Howdy partners, Jonas here again! Saturday night was the first day of lockdown 3.0 in Ontario. I was feeling blue and needed a pick me up so I decided to make some wicked good burgs in the Engine Room! They took absolutely no time at all to prepare, cook and eat! Be warned, there is absolutely nothing healthy about these burgs, but that’s just showbiz baby!
INGREDIENTS
- Brioche buns - Made from scratch or not, who cares?!
- Tomatoes
- Red Onion
- Iceberg Lettuce
- Bacon American Cheddar
- Ground Chuck (or ground beef from the butcher)
- Butter Mayo / Chipotle Aioli / Ketchup / Mustard / Relish / BBQ Sauce - You decide!
- Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper
- Worcestershire Sauce
PREPARATION
- Fire up the OB! Choose your favourite seasoned hardwood and get that fire HOT!
- While the oven is getting up to temp, you can start preparing everything else. Take your ground meet, season with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper (if you’re so inclined) and Worcestershire Sauce*. Controversial opinion: add crushed garlic, and an egg yolk. Egg helps bind the burgs together an the garlic is just tasty. Roll the burgers into fist sized balls and put them aside.
- Slice tomatoes, lettuce and red onions. Set aside.
- In a cast iron pan, cook the bacon in your OB. As the oven heats up it will slowly render the fat in the bacon making it crisp up in its own fabulous juices.
- Its burger time! As mentioned before this IS NOT healthy. I took my burgs and cooked them in the smoking hot bacon fat. The pan was incredibly hot so be careful of spitting fat! Put your burgers in the pan and with a flat metal spatula press them down as hard as you can. Mine ended up being semi-smash burgers. Cook for a few minutes on each side making sure there’s a nice sear on both sides of the patty and place your American Cheddar on top for about 30 seconds until it’s nice and melted. Transfer to a plate and let rest for a minute or two while you toast your buns.
- Assemble that burg with all your favourite toppings and enjoy!!!
Optional: I threw in some BBQ Hickory wood chips to the fire as I was cooking the patties to give them that sweet smoky BBQ taste!
*I grew up in the UK and it warms my heart to hear people in North America try and pronounce Worcestershire. I’m here to help and save you the embarrassment. It’s pronounced: WUH-STUH-SHUH
