Teriyaki Sliders

These babies are slidin' right into home plate.

Grand Slam!!

Out of the park!

Ok, I'm seriously not a baseball fan. Sir Sportsalot burned me out on that...yeeeeears ago. Once upon a time, 2 expansion teams were drafting into the leagues....The Rockies and The Mariners or was it the Marlins? crap, I think it was the Marlins. Anyways... just to irk Sir Sportsalot, I decided to be fan of The Rockies...just so I could say I've liked them since they began. And ya, being a Dodger fan himself...it irked.

But I couldn't tell ya how they did this past season...or even a name of a single player on the team.

Some fan, right?

But....when I think of sliders....what comes to mind is "sliding" onto base oooor....those little water turtles....red eared sliders.

So...thats where my head is. If it doesn't make sense to you, don't worry. You're not alone.

Now for these Teriyaki Sliders....

I got the recipe from my sister who got it from a magazine (have no clue which one...sorry).

I did make a few slight changes. Not enough to call it my own...just enough to make it a little extra mmmm mmmm good.

I did borrow a couple of ideas from Spryte. She has 2 recipes for Sliders. One is the White Castle Style Slider where I borrowed the cooking method....BRILLANT!!! Sooooo would not want to be flipping 24 mini patties.

The other recipe is her Teriyaki Turkey Sliders with Ponzu Sauce where I borrowed her pineapple addition to the slider. Totally YUM!

Ok...lets move on already.

why does wine make me so chatty?

Teriyaki Patties:
1 1/2 lbs ground chicken (or pork...actually, beef would be fine too)
3 scallions, chopped
4 oz chopped mushrooms, sauteed
2 1/2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1/3 cup teriyaki sauce
1/3 - 2/3 cup panko
1 teaspoon sesame oil

I ground up a couple of chicken breasts. It was a bit moist so I ended up adding 2/3 cup of panko. Start with the 1/3 cup and see how it all feels before adding more (or not)

Tip: I keep my ginger in a zip lock baggy in the freezer. It keeps for a long time and when you grate ginger, frozen...its a snap!! Just take a knife and scrape off the skin and "zest" away. No messy stringy stuff....just fine little crystal like ginger.

Sauce:
1/4 mayonnaise
1 tsp teriyaki sauce
1/4 tsp sesame oil (optional)
1/2 tsp sugar
pinch wasabi powder (optional)

24 pineapple slices
24 dinner rolls  (I used Kings Hawaiian Rolls)

Wasabi Powder.....hmmm.

I added the "pinch" and let it sit for a minute...nothing. No heat, no nothing. So I added more. Still nothing. I ended up adding a good teaspoon or more and still nothing!! No heat. Just a weird flavor that I wasn't sure I liked. What happened? Anyone out there experienced with this stuff? Wasabi is hot stuff. I don't get it.

O'well...let's move on

Preheat the oven to 400' F.

Combine all the teriyaki patty ingredients. Spray a 13 x 9 casserole dish with cooking spray and spread the chicken mixture into the pan, as evenly as you can...

Cook for about 30 minutes. You want to make sure its thoroughly cooked of course....no pink in the middle

Meanwhile, grill your pineapple slices. It was too cold for the "man" of the house to BBQ outside so I got out my waaaaaay old, indoor grill pan (when is it ever too cold in SoCal to BBQ???)

 

At least it gets the grill marks done good.

Then mix up your sauce ingredients

When the chicken is done, cut into 24 patties, about the size of the dinner rolls

And put your sliders together....

Soo...how many of these babies can you put away?

Btw...I happened to serve them with sweet potato fries. It was my first experience with those.

Not bad. not bad at all.

I did make regular fries for Sir Sportsalot cuz I didn't think he'd be real thrilled with the sweet potatoes. I walked out of the kitchen for a minute and when I returned, he had loaded up his plate with them.

Now, if I had told him...."instead of regular fries, I thought I'd make them out of sweet potatoes" I wouldn't gotten "the look"

Go figure.