Growing up, Mom made “maid rites” pretty often for dinner. They’re loose meat sandwiches made with ground beef and onions and served with pickles, ketchup, and mustard. The Mark Twain Dinette in Hannibal serves them, as well as various Maid Rite franchises around the country, but it seems like very few people know what they are when I mention them. So, for your eating pleasure, here’s the how-to:
Start with a pound or so of ground meat. Traditionally, maid rites are beef, but we had this pork from the Columbia Farmers’ Market in the freezer.
Chop a medium white or yellow onion into smallish chunks.
Add the meat and onions to a skillet on medium heat and season generously with seasoned salt and pepper.
Continue to stir the meat/onion mixture until it is brown and the onions are a little bit brown.
Serve on hamburger buns (the cheaper the better if you ask me….nothing fancy needed for these sandwiches). We had homemade french fries and California blend vegetables, but I like to order onion rings and a rootbeer with them at Mark Twain Dinette!!
I hope you added the grease! I’ve heard it’s the grease from the meat that makes them special. I’ve also been adding pepper since our garden had such a surplus last year. Also any other spices that you like are good!
I’ll bet Andy’s plate is the one with only ketchup on the bun and no pickle!
Looks restaurant-worthy!!
Yes, mother…mine only had ketchup: and it was glorious. 🙂
I took all the pictures…I need to figure out how to improve the lighting in that room, as it gets progressively darker there in the evening. The flash makes it too bright, but if I turn it off and mess with the shutter settings, it gets too blurry to the point where I need a tripod. I dunno…
I like mine plain…no condiments
Put it on “Aperture Priority”, make the f/stop a small number, and make your ISO something like 800 or 1600.
I love Maid Rites and will now attempt to make them just like this, this weekend. (mine won’t be as pretty).
I’ll give that a try, buddy. I used 800 and 1600 and it got a bit grainier. I also tried “Shutter Priority.” You’re sure “Aperture” is the one I want? I thought that was really used to get rid of perspective (as in, limit the “distance” you’re seeing).
I’ll see what I can do, though!
Brooke has INSPIRED Nathan to try her recipe!! I’m so impressed. Good Luck, Nathan!
and I thought the photos looked fine……
Maybe this could be a Julia/Julie like thing!
Aperture is used to change the “depth of field”, but it also drastically changes the amount of light that is let it. It’s basically just the size of the hole that the light for the image is allowed to pass through. Nicer lenses will have the capability to have a larger hole (a smaller number). Really nice lenses have an f/stop of 2.0 or under. This is called, “fast” because it allows so much light that it focuses really quickly (and the shutter can be really fast) and takes the photo right away. Shutter priority is good until you get the shutter open too long, then play with other things or you’ll get blur like you experienced. Ideally you sit there long enough to figure out what to plug into the “M” (full manual) setting. But then maybe your food is cold. And I think the photo is great too… but I’m hungry.
I bought the materials at Hyvee for the lunch tomorrow.
I’ll give that a try, Nathan. Thanks for the suggestion(s)! By the way, where in Columbia are you moving to? Congrats on getting a house!
And, Brooke…why is it a “maid rite” rather than a “made right?” Surely there’s some feminist commentary on the subject… 😛