A few weeks ago, I decided that, with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I was going to sort of take it easy for a couple weeks. I also decided that instead of doing a clips show style “Hey, here’s a few things from the past year that I liked” I would instead put together a handful of Weekly Menu editions what weren’t actually menus, per se, but focused on a single category.
This time it’s Burger Week.
I should have done the clips show.
Not that spending, now, most of two weeks playing around with burger and burger like recipes hasn’t been fun, just that the idea that it was taking it easy was … well, it was wrong.
First of all, we’ve eaten a lot of burger product here in the last couple of weeks. A lot more that we might normally – because normally burgers make pretty rare appearances in our own kitchen. It’s not that we – and in particular me – don’t enjoy a good burger. I love them in all forms – from fancy gourmet burgers from fine dining restaurants to ill-advised late-night drive through trips to that perfect old school diner/bar burger (the pinnacle of the form in my opinion) they’re all great. It’s that they’re a pain in the butt.
We think of burgers as pedestrian, simple food. You say “Oh, I want something easy, let’s just do burgers” and that’s when you realize that you don’t have ground beef, that that spring mix in the fridge is just going to melt into mush on top of a hot patty, that something got put on top of those burger rolls in the pantry and now they’re more ad hoc burger waffles than rolls. Even the simplest burger requires on a fair amount of preparation.
Then again, when you get it right, when you’ve got all those pieces and bits and you’ve got complete control – I mean you know you’re not going to get pickles on your order if you if you’re ordering it from yourself – when it all comes together, it’s really completely totally worth it.
Or that’s what I kept telling myself all week. Sometimes that was even true.
So, I set out to put together a few burger recipes, or at least fun, make them yourself, sandwiches that you could apply the burger moniker to. We’re pretty liberal about what we call “a burger” these days, and I’m not that kind of pedant anyway, so I took that to heart with my choices.
One more note: A couple of weeks ago, paid subscribers got an additional recipe that sort of came out of this week’s “projecting.” The Weekly Menu is always free, but paid subscribers support my work here and in return, get something a little extra each week in the form of additional recipes, commentary, tips, and tricks. Right now, you can get 20% off a yearly or monthly subscription for a whole year.
You can also support my work by visiting my other project – The Chicken Thigh Guy – or by subscribing to The Chicken Thigh Guy on FOND, a great new app that allows you to cook along with the recipes on your phone.
Double-Double Fast Food Style Fries
A burger and fries without fries is just … a burger. I mean, that’s a pretty great thing on its own, but it’s definitely better with fries, right? You know that fries are really the most important part of many burger experiences when you hear people talking about quick stop restaurants, hamburger stands, drive-thrus, just about anything that serves sandwiches and fries. Sure, they may mention the burgers, the dogs, or whatever else the place serves, but it’s the fries that get the attention. You’ve heard the arguments, the hyperbolic statements, the debate, the utter dismay when someone tries that legendary west coast place and discovers … yeah. Bad fries are sadness, good fries are good, and great fries make a meal.
And no, I’m not calling them double-double after that legendary west coast place. The below recipe is for a double soaking and double frying technique that gives you crisp, golden fries without too much effort. Double frying gives you crisp fries with a soft center, and the double soak – first in plain water, then in water dosed with soda and sugar - helps to give you golden fries without that dark burnt flavor and color you can often get from hand cut fries.
Makes 4 servings of fries as a side
2 large russet potatoes
1 tbsp granulated sugar
½ tsp baking soda
Kosher salt
Neutral oil, lard, or shortening
Wash, peel, and cut the potatoes into approx. ¼ inch thick batons. (I cheat and use a French fry cutter)
Put the potatoes in a non-reactive bowl and cover completely with cool water.
Agitate, then allow to rest for 5 – 10 minutes – this allows starch to slough off and settle.
Remove the fries from the water, pour out the starchy water, and rinse out the bowl.
Add the potatoes back to the bowl, again adding enough water to cover.
Add the sugar and baking soda to the water.
Allow the potatoes to soak for 20-30 minutes.
Preheat your fryer, or a dutch oven, to 350°F.
Remove the potatoes, drain them, and dry well with a clean kitchen towel.
Working in batches so as not to cool the oil, fry the potatoes at 350°F until they just start to turn golden.
Remove them, drain the oil, and allow them to cool completely (you can even freeze them).
Bring your oil temp up to 375°F.
Re-fry the potatoes until they’re crisp and golden.
Drain, scatter with kosher salt, and serve hot.
The Layer Cake
Even within the realm of beef-patty-based varieties, burgers still come in all shapes and sizes, and prepared with different techniques, tricks, and downright burgerified magic. One of my favorites is one of the old school: multiple thin, nearly crispy, smashed patties cooked on a flat top and piled with toppings. You get everything you want on a burger. The thin patties mean that those toppings don’t build the sandwich up into a fork and knife required monstrosity. It’s tasty, even indulgent, but it’s still an approachable bit of burger architecture.
This recipe – if you want to call it a recipe – builds four towering multi-level multi-smashed-patty burgers slathered with a slightly spicy take on the secret-special-original-whateveryoucallit sauces smeared on toasted buns at roadside and corner and late-night joints all over the country.
One note technique wise – you can get a decent smashed burger simply but pressing down hard with a stiff spatula – but I’ve found that using tool specifically for pressing down on grilled foods (it’s great for sausage, bacon, etc too) makes it easier and generally more reliably give you great burgers. I’m normally against single use kitchen gadgets (other than my awesome cavatelli maker, ‘cus that’s just cool) but this is worth it. You can find a link to the tool I use here.
Also, instead of the plastic wrapped singles, or fancier stuff, I strongly advise using deli sliced American cheese. It melts perfectly, and like on any good cheeseburger, it really becomes more of a sauce than a topping.
Makes 4 burgers
1 lb ground beef, 80/20 or your preferred mix
6 potato hamburger rolls
8 slices American cheese
½ head Iceberg lettuce
1 large tomato
1 medium white onion
½ cup hamburger chip style dill pickles
1 recipe “That Sauce”
2 tbsp melted unsalted butter
Peel, trim, and slice the onion into thin slices.
Clean and slice the tomato.
Using a sharp knife, cut the iceberg lettuce into thin shreds.
Set aside two of the rolls.
Using a bread knife, cut the tops off the top, and the base off the bottoms to create four “middle” buns.
Pain melted butter on to the cut faces of all the rolls and grill until browned.
Clean and slice the Divide your ground beef into 8 portions and form them into 8 balls.
Heat a cast iron skillet or comal over high heat.
Season the ground beef balls with salt.
Working one at a time, and using a burger iron, or spatula, smash the balls down into the pan as hard as you can.
Cook, turning once, until very browned and crisp.
Smear the bottom bun with That Sauce (below), top with a patty and a slice of cheese.
Add the “middle” bun, more sauce, another patty, more cheese, and top with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle (LTOP!)
Enjoy with fries.
That Sauce
4 tbsp tomato ketchup
4 tbsp jalapeno vinegar (from sliced pickled jalapenos)
4 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp minced dill pickle
1 tbsp finely minced onion
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard
½ tsp finely ground black pepper
Add the ketchup and vinegar to a small pan over medium heat.
Stir to combine well and cook until thickened and reduced by ½.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely.
Combine the tomato/jalapeno mixture with the remaining ingredients and refrigerate covered for 1 hour to allow flavors to combine.
Bad Idea Breakfast Burger
Breakfast sandwiches are underrated. I don’t mean they’re ignored. I don’t even mean that people don’t like them. I mean that no matter how well liked they are, no matter how popular, they’re still underrated because they’re pretty much just about the best thing ever.
Many mornings when I lived in DC, I would stand in line for a sandwich from the lunch counter around the corner on the first floor of our building. I’d stand in the queue watching this guy who was an absolute master of the flat top grill tap dance his spatulas across that perfectly maintained sheet of smooth steel, grilling bagels, gracefully smearing eggs across the hot surface to make paper thin but still tender sandwich omelets, and all the while somehow keeping track 8-10 orders at a time. Best of all, at the end of this amazing little show, I’d be handed a steaming, waxed-paper-wrapped wonder. Soft warm bread, crisp and toasty at the edges, creamy melting cheese, and egg with just enough bite to let you know it’d been perfectly cooked. My usual order was a grilled everything bagel topped with egg and cheese – but sometimes I’d mix it up.
Now of course I’m the one making the breakfast sandwich. I mean, it’s been a weird couple of years, I don’t live in DC anymore, and downstairs in the corner of our building is … my kitchen.
This is a terribly bad idea of a breakfast sandwich that - while nothing original - originated in a smartass group chat made up of several of my old rugby and cycling buddies. 3Basically, it’s what would happen if I was still 19 years old and had 24x7 access to a hotel breakfast buffet and now I wonder why I didn’t eat this every day in college.
Makes 4 sandwiches
1 lb spicy country pork sausage
1 lb shredded hashbrown potatoes
8 ciabatta style rolls
8 large eggs
8 slices American cheese
8 slices thick cut bacon
Divide the sausage into 4 portions, shape into balls, and flatten into patties.
Grill the sausage patties until browned.
Prepare 4 portions of hashbrown potatoes according to the package direction (or use your own shredded and rinsed potatoes)
Cut the bacon slices in half and cook until crisp.
Slice the ciabatta rolls and grill until slightly browned on both faces.
Working one at a time, whisk an egg with a small amount of water, and pour over the surface of a pre-heated non-stick pan, turning the pan to ensure an even thin coat.
Fold the egg into a square the size of the roll.
Layer the sausage, hashbrown patty, egg, cheese, and bacon on to the bottom of a roll.
Add the top.
Wrap in foil and allow to steam for a couple minutes.
Enjoy. Preferably with a coffee in a paper cup and the morning news.
Cheffy Chef Burger
Of equal heft, but at the other end of the burger pantheon from the layer cake above, this burger is more the type you’d find at the bar of a fine dining restaurant. Unlike many of those fine institutions, I’m not going to give you the entire provenance of the cattle making up the patty. I won’t tell you the genetic history sire of the side that made up the ground, or the name of the farm, or how a portion of the meat is made from trim from a 60-day aged bourbon soaked whole primal the chef carefully selected – though if you want to make your own burger grind … well, it’s a lot of work but it’s sometimes worth it. If I’ve got the bits, I’m usually pretty happy with the difference in flavor and texture of home ground meat. I usually build a blend of about 80% chuck with some brisket or short rib trim thrown in. It’s a good blend, but realistically it has more to do with what I’ve got around the house than as a specific recipe.
What I’m getting at here is that when you’re making a thick patty – the quality of the meat is where the flavor comes from. It’s may be worth looking for something a little more refined than plain old grocery store ground beef. Then again, that foam tray of 80/20, seasoned properly and seared hard, is still going to make a pretty darned good burger, so … make your own choices.
This recipe includes three sub recipes … because I’m that extra. The tomato jam ends up being like a slightly ketchupier ketchup – sweeter, even more vinegarier, and more obviously tomato. The fried onions are addictive (and you can put them on top of green bean casserole next week!) and the brioche style rolls are a little firmer, and a little sturdier than most grocery store buns. All that being said, for me it’s the sweet creamy funkiness of soft sweet blue cheese that makes this one fun.
Makes 4 burgers
1 1/3 lb premium ground beef (or your own grind)
4 Brioche Style Burger Buns (below)
1 recipe Tomato Jam
1 recipe crispy fried onions (below)
4 slices thick cut bacon (opt)
¼ lbs cambozola or gorgonzola dulce cheese
2 tbsp melted unsalted butter
salt and pepper to taste
Form the beef into 4 patties. Season well with salt and pepper, and grill or sear in a cast iron pan until cooked to your preferred doneness.
Layer onto a lightly buttered and grilled brioche roll, and top with tomato jam, soft, sweet blue cheese, and a generous handful of fried onions.
Optionally, a few slices of crisp thick cut smokey bacon are great addition to this burger as well.
Tomato Jam
4-6 large tomatoes
1 medium onion
½ cup cider vinegar
½ cup brown sugar
¼ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp kosher salt
Half, seed, and coarsely chop the tomatoes. You’ll want about 2 cups of seeded chopped tomatoes.
Peel, trim, and coarsely chop the onion.
Place the onion and cider vinegar in the container of a high-speed blender and process until smooth.
Add the tomato, sugar, spices, salt, and the vinegar/onion puree to a thick bottomed pan over medium heat.
Bring the mixture to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have completely broken down and the mixture is thickened and shiny.
Allow to cool to room temperature, and chill at last 2 hours to thicken further.
Brioche Style Burger Buns
3½ cups AP flour
3 large eggs, divided
½ cup whole milk, warmed
¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ tsp (one packet) instant dry yeast
1 tsp kosher salt
Separate one egg, setting aside the egg white to glaze the buns.
Add the flour, sugar, salt, yeast, milk, the egg yolks and remaining 2 eggs to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.
Process on medium speed until the ingredients come together into a smooth dough.
Increase the speed, and add the butter, processing until fully incorporated.
Cover, and let rise until doubled in size.
Preheat your oven to 375°F.
Whisk the remaining egg white with 1 tbsp cool water until just slightly foamy.
Divide into 8 portions, and shape into balls and arrange on a sheet pan lined with parchment or a silicone mat.
Using a damp hand or wet spatula, flatten each ball.
Brush the flattened dough balls with egg white.
Bake at 375°F until golden brown on top, about 18 minutes.
Allow to cool completely before using.
Crispy Fried Onion
1 large white or yellow onion
½ cup corn starch
½ cup AP flour
1 tsp kosher salt
neutral oil for frying.
Peel, trim, and half the onion.
Using a sharp knife, or mandoline slicer, cut very thin slices across the rings. The thinner the slices, the crispier the results.
Place the sliced onion and salt in non-reactive bowl, tossing well to distribute the salt.
Allow to stand 10-15 minutes.
Mix the cornstarch and flour.
Drain the salted onions, squeezing to release any excess moisture.
Add the flour/cornstarch mixture and toss well – using your fingers or chopsticks to break up any large clumps and working to evenly coat each individual strand.
Heat your oil to 350°F.
Working in batches as necessary, fry the onions – agitating frequently – until golden brown.
Allow to cool before using.
Shrimp Burger
When trying to come up with a burger that wasn’t a burger and also wasn’t a breakfast sandwich, a turkey burger, something with beans in it, something made from fungus, or any of the many other burgerized not-really-burger foods out there that we now commonly call burgers I went back and forth between two ideas. One involved potato. This is the other one.
I thought about making some joke about shrimp burgers for dessert, since this is the slot - all the way down here at the end - in the newsletter often occupied by dessert. That seemed [rimshot] a shrimp too far.
So … this is a shrimp burger. It’s sort of a culinary train wreck in that it’s a shrimp patty seasoned in the way many Asian minced shrimp perpetrations are seasoned, fried like schnitzel (or katsu), then topped with something approximating - or at least nodding toward - a creole remoulade. Then it’s thrown on a burger bun with pretty much the usual LTO burger toppings.
It’s a train wreck. And it’s delicious. And I’m completely comfortable calling it a burger.
Makes 4 sandwiches
1 lb peeled, deveined, tailless raw shrimp
1 green onion
½ tsp white pepper
½ tsp kosher salt
1 cup AP flour
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 large eggs
4 soft hamburger rolls
½ head iceberg lettuce
1 medium white onion
1 large tomato
1 recipe spicy remoulade
Trim, clean, and finely slice the green onion.
Place the onion, shrimp, white pepper, and salt in the bowl fo a food processor and pulse until the shrimp is fairly finely and evenly ground.
Using wet hands, form the shrimp mixture into 4 evenly sized disks.
Wrap the disks in plastic wrap, place on a sheet pan, and freeze for 1 hour.
Prepare a three step breading station with the flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs.
Bread the shrimp patties by dredging in flour, dipping into beaten egg, and then into the breadcrumbs.
Return to the freezer for 15 minutes.
In a pan deep enough to cover the patties, heat your oil to 325°F.
Fry the patties until golden brown.
Drain on paper towels, and assemble into sandwiches.
Place a patty on the bottom roll, top with remoulade, onions, tomato, and shredded lettuce.
Spicy Remoulade
½ cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp minced celery
1 tbsp minced onion
1 tbsp minced dill pickle
1 tsp minced capers (opt)
1 tsp prepared horseradish
1 tsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp Crystal hot sauce or Franks Red Hot
½ tsp ground black pepper
Combine all ingredients.
Refrigerate 1 hour before using.