slice of white bread over the stack of ingredients. This is important because it helps to soak up the juices and prevents the pastry from getting soggy from the inside-out.
- Gather the ends of the pastry and wrap them over the ingredients, forming a seam on the top. Flip the entire thing over so that this seam (and the bread slice encased within) are now both on the bottom.
- Repeat the above steps with the remaining ingredients to make 3 more pies.
- Starting the seam-side down, shallow fry the pies in a mixture of half oil, half butter for about 5 minutes on each side, over medium heat. Make sure the oil/butter comes to at least halfway up the pie to ensure that the sides of the pie cook too.
- Remove from the pan, drain away excess oil and serve hot.
- If you want to get fancy like in the picture, serve the pies with a salad of rocket, red onion and radish lightly dressed in a simple lemon vinaigrette (1 part lemon juice, 3 parts olive oil, pinch of salt), and some beef gravy poured onto the plate.
- Enjoy.
