Eat Like An American This July 4th

Happy Independence Day! America’s great, isn’t it? Well, Mr Trump might think it needs to be made great again, but we disagree. It’s the home of New York deli sandwiches, stuffed to bursting with pastrami, mustard and rocket; of creamy mac’n’cheese; of cookie dough, best eaten hot from the oven. And he doesn’t think that’s great?! Pfft.

Hang out your star-spangled banner, get practicing your best American accent, remember that it’s ‘sidewalk’, not ‘pavement’, and try out some of these excellent recipes from across the pond to celebrate this Fourth of July. God bless America!

Everything’s massive in New York; it’s called the BIG Apple for a start. The buildings are huge, the department stores are huge, and the food is huge. The burgers, in particular, tend to be absolutely colossal; layers of meat patties, sliced cheese, salad (which, let’s face it, no one really eats), crisp bacon, sauce and brioche buns so big you need at least two hands and an abundance of cutlery to even attempt to fit them in your mouth.

It’d be pretty straightforward to make yourself a burger using the Tefal OptiGrill and these layers, but this recipe from The Purple Pumpkin Blog takes things up a notch by stuffing the beef patty itself with cheese and bacon to create an epic treat for your tastebuds. Extra cheese and bacon are both mandatory.

Like Barack and Michelle, Ross and Rachel, Donald and Melania (okay, maybe not…), mac’n’cheese is one of the great American pairings, that some believe should be enjoyed for the simple cheesy pasta delight it is, while others (including our good selves) believe it can be seriously enhanced with some clever additions.

Crispy bacon, for example. Or perhaps a spoonful of mustard for an extra kick. Or what about pulled pork, like in this recipe from Nutmeg Nanny? It’s classic mac’n’cheese, but topped with pork and onions slow-cooked in ginger beer (you can do this in your Tefal Cook4Me) and finished with BBQ sauce. God bless America indeed.

“Gimme gimme gimme fried chicken,” so the mighty Freddie Mercury sang, and that’s exactly what we shall do, with this recipe for homemade KFC-style popcorn chicken from Don’t Go Bacon My Heart.

Cooking suggestion: a Tefal ActiFry (much less oil means much less guilt and a whole lot more fried chicken). Serving suggestion: A bucket. Cutlery suggestion: Fingers, or a spade – whichever you feel goes best with a bucket.

New York’s sandwiches are also colossal. A typical New York deli sandwich will consist of freshly baked rye bread, stuffed to bursting with salad, mustard, pastrami and gherkins – a much tastier version of Brits’ more adventurous sarnies, which tend to involve ham AND cheese on the same butty.

Here, Fuelling the Fork shows you how to put your own overstuffed New York-style deli sandwich together. It’s super simple, but it could well change your sandwich game forever.

Cookie dough, cheesecake, brownies: all excellent American desserts. And all excellent mashed together to create one epic dessert: the cookie dough cheesecake brownie. Are you drooling yet?

Handle the Heat – which indeed we can – has a recipe for these very cake bars, which feature a fudgy chocolate brownie base topped with a layer of cream cheese and finished with gooey, sensationally sweet cookie dough. Amazing.

Donuts, as our friends across the pond spell them, are a classic American snack. You know how there’s a Tesco Express every six yards in the UK? In the US, they’re Dunkin’ Donuts outlets instead.

Regardless of how many Instagrammable varieties and experimental flavours there are these days, nothing will ever beat the classic jam-filled kind, which Butcher Baker Blog has a brilliant recipe for. These ones are baked, not fried, which means they’d be ideal for making in your Tefal Snack Collection.

It’s compulsory to cover your finished donuts in liberal amounts of sugar. We’re not going to challenge you to eat one without licking your lips though, as we all know it’s impossible. Just eat them, and enjoy.