The Award-Losing Burger
Chansons de Le Chef et Le Chat
A lot of people recognize this song from “I Wonder” by Kanye West. While that’s a great song too, I enjoy the passion in the original version more. Labi was openly gay throughout his career and fought directly against racism and homophobia. Not that sexuality is the meaning of the song, it is about being who you are, unashamedly. The lyrics speak to me as a creative person. If you really love something, it becomes a part of who you are.
“I may not always sing in tune, and sometimes you don’t hear me, but you don’t have to be near me to know that I’m singing my song.”
This burger was so good that I entered it into a contest.
Just ignore the fact that I did not even place Top 50
Ingredients:
Ground Beef
Brioche Buns
Lettuce
Salt and Pepper
Hot Honey Bacon:
Thick-Cut Bacon
Hot Honey
Tomato Jam:
2 pounds of tomatoes (6-8 Roma, 3-5 larger variety)
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
Caramelized Onions and Habaneros:
4-6 Yellow Onions (sliced thin)
2-4 Habeneros, SEEDS REMOVED (Sliced thin)
You can exclude habaneros but they add a great fruity flavor. I am also a huge fan of spicy food.
Fried Goat Cheese Patties:
Goat Cheese, between 1 and 3 ounces per burger.
Panko
1 Egg (more if needed)
1 quart Oil for frying
Consider adding:
Cognac - A tablespoon of cognac to your ground beef gives it a unique depth of flavor that comes out when you cook.
Arugula
Mushrooms
Swap Fried Foods- Instead of frying goat cheese and sauteed onions, melt the goat cheese on the burger and make fried onions.
Instructions:
To make Tomato Jam-
Boil a pot of water and prepare a bowl of ice water to the side. Adding salt to ice water disrupts the formation of ice crystals which prevents the water from freezing. This, in turn, allows the ice to continue lowering the temperature of the water. On the bottom of each tomato score an “X” and then drop into the boiling water. Blanching the tomatoes in this way loosens the skin so we can peel it off. We are not trying to cook the tomatoes now so this should only take 30s to 1 minute. Remove with a slotted spoon or strainer and place immediately into the ice bath.
Combine peeled tomatoes, sugar, and apple cider vinegar to a saucepot and cook on medium heat. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Reduce heat to low and stir occasionally until it reaches a Jam-like consistency. 1-2 hours. Season and refrigerate.
To make caramelized Onion and Habaneros-
Place sliced onions and habaneros in a pan or pot that fits them all. Add 2 tablespoons or so of oil or butter, just enough to ensure that the onions are evenly coated. Stir frequently to prevent uneven cooking. Adding a splash of water to create steam. This slightly increases the speed of caramelization by softening the ingredients. The rule of thumb is low and slow.
To make Fried Goat Cheese Patties-
It took me a few tries to get it right but the trick is that thinner is better, and cold is ideal, frozen is bad. Thick patties will not be melty and delicious but thin ones that are not that cold will fall apart. Frozen ones will fall apart by the time they are cooked and if you take them out early they’re still frozen in the middle. So… Thin, Cold, FAST. The Way I always remember the order of frying is, “dry the wet, wet the dry, dry the wet, wet the dry.”
Goat cheese is naturally a little wet, so we dry this with flour, then wet the flour with egg, dry the egg with panko, and wet the dry with hot oil.
Hot Homey Bacon -
Bake Bacon at 350 degrees for around 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the bacon and brush it with your hot honey. Every 5 minutes or so, rotate, flip, and brush to coat your bacon with the caramelizing hot honey.
Grill or sear your burgers -
Make sure you toast your buns!
Assemble! -
the tomato jam can be hot or cold when you lather it on. I actually prefer it to be cold. I like to use the tomato jam to hold the lettuce in place on te bottom, but then use the lettuce to catch everything else.
You may be wondering why I would advertise a burger that lost a contest but in reality, I doubt I had any chance of winning anyway. There were thousands of entries and in my typical fashion, I submitted my entry at 11:59 on the final day of submission. The contest was for Heinz and they wanted contenders to use their condiments to make a fun burger. A lot of people were doing: Cheeseburgers with Ketchup. That seemed a little boring so I decided to step out of my comfort zone and neglect to use any typical Heinz products. Instead of ketchup, I used their ACV to make tomato jam. I used their hot honey to make the bacon. All of the other ingredients kind of fell into place through trial and error. I made this burger for family meal one day at a restaurant I used to work at and my coworkers would ask me all of the time to make it again. It takes a lot of effort and time but I have to say, it is worth it.
I hope this failure burger is as delicious for you as it is for me.
And if you know someone at Heinz, tell them that now I can’t sleep at night because of this embarrassment.
