I am Troy McClure, you are the pasty, hungry child.
If you are a vegetarian, I respect that 100% and I encourage you to skip this recipe.
(looks around)
Okay. I like to eat a half pound of beef for dinner about three times a week, and this is unbelievably delicious and easy and PERSONALLY I think that grass-fed beef is very good for you and excellent for your health, if not necessarily the health of the planet. Also, Mallory loves these, and I want to have the recipe here where she can always find it.
They are fancy-enough tasting that you could easily pair with some classy vegetables and a glass of red wine, but I usually just tip half of them in a bowl and eat them while still in my disgusting gym clothes. Up to you! Also, YMMV, but 100% of the men I have served these lil dudes to have rolled their eyes back in their head with ecstasy, so make them for men if that’s your thing, or NEVER make them for men if you don’t like men.
INGREDIENTS:
One pound ground beef, ideally from cows that are in less daily misery than other cows
2 tablespoons oregano (I like the little jars of freeze-dried oregano, if you can get yours hands on them.)
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
GEAR:
A twelve-inch skillet
A splatter screen, ’cause this is gonna spit at you (I have this one)
RECIPE:
About half an hour before you want to start cooking, take the ground beef out of the fridge to get the chill off. Put it on a plate or a cutting board and pull it into eight parts, splat them into little flattish-patties.
In a small bowl, combine the spices. Just before cooking time, pat the spices on either side of the burgers, very generously. Add more of the spices if you want! You want these to be really great and crusted. I don’t mix the spices INTO the meat on purpose: this enhances the flavor of the surface area, which is the best part of the burger.
Once you are ready to cook, put the skillet on medium-high heat and drop in the olive oil. Once things are hot, but not yet smoking, drop in the burgers so they are not touching each other. Set a timer for 4-5 minutes (personal preference on doneness, I always take into account the quality of the meat.)
Flip them!
Set another 4-5 minute timer. Take them out.
I eat them without buns or cheese, personally, despite LOVING cheese, bc I think they stand alone beautifully, but you do you!
This is very good!
I see that you are purposefully crusting the spices on the outside of the burger on purpose; it may be interesting though — I’ve had a lot of luck with this — if you’re going to use salt, to actually mix the salt into the ground beef early on, like right when you get it out of the refridgerator and letting the meat cool. (Your hands will get cold if you do this, but hey, you know.)
A lot of people don’t like too much salt, if you are only going to use a little I don’t think it makes a difference, but if you are going to use more than a little, I believe that the salt contributes some other beneficial effects to flavor and texture of the beef when you mix it in.
If you are working things into the burger, my dad always does Worcestershire sauce, and it is very good.
I have been doing a lot of experiments with hamburgers lately, working different things in: soy sauce, red wine, different kinds of pepper, &c. Almost all of them end up being very good, but! My experience so far is that most of them don’t change the texture of the meat very much, they just make it taste delicious. Letting the ground beef sit with the salt for a little while does really seem to help not just the flavor but also the consistency of the patty.
Soy Sauce and Worcester Sauce both do, too, but part of that I expect is because they both have a lot of salt in them — so, if the preference is to keep the spices and things on the outside of the hamburger, like if you wanted to turn the worcestershire sauce into a glaze or something, I think it’s still worth it to at least work the salt through.
(Oh, man, I guess this is the only place where I can talk about this, but I made a glaze last summer red wine, brown sugar, and roasted garlic that I used for a hamburger with prosciutto and gorgonzola cheeze and. It was very good. Glazes for all!)
Ijust drooled a little thinking of your winey garlicky glaze. YUM!
I have to say that this all sounds lovely and amazing and grand, but I will go to my grave putting nothing but Lipton’s onion soup mix into my burgers. It is perfect. The key, as braak astutely notes, is to mix them together when they’re cold and then let the meat come to room temp. It does marvelous things to the meat texture and allows the onions to rehydrate slightly.
Well I’m saving this whole thread for later use. Time to do some burger experiments I think.
This summer I have an idea for a hoisin-sauce glaze, maybe with green chiles?, that I think is going to be very good.
That sounds really good. I make teriyaki burgers sometimes which I love.
http://the-toast.net/2014/09/04/eighteen-kinds-pe…
Why don’t I own a splatter screen? I am a suburban woman aged 45 & mother of two. Shouldn’t a splatter screen have materialized in that overcrowded drawer under the oven by now?
I am in the opposite boat: I own a splatter screen but, as I am a vegetarian, had no idea what its function was or what it was called until seeing the picture in this article! (I do live with two meat-eating men, though, so it’s probably one of theirs and I think one of them has used it in the past.)
I’m thinking a splatter screen would be super-useful when I make latkes.
Do splatter screens (I like typing that) just sit on top of the pan? I have a microwave one that sits on top of whatever your’e nuking but I had no idea they existed for frying.
they sit on top of the pan to prevent the oil splatter from burning your arms. they are great and cheap.
Magic! I need a version for cakemaking that fits over an electric whisk and a mixing bowl.
a paper plate with a line cut from the side into the center works okay for this.
I bow to your genius! That sounds like a great idea.
I probably stole that one from Alton Brown.
Also, if anyone is more of a visual person:
Also really great for keeping tomato sauce spatters off the stove, right? I hope so. I keep meaning to buy myself one, but if it ain’t good for ‘mater sauce, I’m out.
I’ve used mine while making pasta sauce; it tends to splatter some (though not as much as meat cooking in oil in a skillet!)
I am a vegetarian and could totally use a splatter screen for when I get impatient and don’t press all the water out of the tofu. That stuff splatters like mad.
I had a puffy burn scar near my bellybutton for YEARS from frying tofu. Tofu does, in fact, fight back.
Splatter screens are VERY helpful when frying chickpeas for snacks. Chickpeas like to jump.
I don’t have one either, but I think they’d be handy. I think they’d be perfect for latkes and corn fritters as well as mini burgers.
Yes, you’d think someone would’ve given one of these beauties to us at some point along the way, as a mathom if not as a shower gift.
I was just coming down here to say I did not know that splatter screens even EXIST and this would make everything so much better.
I am so grateful for any and all 10 minute recipes, particularly one that sounds this delicious!
(Curse stupid recipe books that seem to think it takes at least an hour to make anything)
Very excited to try this method with the venison/bacon burgers I make.
(I always mix my venison w/ bacon, otherwise it’s too dry. Get discount “bacon fat ends” from butcher shop, grind in food processor. Mix w/ ground venison, approx 4:1 ratio)
I was thinking of making it with lamb with a dollop of natural yoghurt on the side but you make a strong case for venison (by just saying the word venison)
I HIGHLY recommend the dollop of yogurt with the beef ones too, I just logged back in to say I had them this way for lunch and it made an already excellent recipe even better. If I were an ambitious person I would suggest you might reach the height of excellence with tzatziki on top, but let’s be realistic and say maybe some cucumber on the side.
Every comment thread under recipes:
invite variations on “this was AMAZING! I used turkey instead of beef, and mint instead of oregano, and mixed parmesan cheese into the meat, and instead of using a pan I had my husband cook them on the grill outside where it wouldn’t make a mess. I also mixed mayo and siracha for a sauce. FIVE STARS”
http://the-toast.net/2014/09/04/eighteen-kinds-pe…
Yahtzee dice sliders.
You win this time, Mallory.
I win every time.
Except Nicole had to post this “recipe” on your own blog so you couldn’t lose it.
(Please don’t ban me I love you)
Yahtzee dice sliders.
Splatter screens are VERY helpful when frying chickpeas for snacks. Chickpeas like to jump.
Here to say I made these for dinner last night and they were everything Nicole said they would be! Delicious crusty, herb-y and spicy on the outside, beefy flavour on the inside. Also the gentleman who has the good fortune to be my live-in-partner was well impressed.
Thank you Nicole!
Ahhhh this website really does have everything a woman needs 🙂