Sharon Jessup Joyce
No, I haven’t fallen into the sin of arrogance. This post’s title refers to the search for the ultimate burger, not a claim that I’ve created it. For someone who doesn’t eat a lot of meat, I’ve enjoyed plenty of burgers, mostly beef, but sometimes vegetarian, chicken or fish (Halifax’s 2 Doors Down should take a bow for the best haddock burger ever, by the way). So I decided I wanted to create a beef burger in the spirit of the gourmet burger many restaurants brag about, with house-ground meat and house-made bun and sauces. I often make homemade hamburger buns and always make homemade ketchup and BBQ sauces, so we knew the potential there. The question was whether grinding the beef at home would help take our burger to the next level.
The obvious first step was choosing the right cut. I know fatty cuts are more flavourful, but they upset my finicky digestion; Bob and Adrian have also become accustomed to leaner cuts. I arrived at our butcher shop assuming I’d pick up sirloin. But Trevor spontanously offered me a great deal on a small and awkwardly-shaped ribless prime rib beef roast. The meat looked beautiful and the price was too good to pass up. So that was the beef taken care of. I figured I could always compensate for the higher-fat cut by making smaller patties.
At the market, I bought three varities of new onions, which I planned to caramelize with maple sugar. We already had some Cabot cheddar on hand, as well as homemade chipotle tomato ketchup from last fall’s preserving. (I’ll post that recipe in a few weeks, if anyone is interested.)
I decided to trim most of the fat from the beef and then add back some fat with olive oil. I know that sounds weird, but the 
results were delicious. After ruthless trimming, we had just under one kilogram of meat (see photo). I added 1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons sea salt and 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper. We ended up with seven 140-gram (five-ounce) patties.
I sauteed the onions in some olive oil, salt, maple sugar and a bit of leftover red wine.
A favourite homemade hamburger bun at our house is honey-oat, but I wanted to limit the number of flavours, so I decided to make maple-oat hamburger buns to reinforce the maple flavour in the onions.
We kept the finished burgers simple, with a mix of extra old and chipotle Cabot cheddar melted on the bun, and caramelized maple onions and homemade chipotle ketchup on the meat patty.
Grinding the meat ourselves just before cooking really did make a difference. I won’t claim this was The Ultimate Burger, but it may have been the best-tasting burger I’ve ever made. Now we just need to find the perfect craft beer to go with it.
Maple-oat hamburger buns
Ingredients
- 1-1/2 cups ground oatmeal
- 2-1/2 cups flour of your choice (I usually use a roughly equal proportion of King Arthur bread flour, Five Roses unbleached all-purpose flour, and Five Roses whole wheat flour)
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup buttermilk
- 2/3 cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons oil or melted butter
- 1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 2-1/4 teaspoons yeast
This recipe is for a bread machine, but you can make it by hand. Here’s a great blog that gives easy steps for converting bread machine recipes to by-hand or mixer versions:
http://dontwastethecrumbs.com/2012/10/simple-conversion-how-to-make-bread-machine-recipes-by-hand/
Directions
- Grind oat flakes in a coffee grinder until they have the consistency of a fine flour.
- Mix oat flour and other flour(s) and salt together.
- Beat egg into buttermilk and add warm water and maple syrup or honey.
- Put wet ingredients into bread machine case.
- Sprinkle dry ingredients (except yeast) over liquid ingredients.
- Spoon yeast on top of dry ingredients.
- Use dough setting on bread machine.
- Once the dough setting is finished, shape the buns. Use about 70 grams of dough per bun. Roll dough into a round ball, then flatten it very ruthlessly (see photo, above).
- Leave, lightly covered, in a warm place until buns almost double in size.
- Cook in a 375 F oven for about 15 minutes.
| Sharon divides her time between Kingston, Ontario and St Margaret Bay, NS, and has enjoyed some splendid burgers in both spots. | ||
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Do you have any favourite veggie burger recipes? I find that most of the ones I’ve tried end up mushy in the centre and if I cook them longer to unmush the centres, the outsides get dry. So I usually end up suggesting to Tim that we go out for burgers so I can just get a beef burger and he can have a vegetarian patty. But I’d love to have a good, reliable recipe for veggie burgers. Any thoughts?
I asked Olivia to chime in on this, as she’s made some veggie patties she likes. I used to buy lovely vegetarian patties at Loblaws. They weren’t the President’s Choice ones (which I found to be very disappointing — mushy and bland), but came from a Toronto company. Sadly, it’s been a while since I have seen them at our local store. They were packaged in different world cuisine varieties. The Middle Eastern falafel-style was my favourite, but there was an Indian cuisine-inspired one that was also tasty.
Most veggie burger recipes I’ve seen include ground nuts and/or mushrooms, so they don’t work well for me. But I did see an interesting recipe recently that calls for black beans, chickpeas, grated beef, rice and a bunch of spices.
Anyway, now I’m on quest, Alana! Anybody care to contribute a veggie burger recipe they like?
Grated beef???!! hahahahaha 😀
I did a search for tempeh veggie burgers, since I thought tempeh might provide a good texture, and I found this:
http://mayihavethatrecipe.com/2013/05/23/vegan-tempeh-black-bean-burgers/
The author of the post seems to have the same problem as you, Alana (too dry/mushy).
I’m intrigued by this one, and I think I’ll make it at some point this summer. I may cheat and add an egg for binding, since I’ll likely take the served burger out of vegan world with some melted cheeese. A lot of bloggers refer back to a version of this recipe or this specific post. As the author notes, it’s a lot of work, but apparently these freeze well. If anyone makes a satisfactory veggie burger in the next few weeks, please post recipe and results here or (even better) send me a blog post on it.
http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-best-ever-veggie-burger-96967
Ah, yes, thanks for calling me on it — I meant grated BEET! (There is something going on with beef and me. I thought I heard Spenser’s NS vet say the cartilage-building product he receives as a monthly injection was made from purified BEEF….turns out it’s purified BEECH. Just a slight difference, really.)
Thank YOU for the slip. Of course I knew you meant “beet”. Mom and I were in tears when I pointed it out to her. Typos like that are the best 😀 Nothing jazzes up a veggie burger like a little grated beef 😛
That’s C’s favourite style of veggie burger.
It’s the secret ingredient.
We had burgers too last night. Topped with truffle butter I bought in Paris and served over grilled vegetables. Not traditional, but delicious 🙂 Unfortunately, although the ground meat here is high quality, it tends to be dry and lacking in flavour, and my colleague Gerard and I suspect it spends a long time in the deep freeze before being sold. I’m on the search for better-tasting ground beef now.
Is it because ground beef is an uncommon ingredient in Swiss cooking?
Maybe. The beef in general is lacking in flavour I find. I buy very high-quality Swiss organic filet mignon, but it does not compare in flavour to beef from Scotland that I can get here.
Interesting. Different breed of cattle and different feed, I imagine.
One of the most delicious burgers I’ve ever had!! The maple in the bun was a perfect complement to the flavour of the burger.
You’re right Summer. The Truffle Butter Burgers were just fine, because of the ta da! truffle butter, along with the roasted eggplant and summer squash (roasted in strips to a nicely caramelized tender but chewy texture). We used the roasted vegt in place of the bun.
However, my bread type preference for a burger most often, is a nice thin flatbread to wrap the burger and accoutrements up in a nice little pkg, to then crisp/seal on a double sided grill or a fry pan with a small lid or plate on top.
Now, if we’re talking about a seriously traditional contemporary cuisine burger. You have to use a bun and preferably, one that you make. Sharon…..do you remember the ones that Irene Broedeurs made for our beach or backyard bbq’s? Btw, your burger looks great! Have you ever made a sourdough bun!
Alana……cooked and then somewhat oven dried black beans with mashed up roasted Hubbard squash, caramelized onion, ground toasted pumpkin seeds, North African spice and some bread crumbs or potato starch, makes a nice one. Bake in the oven instead of frying, brushed with melted butter or oil. And always make enough to freeze for those quick suppers. I love tempeh and that can be steamed, grated and mixed with buzzed and pan cooked/dried mushrooms, tamari, ginger, onion and some rice for a nice Asian inspired burger. Again, “oven fry”. To note: vegetarian burgers don’t typically hold together in the same manner, as meat burgers without adding a lot of rubbish. Another thing for us to remember…….we can’t expect a pile of wet mushy vegt to magically take into the texture of meat.
*The Wild Oat makes a nice spelt or g.f. wrapped burger on the grill, known as The Wild Burger.
And no, I can’t give you the recipe, but it’s a great place to go for a very reasonably priced organic vegetarian burger, that you don’t make for yourself.
Susan: I haven’t been to the Wild Oat in ages! I really should stop in. 🙂
You really should, and they’re licensed now. Beau’s brews, PEC and Niagara wines.
Oh, and Sharon……grinding the meat yourself, is the way to go!!!!
Yep. I’m a believer on beef now. We’ve done it for years with chicken, and there is NO comparison.
So many great suggestions! Thank you, everyone! I think we have burgers in our future! I just remembered that I recently saw a veggie burger recipe that claims not to go all mushy. It seems to be a little involved, but maybe it’s worth it? http://www.telegram.com/article/20140725/NEWS/307259952/0
It does seem to be a bit of a production to make a nice-textured veggie burger, but worth it if you find one that is firm but moist after it’s grilled.
For what it’s worth, Serious Eats has posted what is essentially a dissertation on non-mushy black bean burgers. I haven’t tried it!
http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/03/the-food-lab-the-best-black-bean-burgers.html
Aunt Sharon, why haven’t I tried that peach-ginger sipping sauce?
Peach-ginger sipping sauce! With a wee tot of tequila perhaps?
Hahaha I could use more sipping sauce in my day-to-day.
Did I not give you a jar of the peach-ginger dipping sauce? I feel as though I was scattering wherever I went last fall. I will make another batch this year. The peaches have been weird. They are perfect if you catch them at ideal ripeness — for about an hour — and then they turn brown and mushy. Apparently it is a factor of a wet and/or cool spring.
I don’t think so. I think I would remember! I must put my name on the list for this year.
Done!