Old-Fashioned Greek Burgers - Biftekia | Akis Petretzikis

Hello people of YouTube! Welcome back to my kitchen! I'm so excited for the recipe we are making today. Old-fashioned Greek burgers or biftekia. The most succulent burgers, enhanced with aromatic fresh herbs and baked in the oven with tender potatoes until perfectly golden. And let's begin! I love this recipe because at the end of this video, I will share this lovely dish with my friends. This is one of the most, most, most, most classic dishes, Greek dishes that you can find in a restaurant. This is biftekia, we call it biftekia. It's classic with potatoes and actually patties with minced beef. I love this recipe and it's very easy to make. Everything will be here in the pan. So, first we have to prepare the sauce for the potatoes. I need some oregano, here. Some garlic, one clove of garlic, here. The juice and the zest of one lemon. First, the zest. And the juice. This is the most classic, lemony potatoes, Greek recipe again. We love this recipe. This is a classic garnish for all our dishes. But for this recipe, everything in autopilot. The potatoes and the biftekia, the patties, are in the same pan. And I need some mustard. This is a mild mustard, but you can also use a hot one if you like. One tablespoon, two tablespoons. If you use an English mustard or a Dijon mustard, you have to reduce the amount in half. Then, I will add my water, salt and pepper. And pepper. And mix and mix everything. So, this is the bath for the potatoes. The only thing that's missing from this sauce is the olive oil. Extra virgin, extra Greek. And I will leave that on the side. It's time for the potatoes. I need a chopping board and my knife. And you can cut them in wedges or cut them any shape you like. The classic Greek recipe needs this shape. So, I will carry on. And if you want to use any kind of potatoes, you can. Sweet potatoes, you can. But the classic Greek recipe needs this kind of potatoes. Skin off the classic white ones. And I'm carrying on. As you can see, we have a lot of potatoes. Because we want the garnish to be inside this pan. The potatoes go in. Now, we want to make sure that this lovely marinade will go everywhere. Now, I will add a little bit of olive oil. I'm not stingy because we need some good fat with the potatoes. And now, it's time to mix and mix. I will use my hands and then I will wash them because this is the best way to cover all this marinade, our potatoes. And…almost ready. Now, I will leave that on the side. And I will bring my meat from the fridge. So, I have two varieties of meat. I have ground pork and ground beef. The classic recipe needs both. But if you want only to use ground beef, you can do that. Or ground pork, you can do that. It doesn't matter. Because we will add a lot of herbs and the taste of the beef or the pork is not so important. All the taste inside the patties will take it from all the other ingredients. Ok, Lakis? Ok. Now, it's time to start our recipe. And first, we have to soak our bread into milk. I have six slices of toast bread. And I will add my milk. This is something you've probably seen for the first time, right? Because we are not using bread inside your minced meat. But we do that a lot in Greece. Because we want to take more amount of patties and of course be more soft and juicy on the inside. This is the secret for that. Now, I will leave that on the side. And I will take another bowl. And I will start adding ingredients here. First, I will add my ground pork. Then, I will add my ground beef. And it's time to add the rest of the ingredients. First, we have to add Mr. Onion. And as you can see, I have a bowl here with a towel. And I have a cheese grater here. And I will grate my onion to make sure that it's completely smashed. You can chop it, but to make sure that the patties will not be onion-y. We will squeeze the onions after to take off all the excess water. This water is acidic and actually destroying the flavor of the patties. So, I will wear my clothes. Because if I do this procedure without clothes, then probably my hands will smell onion for two to three days. So, please use some clothes. And grate the onion. The easiest way to squeeze off all the excess water of the onion. Good. So, my onion is ready. And I will also use the grater for my garlic. It's already very dirty. So, I will take advantage of that. Yeah, of course. It's an easy way for some people that don't want to use the knife or they don't have the skills to use a knife, which is something impossible because everybody can chop-chop a garlic. But anyway, if you don't want to use your knife, this is the easiest way to chop-chop your onion and your garlic. Now, squeeze the onion and the garlic. And as you can see, this water is probably the number one enemy for our patties because this water is so acidic and actually will take off all the flavors of the herbs and the meat from our patties. And we don't want that. Now, as you can see, this paste is just simple onion and garlic without water. Add this onion here. And I will carry on using my gloves because I want to mix everything together. And I will add the rest of the ingredients. First, oregano. We love oregano. And you have to use oregano more to your recipes if you want to make Greek recipes. Then, I'm coming here and I will add my salt. At this point, you have to be very careful because the salt is very important for the patties. If the salt is under, then the patties will not be tasty. If the salt is very high, then probably your patties will be salty and we don't want that. A normal amount for patties is about 10 grams per kilo for salt. 10 to 12 grams. How much is 10 grams? 10 grams is about a spoonful of a teaspoon. Now, the salt we need for this recipe is about that. Maybe a little bit less. Not a spoonful, a little bit less than a spoonful. And you have to add the salt now. If you don't add the salt now, then probably you will not be able to add after. And I add also my pepper. And I will come again here. I will add my eggs. One egg. I will add my bread. As you can see, the bread soaked all the milk. And I will squeeze it a little bit to take off all the excess milk. Just a little bit. Yeah, this way. And now, I will add also my bread into the mixture. Now, I have a few more ingredients and probably I have to change my clothes. So, the olive oil. The olive oil is very important. We have to use about 75 ml of extra virgin Greek olive oil because we want all this taste of the olive oil. And we want to make sure that the patties will be fluffy and sexy. If you don't add any oil, the floppies will be tasty, will be fluffy, but they will not be perfect. We want perfection, so add some extra virgin Greek olive oil. And of course, it's time for the herbs. The last ingredient. I have some parsley here. We're using a lot of parsley in Greece because we want this lovely green color and of course, we want the taste of the parsley. The parsley, maybe it's not so tasty here, but if you use it in a big amount, you can take some taste. Take, for example, the tabbouleh. Tabbouleh is full of parsley and it's actually tasty when we're using parsley in a big amount. So, I want a big amount of parsley here. If you add a pinch of parsley, it makes no sense, my friend. Do you understand that? You have to add a big amount of it. And of course, Mr. Mint. On the opposite side, mint is very flavorful, so we don't have to use a lot, but we have to use it. If you want to make beef tekkia, you have to use fresh mint. If you don't use mint, you're not making beef tekkia. This is the classic herb for beef tekkia. You can take off parsley, you can take off many ingredients, oregano, but you cannot take off Mr. Mint. Mint is very, very, very important. And it's time for mixing, mixing my friend, like this. I love this recipe. This is a time-saving recipe. We're preparing the whole tray the previous day and we'll cook it the next day. And actually, everything is working better because all this marinade will work with the meat and actually, the food will be more tasty. In this case, today, I will cook it straight away. But if you have time, prepare the whole dish the previous night and cook it the next day and you will have better results. Look at this, lovely, lovely, lovely, all these flavors. At this point, if you're making the recipe for the first time and you're not sure for yourself, you can take a small pan. Can you help me, Katerina? Please, please, please, because my hands are quite dirty. A pan, a small pan, thank you. Katerina is helping me. Put it on high heat and you can go. Just a drop of olive oil, please. A drop, yeah, thank you. This is my testing pan. I will take a small amount of my mixture here, I will make the smallest patty ever, and I will cook it just to taste it. Because if it's not salty enough, then I can add now. But if it's not and I will cook the whole tray inside the oven, then I cannot add it after. You got it? But for this recipe, I'm sure that I'm very expert, so I don't have to do that. I will carry on with the patties. But you will do this first, you will try it, and then you will carry on making the patties. So now, as you can see, I need about ten patties. One, two, five, yeah, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And I will flip over my patty. And it's time for baking. One, two. Aluminum foil, cover it very well. And my oven is preheated to 190 degrees Celsius set to fan. I will bake with aluminum foil for about 40 minutes, and then I will uncover and I will carry on the baking for about 20-30 minutes until my patties are golden and my potatoes are sexy and crispy and everything is perfectly cooked. Now, this bad boy goes in. And this bad boy will come here for tasting. And my biftekia are ready! Look at this, oh my God. Guys, this is Greece. If you want to say that you actually cook in Greek recipes, this is the recipe that you have to start with because it is so Greek. This is the most classic comfort food in Greece. You are going to your mother, probably. Your mother will tell you, come on, come on, Ankis, I have some biftekia waiting for you. And this is the moment that actually you will leave everything on the side and you will go straight to your mother because you want to taste this recipe. This is Greece, guys. If you try it once, then you will understand exactly what I'm talking about. This is absolutely stunning and very comfort, easy. And actually, nutrition-wise, it's quite full because you have the protein from the meat, we have the carbs from the potatoes, and we have some extra virgin Greek olive oil for fat. So, it's absolutely complete and amazing. I will add some extra virgin Greek olive oil to the very end. And of course, some lemon if somebody wants to squeeze some on the meat. And this is it. Simply, tasty, and amazing. It's time to taste some of this lovely beef. Oh my God. This is so hot for the moment, but I don't care, I don't mind. Actually, the patties evaporate even my taste. But it's so, so nice, so fluffy. As you can see, caramelized on the outside. And the potatoes, look at this. You can just smash them. They are soft like butter. And so tasty, so sexy, so lemony. I will take a bit of everything. Guys, try this recipe. You will love it. It is a success in any point that you will see this recipe. The flavor, the speed, because it's an easy recipe and very quick. It's a cheap recipe, because you don't have to use very expensive ingredients. Everything is in this tray and you have to try it. Don't forget to comment under the video. Don't forget to share this lovely recipe with your Greek friends, or not Greek. It doesn't matter. And see you next time. Bye bye, yia sas. I will carry on my bifteka. And probably, I need some feta also. So, see you next time. Bye bye, yia sas.