A slightly different mega burger

Yes. I look at that photo and think “What is that?” too. Hmm. And I really did try.

But when I moved the burger from the pan onto the bun, everything shot out of it. Mainly the sauce.

AAAAAAARGH! That photo is hideous. Unfortunately I don’t have another one, and the recipe deserves a showing. By which I mean that, looks aside, I really, really liked what I ended up with. So up it goes.

Oh well. I can already feel the weight of the criticism. That’s why I’m staying off the scales for the next few days 😉

The idea for this burger came about for a pretty mundane reason. I had some minced beef. Frozen. I’m sorry, beef, for what I did to you back then. Forgive me.

I defrosted it and decided it didn’t deserve to go into an ordinary burger in that state. It needed seasoning. So I came up with a concoction of beef doctored up with thyme and shallot. A successful one.

I made it yesterday and, as it was Saturday, there were plans for the evening too. Nothing too well-behaved. An American football game, then a get-together with the lads. A hamburger beforehand is practically obligatory in those circumstances. Especially with the clocks changing and us getting up an hour later (or getting an hour less, whichever way you look at it).

Unfortunately we still ended up eating that hideous pizza late that night (23h), but by then, who cares.

Oh! I nearly forgot, this is recipe number 100 on my site. My hundredth! Can you imagine? In 4 and a half months (the site started up around the middle of November 2013), 100 recipes. Pretty good going, I reckon. More than 20 recipes a month. To mark the occasion, a Mongolian poet I know wrote me a poem:

A hundred recipes!

Hats off to you!

Your belly knows

Where they went, too!

I never liked him. But I’m not giving up. Just you wait for recipe number 200. Statistically speaking, it should turn up sometime over the summer holidays.

Ha, I bet you don’t believe that Mongolian poet wrote it in Polish. Well, here’s a surprise for you. They all speak Polish. Picture the scene: you’re in the absolute middle of nowhere. A village, well, a settlement of 100 yurts at most. You’re talking to your travelling companions about finding some transport when, out of the blue, a Mongolian appears and tells you in fluent Polish, “Hi, I’m Zenek (actually it’s Bayantarat), but that’s what my mates called me when I was studying economics in Poznań back in ’85.” Yep.

I even got a smack in the face once at a Mongolian dance joint in Ulaanbaatar after I swore at a lad who was yelling something in my ear. Bouncers came running from all over the place to pull us apart. Turned out he was home visiting family for the holidays, because during term time he was studying something or other in Wrocław. Of course we made up pretty quickly, and as I sipped another beer I had to listen to him telling me how beautiful the girls in Poland were. Not that I disagree, but it was really loud in there and he clearly meant to outshout the music.

Well, I’ve gone on a bit. Back down to earth, or rather, back to the burger. Give it a try!

At a glance: 

Prep time: 15 minutes

Serves: ingredients for 1 burger, multiply to your heart’s content

Calories: it was Saturday, before we went out to an American football game (which we left rather quickly when it turned out the football crowd didn’t sell beer 😉 Would you have counted? Seriously?

Ingredients for a mega mega burger:

• 200 grams of minced beef
• 4 shallots
• dried thyme
• ground black pepper
• a bread roll (shop-bought, of course – I wanted it fresh and crusty)
• 1/3 of a yellow pepper
• 1 gherkin pickled in vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of Sarepta mustard
• 1 tablespoon of barbecue sauce
• 1 tablespoon of hot chilli paste
• salt
• olive oil

How to smoke out the kitchen:

First I prepared the meat. What sets this hamburger apart from the others I’ve made is that I doctor the meat in advance. That is, I mixed the minced beef thoroughly with a teaspoon of dried thyme, half a teaspoon of ground black pepper and one very finely chopped shallot. I poured half a teaspoon of olive oil over it and mixed it all thoroughly again. I left it in a little bowl in the fridge for about 2 hours.

Before frying the burger I got all the ingredients ready. Sauce first: I mixed the mustard with the hot chilli sauce and the barbecue sauce. I sliced the gherkin and cut the pepper into small squares.

I heated a little olive oil in a frying pan and fried the 3 remaining shallots, sliced into rings. I set them aside in a small bowl and put the halved roll in the pan, cut sides down. I toasted it until golden.

I took the meat out of the fridge and shaped it into a gigantic patty (you can see how big it is in the photo :). Into the same pan I’d used for the shallots and the roll it went. I sprinkled salt on top and flipped it after about a minute. I fried each side for 1–2 minutes, flipping it several times. I wanted mine not too well done (more on the medium side), but it’s up to you whether you want rare, medium or well done.

While the patty was frying, I spread sauce on the bottom half of the roll, followed by the fried shallots and pepper. Once the patty was cooked I laid it on the roll. I arranged the gherkin slices on top and covered it with the other half of the roll. And the whole thing fell beautifully to pieces (unfortunately that’s what shows up best in the pictures). Oh well, it was good all the same. Enjoy!