Saturday, 25 September 2010

• Tyler Florence's Bacon Burger

  This is a guest post from Savory Bites.

  

  Last semester, I gave myself a death wish by seeking out the top ranked burgers in New York City. Some weeks, I had burgers 4x a week. The burger resume could still use some polishing (I’m FINALLY going to get to taste the Black Label Burger at Minetta Tavern in two days!), but I think I’ve had quite a few decent ones to decide for myself what I like in a burger. So last night, Esther and I made burgers and we incorporated what we observed to be the fundamentally important aspects that every good burger must have:

   

  • Bun: This is often neglected especially when made at home. Of course, you have your traditional potato bun (you can’t go wrong with that especially at Shake Shack), your kaiser roll bun (which is a bit dry but White Rose pulls it off quite well), but then you have the BRIOCHE BUN (which DBGB pulls off so fantastically well). Out of all of them, I think the brioche bun is lip-smacking delicious and whoops all of the other buns (hah, get it?!). It’s buttery. It’s soft. It combines the delicateness you get from potato buns yet it doesn’t get all soggy on you. It’s so worth splurging an extra buck or two in the bakery aisle.

  • Meat quality: Crappy input = crappy output. Duh. If you’re making burgers at home, you have a variety of ground beef to choose from. First, how lean do you want the meat to be? We stuck to 85% lean / 15% fat just because I’ve always felt that 90% lean errs on the drier side. If you can, go with grass fed, but sometimes it’s hard to find. We couldn’t find it at Trader Joe’s, surprisingly. But some of the top ranked burgers use a combination of chuck, sirloin, and ground. That’s a bit ambitious if you ask me, but perhaps that’ll be our next burger making project.

  • What goes into the meat: I’ve found that breaking an egg not only holds the patties together really well, but it also helps moisten the meat. We added a tablespoon of good quality, course dijon mustard for a kick. That really made a difference. Oh, and some diced onion!

  • Sauce: Sometimes, less is more. We slathered on some good quality honey dijon mustard and ketchup. Intense, man, just intense.

  The result was epic success. In fact, it tasted so good that Esther and I looked at each other after photographing and decided that we should split the first one. Then we proceeded to make the next one. We couldn’t wait to make a third so we split the second. And then repeated. So basically, we split three burgers and had to run back and forth from the balcony to the kitchen because we were too impatient. That’s how good the burger was. A few hours later, even Lisa confirmed it was delicious and when we asked her if she wanted seconds, she said, “definitely.”

   

  This recipe is inspired by one of my favorite chefs, Tyler Florence (who I coincidentally met during a Shake Shack run last Spring!). We modified it a bit, considering we’re still somewhat on a budget and we wanted to be a bit “healthier.” We used turkey bacon instead of pork, honey dijon mustard instead of mayo, ground beef instead of a combination of chuck/sirloin, and Colby Jack cheese instead of Brie. Okay, maybe we made a completely different burger, but Tyler did play a role…

  Bacon Burgers on Brioche- for the healthy (yeah right!) and budget conscious
  Inspired by Tyler Florence at FOOD & WINE

  Ingredients:

  • 1/2 medium red onion, diced as small as possible
  • 1/2 medium onion, sliced into rings
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon course ground Dijon mustard
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 6 slices of thick-cut bacon (12 ounces)
  • 1.5 pounds mixed ground chuck and ground sirloin
  • Slices of Colby Jack Cheese
  • 6 brioche burger buns, split
  • Honey Dijon mustard
  • Lettuce
  • Ketchup

  Recipe:

  In a large bowl, combine the diced onion with the ground beef. Crack an egg, season with salt & pepper, and add in the 1 tablespoon of coarse ground dijon mustard and 1 tablespoon of oil. Mix with your hands until it is well incorporated. Shape the meat into six patties. We found that they cook very well when they’re thick, about a 3-4 inches diameter, but 1.5 inches thick.

  Heat a skillet on medium heat. Drizzle the other tablespoon of oil and start cooking the patties. Depending on how you like it, it should take 2-3 minutes/side. We found that when cooked until just still slightly pink in the middle, by the time you plate and start eating, the innards will cook a but more, enough to be medium rare. Be patient and only flip the burger once. You don’t want to dry out the juices. In another skillet, heat the bacon.

  When ready, slather a generous spoonful of Honey Diijon on the bun, layer the lettuce, onion, cheese, and burger. Don’t forget the ketchup!

  —

  FOOD & WINE is giving away a year-long subscription to a lucky reader from Savory-bites.  Click here to enter and read official rules here.

  This post is part of a series featuring recipes from the FOOD & WINE archive.  As a FOOD & WINE Blogger Correspondent, I was chosen to do four recipes a week from FOOD & WINE.  I received a subscription to FOOD & WINE for my participation.

  What do you like on your burger, what is a must have for you?

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