EPIC CHEESEBURGER.

[railenthe]

I’m going to apologize for the lack of photo now.  This truly is a DELICIOUS cheeseburger that I’m going to offer a recipe for, but…

 

I…might’ve already eaten it.  I hadn’t even thought of a photo until I took that last bite and finished my half-liter of homemade cola.  Then I thought “whoops!”

 

What?  It was an epic cheeseburger and I was hungry.  It’s simple.

Just imagine the best cheeseburger you ever did see, and you’ve got it.  I doubt you’ve ever tasted anything quite like this one, though.  I’ll have a shot of it when I get the chips recipe up.  (Well, it’s really hard to make julienne fries out of fingerling potatoes, so potato chips it was.)

 

This is not a flimsy, namby-pamby burger.  This is not a dieter’s burger.  This is a serious chunk of beef.  If you’re looking for a healthy-burger recipe, this is a night where I can’t help you. 

 

 

The Epic Cheeseburger

---

You’ll need:

• A small, cold plate.  (That ‘cold’ part will be very important.)
• 1/3 lb of ground beef, 85% lean at most.  Any leaner and it won’t hold together without the addition of a good dose of butter or ghee.  It’s important that this beef be as cold as possible without being frozen.  (…yes, I like a big burger.  So?)
• Liquid smoke.  Your preference as to which kind.  I can usually only find hickory, but there’s other kinds—plus, with the right stuff you can actually make your own.
• 1 tbsp red miso paste.  (Any kind will do, actually, but several test burgers seems to proclaim red miso the taste winner.)
• 1 tbsp of your favorite beef seasoning.  I use herbes de provence.
• Pepper.
• A cold skillet.  Preferably a good sized one.
• Your favorite sandwich cheese.  Omit cheese for an epic hamburger.
• Lettuce, vinegared, seasoned cucumbers (not jar pickles), and your favorite hamburger fixings.  These can include standard pickles if you don’t have the vinegared, seasoned cukes.
• Some sort of bread, of course.

Take the beef, throw that onto a plate, and throw all of the dry ingredients into it—and the miso.  Mash it all up with your hands until you can’t see the streaks made by the miso.  This seems like a whole lot of miso, but keep two things in mind:  1) the fact that we’re not adding any salt; the miso takes care of that, and 2) as the burger cooks, the extra salt will cook out, leaving you with a perfectly seasoned burger.  While you’re smashing the meat around, douse it with the liquid smoke—say, a tablespoon or so. It’ll get onto the plate, which is exactly what you want.

 

Smash that around while you mix the seasonings with the miso, being sure to get into the liquid smoke.  Since the plate and the meat are both cold, the fat in the beef will remain solid-ish and it’ll pick up the liquid smoke.  You’re done when you can’t tell the miso from the beef and there isn’t any liquid smoke left on the plate.

 

Flatten and put into a cold skillet.  Put the skillet on medium-low.  (Why medium-low?  You’ve got a much lower scorch point with the miso added into the beef.)  Cook to your preferred doneness.  I prefer my burgers well-done, with just a hint of char on one side (but go fig, I prefer my steaks medium-well.  This ain’t no steak, though, this is a burger!  IN AMERICA! /Yugioh The Abridged Series).

 

Remove from skillet.  Throw the meat straight onto the bread.  Top with the stuff, and serve with a frosty drink, like a good strong cola.  Good with my Tricolor Chips—a recipe I haven’t posted yet, because I’m still working out the best way to get a good texture out of them.  These are three kinds of potatoes that I’m just recently getting a chance to play with.

 

Dissecting the Recipe

 

A few things in this recipe might seem a little odd.  Why the cold plate and skillet?  Why the miso paste?  WTF, cukes and not pickles?  Sacrilege! you say.  I can assure you, every seemingly weird step has a reason.  This is my most basic burger formula—and yes, it’s a little fancier than most.  Just remember, I take my food philosophy from Prishe and the Qus: The best food possible, and KEEP IT COMING.

 

• Cold Plate/Skillet:  It’s important that the fat in the meat stay solid-ish until you’re ready to apply heat.  It’s easier to knead cold miso into cold beef (miso holds heat if you warm it, and you don’t want the beef to begin cooking prematurely), and the semi-solid state of the fat will make it easier to incorporate the liquid smoke into the meat.  If you’re using particularly strong spices, this will also cause their flavors to soak directly into the meat—in fact, after you’ve incorporated everything into the meat, you can shape it into a ball and refrigerate it for a while, letting the spices infuse for a half hour or so.  You don’t have to, though, because starting with a cold skillet serves as a mock-up for this step: basically the herbs steep in the fat.  Another necessity for the cold skillet: the miso will cause the meat to brown and caramelize rapidly; starting with a hot skillet will make you burn your burger, and while a good char is nice, you don’t want a hockey puck.

• The Leanness of the Meat:  This is why this is hard to do with venison.  The fat holds the spices and smoke in, and leaner meat will not assimilate them.  This is one of the places where I insist on fattier meat, breaking my usual rules on lean meat.  If you want it ‘leaner,’ drain the drippings into a separate container (the grease and pan deglazing can make great gravy, for the record)—but keep in mind that this makes it easier to burn your burger. If you have nothing but super-lean meat, soften some butter or ghee and incorporate that into the meat.  There is something to be said about an epic butterburger, after all.  A note:  you’ll need an even colder plate.  Stick the thing in the freezer for a few minutes.

• Liquid Smoke:  I live in a studio on the eighth floor.  I can’t grill.  This comes dangerously close to being an authentic grilled burger in taste.  To get even closer, use a grill pan—but AGAIN, watch out, because the less burger grease the meat comes into contact with, the more likely you are to scorch the burger.

• Miso:  The flavor of miso is a many-splendored thing—rich and fermented, and loaded with good stuff.  It’s also loaded with salt, but the nice thing about miso is that its mineral and antioxidant content are something you don’t see in salt.  Plus, miso adds a delicious flavor to ground meats—beef, venison, turkey, even chicken.  Yes, there’s a such thing as ground chicken.  Don’t have miso?  Marmite/Vegemite works in this burger, too—just use slightly less…unless you like a REALLY salty burger.  (I do but that’s not the point.)  Both of these necessitate a lower cooking temperature, because they’ll cause the burger’s outside to brown faster.

• Vinegared Cukes:  Miso/’Mites, high-fat meat, buttered meat…this is a dense burger, I won’t lie.  A dill pickle, while delicious, doesn’t quite work with the flavors here.  The reason:  dill itself.  While tasty, it hits wrong with this burger’s flavor.  I’d been eating it as such until recently, when I ran into some fresh homemade vinegar pickles—basically dill-free pickles, heavy on the vinegar.  The taste combination is a bit lighter than with the standard Kosher dill pickle, with a cleaner, crisper finish—which is important in this burger.

• Cheese:  This isn’t a weird part of the recipe, but I thought that it was time to throw some recommended cheeses at you for this one.  You don’t HAVE to have cheese on your burger (even though I will save at least one odd look especially for you if you say this to my face), but if you’re going to have a cheeseburger, my motto is “Go big or go home.”
  American cheese is the standard, but for this burger, it’s a bit wimpy.
  If you’re going to go for the gold, use a sharp cheddar.  Sliced, shredded, even spreadable—the stronger, the better.
  But if you want the BEST option, I have two words for you:  Smoked.  Goudam.  It’s like the bacon of cheeses.  Try to find one that’s been smoked to the point where the exterior rind is actually EDIBLE SMOKED CHEESE.

There you have it: my standard recipe for the Epic Cheeseburger.  It is the product of many hours in the kitchen and at least a hundred pounds of beef, forty or more different test formulations, and countless days of me badgering friends and loved ones saying “Hey, taste this and tell me what you think.”  It’s become my basic burger recipe, the one that I’ll take to work and nuke for lunch, earning a series of “Damn, where’d you get that burger? It smells so good!” reactions from guests who walk by during our break.  (I’ll admit I feel both a little smug and a little guilty when co-workers say that “you can’t buy it anywhere, we’re so sorry, but yeah her burgers are GOOD.”)  Feel free to try it, tell me if you like it, and if you’re feeling bold enough, offer me some tweaks.  Being a food fiend, I WILL test the tweaks and give my feedback.

Warning:  You might have to be aggressive to prevent cheeseburger theft.  You wouldn’t believe the looks my burgers get when people think I’m not looking.  I don’t care if you just want a little piece, you’d best ask me before you try it.  =P

Comments

[alex-damien.livejournal.com]

I blame you for my obsession with cooking hamburgers today. I simply couldn't control myself after you made your hamburger sound so delicious U.U and I couldn't even follow your recipe because they don't sell miso or liquid smoke where I live! (the liquid smoke actually made me stop and read twice, since hell, what in the name of Belgium is liquid smoke!? Do they just put smoke in a box until it bores enough to say "screw this, I'm a liquid now!"?)
Thus, I was forced to enjoy my non-awesome burger, thank you very much.

I SHOULD PROBABLY EXPLAIN THAT

[railenthe.livejournal.com]

Liquid smoke is produced by basically doing the wood burn that you do in a grill, but piping the thing through a cooling system and distilling the resulting liquid into a container. Basically they do the smoke, distill the steam/smoke into a liquid, and bottle it. You can usually find it in seasoning sections in the US. The most common varieties are hickory and mesquite. Alton Brown, the chef of the show Good Eats, has a method of making the stuff at home using several aluminium pans and a mock-up of a basic distillation system. You get the taste of a grilled burger without all that rigamarole.

Just don't break the jar, because it will take days to get the smell of smoke out of the kitchen. I know, I broke one. House smelled like hickory smoke for weeks.

As for finding miso, if you can't find it, Vegemite or Marmite will do.

If you can't find THOSE...salted butter and a bit of extra salt.

I AM A BIG EATER. YOU KNOW THIS. XD