Extra-hot eggburger (a hamburger with an egg)

Today I posted yesterday’s fries, so I might as well post a new kind of burger too. I had a little burger factory going yesterday (I made 4 in all, and it does take some coordination: there’s a burger on here, a bun warming over there, the fries are nearly ready…), and I’m still feeling the consequences today. Literally.

You may already know I can make my own hamburger buns. On this site I’ve already shown you a sweet and spicy burger and a classic cheeseburger. Yesterday I served my guests a bacon burger with a mild sauce (for the women and children), and I made a spicy bacon burger too. But what I wanted to show you was yesterday’s most extravagant creation: the tower. I made it for myself. Somehow none of my guests fancied an egg.

Just look at the photo, will you? (Sadly I didn’t take it, which is why it lacks sharpness, quite the opposite of the burger itself.) Isn’t that a magnificent healthy eating pyramid? It’s got everything a person needs, apart from fruit, maybe. Sometimes you feel a dish is missing something. For me, the egg was the piece that brought it all together.

I must admit I also made a hellishly hot sauce for it, which certainly gets the human metabolism going. This little burger really delivers. Watch out, though. It’s hot as hell.

At a glance:

Prep time: 10 minutes

Serves: 1 person

How many calories? I stand by what I said about not wanting to look in the mirror for the next week in my post about fries

Ingredients for the fries:

• 120 grams of minced beef
• a sesame seed bun (preferably homemade, using the recipe for a hamburger bun)
• 1 rasher of fatty bacon
• 2 iceberg lettuce leaves
• 1 hen’s egg
• 2 slices of tomato
• 2 small gherkins
• two onion rounds (rings cut from a large onion, that is)

Ingredients for the sauce (fiery, devilish stuff. If you don’t like heat, don’t make it):

• 6 pickled jalapeños (I buy them sliced, so I mean 6 pieces, or rings, not whole peppers)
• 1 spring onion
• English mustard
• mild ketchup 
• olive oil (a few drops)
• ground black pepper

The recipe (things are about to get hot):

I started with the sauce. I blitzed the peppers finely in the blender, then did the same with the spring onion. Combined them with the rest of the sauce ingredients and mixed thoroughly. Set it aside in the fridge.

I shaped the portion of minced pork into a ball and put it in the fridge.

Then I got to work on the things that would go inside the hamburger. I browned 1 rasher of bacon in an oven preheated to 200 degrees Celsius. A fair bit of fat should render out. I got the vegetables ready. I lightly pan-fried the onion rings to soften them and give them some colour. In a small frying pan I fried an egg sunny-side up, leaving it only partly set.

While the egg was setting, I heated a frying pan and dropped my ball of minced pork into it. I salted the top. I cut the bun in half and put it in the still-warm oven (remember, that’s where the bacon was).

After about 45 seconds I began to shape the meat into a patty, pressing down from the top with a large spatula. Once it was shaped (pick the thickness and diameter you like), I turned it over and salted the other side. About another minute on each side and it was done.

I put the bun on a plate and spread half of my hot sauce over the bottom half. On the sauce go the lettuce leaves, then the onion slices. The burger goes on the onion, with the bacon and egg on top. Slices of tomato and gherkin go on the egg. I spread sauce on the top half of the bun too and put it on top of the whole eggburger. Wow. Even just writing this I could feel how ridiculously loaded that burger was. I serve it with fries, which really is going overboard. Enjoy!