Smashed patty cheeseburger

I’ve had the flu for the last couple of weeks and only just coming out of it this weekend (I hope). Streaming The Menu during the week made me want to lift my cheeseburger game.

And it ruined my life. I will never buy a burger again.

These are ingredients and directions for 1 burger. Scaling up to 2, 4 or 8 or 12 is simple ingredients-wise. The logistics is the trick. 

It all happens very quickly, so you’re much better off doing 4 beautiful burgers, followed by another 4, then another 4, rather than doing 12, serving them all together with only 4 of them properly cooked.

Doing 4 burgers (8 patties) is about the limit for 1 pair of hands (or at least for clumsy ones like mine) beyond that, you’ll need to enlist the troops so you can concentrate on smashing those patties.

Fat hack

Burger mince, especially when you’re smashing the patty rather flaming it, needs at least 20% fat to keep it moist and getting that gorgeous crust.

This is no problem if you’re buying from a butcher. But not so easy from a supermarket where often 17% is the highest fat content available.

Not to worry. You have options.

You can oomph it up by chopping up some bacon fat, or adding slivers of dripping. In my example I had home-made beef stock in the freezer and scraped off some of the clarified fat and mixed it into my supermarket-source beef mince.

Ingredients

1 65g brioche bun

110g beef mince, at least 20% fat

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 slices American cheese

3 very thin slices tomato

2 leaves baby cos lettuce, halved

1 eschalot bulb, thinly sliced

1 tbsp very thin slices cucumber pickles

1 tsp mayonnaise and wasabi sauce

1 tsp chilli and tomato chutney

For assembly

1 cocktail skewer

Method

This is 90% assembly and 10% cook. But the 10% cook is very, very important.

To get the assembly right, room temperature is your friend. The lettuce - fresh, crunchy, room temperature; the tomato thinly sliced, juicy, room temperature etc.

Having everything ready for assembly lets you concentrate on the cook.

On one board, lay out your assembly items: lettuce, tomato, pickles.

On another board, lay out your cook items: two patty balls 55g each, sliced eschalots, cheese

Halve and lightly toast the bun. I do this under a grill. I don’t want the buns to be browned, but to be crisp enough to hold it’s crispness once the juices begin to flow.

Once they’re ready, apply the salad sauce (mayo and wasabi) to the bottom bun and the bbq sauce (chilli chutney) to the top bun.

Now you’re ready to cook.

There’s really no timing involved here other than - the moment you’ve done one step, move to the next step.

Put a non-stick frying pan on a high heat. Add the oil. Once the oil starts to smoke, add the first patty and squash it down with a steel spatula to about .5cm thickness. Quickly, do the same with the second patty.

Season the top side of the first, add the sliced onion. Do the same to the second. Flip the first, keeping as much of the union underneath the patty as you can. Do the same with the second.

Season the new upside of each. Top each with a cheese slice. Remove from heat. Stack first on top of the second.

Avengers - assemble!

Bottom bun

(Mayonnaise and wasabi)

Lettuce

Tomato

Patty and cheese stack

Pickles

(Chilli sauce)

Top bun

Press the burger down gently, so that the juices cascade through. Gravity is also your friend.

Spear with a cocktail skewer, and you’re ready to chow down.