Summertime is party time and for that you need… good snacks! Snacks like these beef sliders. We packed them with our Smokehouse BBQ flavour. And then we took it one step further by liberally basting them with a lip-smacking smoky BBQ sauce.
Combine all the BBQ sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer it, lid on, over very low heat for five minutes then remove and set aside.
Time to make the sliders. Add the onion and 15 ml vegetable oil to a large non-stick pan and fry the onions over low heat until soft – take care not to brown them as they will become bitter. Once the onions are soft, add the garlic and fry for a further minute. In a large bowl combine the cooked onions with the rest of the slider ingredients and mix thoroughly. Shape the mince into burger patties. (Cook’s note: Meat shrinks as it cooks, so to ensure your cooked patties are the same size as your burger buns, shape them 5 mm wider than the buns.)
Wipe clean the pan that you cooked the onions in, add 30ml of vegetable to it and fry the burgers. (Cook’s note: Don’t overcrowd the pan as the patties will release water and boil instead of brown, so cook the patties in two batches.) Once the burgers are cooked to your liking, liberally paint them with BBQ sauce. Assemble the burgers and tuck in right away as these are at their best served piping hot.
We shaped generous 100g patties and this recipe made nine sliders. If you make the patties slightly thinner you could easily stretch this recipe to make 15 sliders. If preferred, these slider patties can be cooked on the braai. Simply paint them with a bit of vegetable oil to prevent them sticking to the grid. Baste them liberally with the BBQ sauce towards the end of cooking. If you do it too soon, the honey in the baste will burn.
Recipe by Lizet Hartley Lizet Hartley is a freelance stills and reel food stylist, food photographer and recipe developer. In her spare time she – rather predictably – cooks. Get more of her recipes on her blog at http://www.melkkos-merlot.co.za