If there's one place anybody should let their creative juices flow, it's while making burgers. Some people are traditionalists and that's good. Why mess with a good recipe right? Because it's fun that's why!
There are a few important things to any great burger so let's go through that and then we'll look at variations.
The meat. Never use lean meat. Never. It just won't taste good. If you want low fat, don't have a burger or save it on the side salads. Try veggie burgers like chickpeas and bulgur. But if you want a real burger, get medium ground beef. Try to get it from a real butcher that grinds their own meat. Commercially packed meats can have fillers which aren't the best thing for you. If you butcher is asking you what type of meat, smile! You want a mixture of fatty parts and higher end parts like sirloin. The purpose of fat is that it is the vehicle that brings flavours together. You don't want tons of it but enough to make the dish taste like a unison of happiness and not feel disjointed.
The heat. You want a good amount of heat so if you're grilling, you want that rack to be insanely hot. When you drop cold meat onto it, it can't drop the temperature too much. This will sear and start to cook right away. Leave it be. Don't touch it. The magical thing about meat is that it sticks first and then will eventually release itself when it's ready. Let the food tell you when it's ready. Same thing for a frying pan. Use a thick bottom metal pan. No Teflon. Flip it when its easy. Don't push down on the patty to get juices out, leave it be.
Bread. You have to nail this one. This is so important. Burger buns are OK, but you'll never wow anybody using standard burger buns let's face it. I like an Italian bread. Portuguese buns are too light for a juicy patty, it'll break apart while you eat it. I like Kaiser rolls but Calabrese rolls work well also, just don't get them too thick or else it's too much bread, steals from the other flavours. About 2" thick would be great.
So those are the big points. Now let's go into some details. Meat mixture. Everybody has recipes. An egg, breadcrumbs, cheese, whatever. Anything goes, you really just want to keep it the right consistency, so if you add liquid, make sure you can balance in the opposite way. I don't like using fillers and binders personally, but I love to fill it with flavour. Here's some things you can try:
- marinate the meat in bulgogi sauce. Bulgogi is a Korean marinade that has soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and garlic. This is one of my favourite marinade's to use as a base. It's not too "Asian", adds a great amount of depth and it can take some big bold toppings.
- thinly shave a white onion into the mix. Use a mandolin or even a food processor. The smaller\thinner, the better. This will melt the onion into the meat when it cooks, and the white onion is very sweet so the sugars in it will add to the caramelizing.
- Worcestershire sauce. Similar effect to the Bulgogi sauce in the sense of a deep flavour. It shouldn't be the only thing though. Add chili pepper and cumin.
- Feta cheese. Crumble it up, drain it in a wire mesh, and then put it in the mixture. This'll give you a real nice saltiness to it.
Toppings! Can't believe it's this long and I just now cover it. This will always depend on what type of meat and bread you use. generally you want to put a nice base sauce on the bottom bun. Then the meat, another sauce if you want, greenery and the rest of your toppings. The reason you put the green stuff above it is it will not wilt and be soggy, and also the meat will drip some juice. Let that go into the bottom bun. If you put the meat on top of it, the juices will pool in the ridges of your lettuce. As hot hot sauces. I love them! But put them on top of the meat, not below and here's my theory behind it. The tongue firstly hits the bottom bun, then the bottom sauce, then the meat. If you put hot sauce on the bottom (talking about real hot stuff, not Tabasco or franks) then you will just burn the receptors on your tongue and you'll lose the goodiness you put into the rest. Put it on top of the meat, and it will go into the meat itself, and meld a bit.You usually want crunchy texture (lettuce, pickles, raw onions...), sauce (ketchup, relish, mustard), and vinagar (coleslaw, mustard, pickles) to cut the fat a bit and balance the whole thing.
If you're looking for different things than ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomatoes and lettuce try these.
- Quick pickled onions
- Cranberry & orange relish
- Arugula instead of regular lettuce. Adds a light peppery quality
- fried egg, sunny side up. Put it on top and let it drip down when you bite into it. SO good!
- Srirachi sauce. a fantastic Thai hot sauce that is chili based, not vinegary. Yellow bottle top is mild, green is hot
- thin amount of blue cheese. a sliver really. You want the bite, but you don't want this to be a blue cheese burger.
- Oyster mushrooms, slowly cooked in butter with black pepper on top
When you make this type of burger, don't leave the condiments out for people to do it. They'll almost always reach for the Heinz bottles and leave all the good stuff there. Make them the burger. give them a plate of a burger pre-made. Show them this can be good.
That's it, I have to start the BBQ.
- Marc
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