Prep/cook time: 1 bottle of wine

Ingredients

6 pork belly strips

100ml Red wine vinegar

50ml Chimmichurri sauce (olive oil, chilli, and random herbs as a substitute)

1 Tbsp smooshed garlic

1 Tspn smooshed mustard seeds

Smokey BBQ stuff (either spice or liquid)

Cumin

Pork strips and stuff

Knock Knock, Cumin

Slather some oil across the meat, then rub in the cumin.

Pork strips with extra virgin olive oil and cumin

The Marinade

Combine the red wine vinegar, chimmichurri, garlic, horseradish, and smokey stuff.

Red wine vinegar sauce with chimmichurri garlic horseradish smokey bbq seasoning

Red wine vinegar sauce with chimmichurri garlic horseradish smokey bbq seasoning

Coat the meat in the marinade, leave it for about half an hour.

Pork strips with red wine vinegar chimmichurri sauce

The Bake

Pop them in a glass dish and stick them in the oven at 180°C/350°F.

Pork strips in the oven

Turn them over after about 15 minutes.

All up it should take about half an hour.

Pork strips semi cooked in the oven

The Serve

Voilà!

Pork strips cooked

Pork strips cooked close up

Pork strips cooked close up ripped apart

Either way, this is a great little alternative that you can whip up at a moment’s notice, and is basically no mess no fuss.

Prep/cooking time: quicker than a schoolboy on prom night.

Ingredients

Haloumi

An egg

Butter

What? You want more ingredients?

The Slice

Cut a slice of the cheese about equivalent to a piece of bread.

I recommend fairly thin, as haloumi can often have a lot of taste in it already which may overpower the snack.

The best thing since sliced bread

The Hole

Take a cookie cutter and plug out a hole in the cheese, or just cut one out with a Rambo knife.

Use a shot glass if you're badass

Take that - Swiss cheese

The Fry

Dump some butter in the pan on medium heat.

Chuck in the cheese.

I decided to cut an extra bit out to have a full moon and waxing moon cheese

Cook for a couple mins and flip out like a ninja.

Fried haloumi

The Toad

Pop the egg into the middle of the hole.

Flip after a couple mins, then leave for just long enough to cook the albumin (white) – about 30 secs – any longer than that and the yolk is overdone.

Egg in the basket

The Result

Toad in the haloumi

YOLK SMASH

The Nutrition

Hey, it’s an egg and cheese.

Plenty of fat and protein, a bit of good cholesterol, and negligble carbs.

I’ve used Barramundi as the theme ingredient here, it’s an ugly but delicious fish, with plenty of fat and a flesh texture that’s more flakey than a fake-tan blonde.

The name is stolen from the Australian Aboriginals, with it’s original meaning being something like “river animal that we eat before Tuesday”.

Prep/cook time: 2 glasses of wine.

Ingredients

200gm/1.5″ thick Barramundi steak – skin on

2 rashers (slices for you heathens) of bacon – rindless

Haloumi (squeeky cheese!)

Bunch of bok choy

Butter (grass-fed rules)

Mayonaisse (whole-egg full fat, bitches)

Random herbs and spices

If we played some Barry White right now, those pieces of fish and pig would so get it on

The Fish

Lovingly smell the skin of the Barramundi, it has a lightly fishy aroma that will make you want to just devour it as is.

Coat the fish in extra virgin olive oil, then throw a fistful of random herbs at it and rub it around.

Lots of room for experimentation here, like that first time you got drunk and maybe too close to your cousin, but basically this is where you can be The Colonol of your own secret herbs and spices and make it your own signature taste.

You can't go wrong with just random stuff from the spice rack

The Pig

Deploy the bacon.

Now delicately lay that fish onto the bacon blanket like a girl you’re about to turn into a woman.

Flesh on flesh is such a wonderful feeling

Roll it up in the blanket like a dead hooker that you need to dispose of.

Toothpicks work better than staples

The Oven

Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F  (don’t forget to light the gas unless you have Sylvia Plath tendencies).

Line a baking tray with foil, put the Baconmundi in the middle and lay a fat knob of butter on top of it with a bit of lemon pepper or something sprinkled for good measure.

The aliens/CIA can't steal the thoughts from THIS dinner

Check after a few minutes to make sure it hasn’t transmogrified into a new zombie pigfish and escaped the oven.

Bacon secured sir

The Side

Cut the haloumi into about a 1cm/½” think slice and cut into bite-size bits.

Rip apart the bok choy like a dingo with a baby.

These foods require further colour

The Haloumi

Dump a bucketload of butter into a pan on low/med heat and melt it.

Toss the haloumi bits in there like you’re shooting craps.

Cook for maybe 1-2 mins on one side.

The before and after of the great haloumi massacre

The Bok Choy

Once the haloumi is half done, flip them over with gay abandon and chuck the bok choy in.

Feel free to plop some garlic or ginger in there, and if things start looking dry just deploy more butter.

Now we have a real vehicle for sauce

The Sauce

Once the Baconmundi is cooked (15-20 mins) and has a lovely golden brown slightly crisp look to it, remove it from the foil.

Now, carefully take the foil and it should be laden with the pure Awesomeness of butter and pig and fish fat with herbs.

Add a healthy dollop of mayonnaise to it…

Mayo on top, butter all gooey on bottom

Now mix it like Fatboy Slim.

Melted butter and mayonnaise mixed

The Result

Top down

Side

Open

Nutritional Info

Who the hell cares?

It’s seriously awesome, almost zero carb, fully satisfying but not overfilling, which is exactly what you want because feed your lover this and you’ll need to not feel bloated so the two of you can enjoy some music that sounds like brown chicken brown cow.

Ingredients

500g of beef mince
2 rashers (slices) of bacon
1 egg
1 cup grated cheese
1 tbsp minced garlic
Bunch of cracked pepper, herbs, spices etc.

Dice

Hack that hog to bits.

Combine

Chuck it all (apart from the cheese) in a mixing bowl (or if you’re a lazy bachelor like me who doesn’t own bowls – a frypan), and smoosh it all together with your fingers.

Sculpt

Create a meat brain for funsies.

Foundation

Separate the left hemisphere and make a bunch of cookie-size patties with a slight depression in the middle

Bomb

Dump some cheese into them.

Mould

Use the remainder from the right hemisphere to trap the cheese within – mould it into a nice meaty pebble.

Cook

Chuck ‘em on the grill.

Flip

Mmmmm, yeah… smell that?

Plate

Serve it up, with a glass of fine red wine in a Riedel glass.

Enhance

We must go deeper…

Cheesegasm

Release the cheese!

As all dreams do, it started with inspiration. Whilst the tender Whopper juices were streaming down her chin she wondered if there was something more. Something more than the Bacon Deluxe. Something more that the petty attempts by mere mortals to simply upsize.

Consumed with a fiery courage delivered by copious amounts of whiskey she strolled to the melamine altar and brandished her sword and uttered, “Give me Discoburger!”

The staff were stunned – nay they were afraid. For something this epic had been rarely undertaken. Eight layers of beef, interjected with eight layers of cheese, salad and sweet, sweet mayonnaise. . Fear was in their eyes as they punched the order into the computer and ventured bravely into the kitchen. Emerging moments later they confessed the burger could not be contained in paper, nay it must stand alone.

As Discoburger slid across the counter towards the waiting warrior the crowd gasped. What was this monstrosity before them? Was it not a thing of beauty as it was in her eyes? Cameras emerged, grown men stepped forth and nodded in silent respect and acknowledgement.

Discoburger 2.0 was born – 8 stacker

Like the true warrior she was she used her bare hands to knock the tower of epicness to its knees on the plastic tray. Devouring the meat until it was conquered. But then the dream grew. It could no longer rest at 8 patties. It had grown, exploded and taken on a life of it’s own.


Only 10 would suffice to fulfil the hunger within her. 10 epic layers of beef.

Not one animal would be slain this evening, but TWO. BACON screamed and raged within her. Bacon would only add to the epicness.

Once again she approached the counter and delivered her order. Once again the staff withdrew to prepare the challenge. The manager approached her and mentioned the OH&S issues surrounding serving such a burger without wrapping. She convinced him with a battle of words. And then it emerged, in all its glory.

Discoburger 3.0 – 10 stacker

And so the mighty warrior fought once again with the beast, and once the battle was won she returned to her porcelain throne to celebrate the victory. But alas the warrior could not lay quiet, the dream went through metamorphosis until it began to push the limits of the human soul. 14 layers screamed and tormented her in her sleep. She tossed, she turned, she consumed.

Finally, at 3am, fuelled once again with liquid courage4 she again walked through the Rundle Street doors into glowing haven of her dreams. The staff knew her by now, and the whispers began. Nay, they wondered. Could it not? Could we? Could something so epic continue to live on within her?

The kitchen lay silent as the faithful worker began to construct 14 layers of awesomeness and beauty. They carried it out like a sacrilegious ornament, the holy burger.

Discoburger 4.0 – 14 stacker

“ARGHGHGHGH!” She screamed an unholy war cry and toppled the almighty tower. For the burger itself was beginning to defy physics – often collapsing under the weight of its own awesomeness. She then proceeded to consumed her dream (this time with assistance of a very helpful male warrior).

Bloated and complete she returned to her porcelain throne to groan and thrash with internal journey that would now begin inside of her. But again the voices started.

“Sixteen Layers Pippa, Sixteen Layers…” They would continue to cajole, beguile and tease her until she had no more.

The warrior was about to undertake her greatest challenge.

Discoburger 5.0 – sweet 16 stacker

(Sadly, in pure awe of compiling the Discoburger 5.0 they forgot the cheese, and I felt a little bad sending a 16 layer whopper back for them to make another one )

It had conquered her. For now not only were her bare fingers not enough to fight, she had to use tools. The pure mass of those flame grilled patties needed more sauce, more energy and more of her soul.

She thought she’d had enough.

But no, the voices continue to whisper…

“Twenty patties, twenty patties, with ANGRY MOTHERFUCKING ONIONS.”

Discoburger 6.0 – 21 stacker – Blackjack!

I think my epic burger career is over.