Take two slices of bread. Take a patty of grilled ground beef, done right. Arrange the three correctly and you have a hamburger. You are not supposed to spread onto it any of the following:
anything reddish
anything yellow
anything white
I don’t how mankind managed to evolve into beings that slather disgusting tsup, or mayo, or 'tard onto a perfectly good beef patty but it stops now. I will sooner apply barbecue sauce, or gravy or even chili. Cheese is an acceptable addition, as long as it doesn’t overpower the beef. I’m adding it only because I like beef juice mixing with melted cheese. The blander cheese types will do, but not the ones that taste like plastic. If I want to add mushrooms, or bacon, or chili con carne to my burger, I’ll ask for a side dish of them. Ditto for fresh vegetables. The art of making a pickle is irreversibly lost to mankind. Lastly, there has to be a better alternative to french fries but friends and relatives aren’t very helpful. Again, man’s evolution is not uniform.
My favorite burger is a Sonic cheese burger with mayo and tomato. That’s all. Cannot be replicated at home. I have tried. You must have mayo. Sorry, I disagree with you. But that’s the beauty of food; you can have it your way.
Nice bun, nothing fancy
Good quality beef, grilled just right
Slice of cheddar
Lettuce
Pickle
Mustard
Onion
Occasionally another topping that strikes my fancy, such as green chile, mushrooms, avocado, or bacon. But really, except for the green chile, other toppings could be considered gilding the lily.
-buffalo meat
-caramelized onion
-blue cheese
-sweet cherry pepper relish
-tomato
-zesty dill pickle
-cranberry mustard
-no bun
-all blended together into a nice paste
-spread onto a corn tortilla
-made into a rolled taco
-cooked
-served with a sweet cherry pepper-cranberry mustard relish
-and a sour cream-quacamole-corn mango salsa-salsa.
Best burger you’ll ever have.
Trust me.
I made this once and it destroyed burgers for me. It’s the only burger that satisfies now.
Edit: With Rough Drafts suggestion of green chile. Next time I make this I’m adding green chile to the mix, and going with salsa verde instead of corn mango salsa. That should green it up nicely.
A ground beef patty, seasoned with salt and pepper. Cooked medium.
A slice of muenster cheese.
A thin slice of raw onion.
Several dill pickle chips.
Ketchup, mayo, and brown mustard.
Served in a hamburger roll. A burger should not be served between slices of bread.
^
It was originally. In fact the owners said each burger came originally with a whole loaf of un-sliced bread (bring your own knife.) I just don’t know what the extra slices of toast are for. For this place, only cheese and mustard are available besides the veggies.
The other version of “original hamburger” that I’ve tasted, the one by the Brothers Menches, had coffee and brown sugar mixed with the ground beef, expected to give a distinctive taste that would make people come back for more. Served with ketsup and onions. Nah.
Good luck getting a burger without cheese. You tell them all you want is bread and meat and they are going to ask you, “do you want cheese on that?” It might still come with cheese on it.
My perfect burger – hmm – well, it depends on what mood I’m in. There’s no one perfect burger for me.
My standard burger is a double cheeseburger, with patties no bigger than 1/4 lb, preferably most like 1/6 or even 1/8 pound. Cooked to have crispy edges. Sesame seed bun. Two slices of cheese. American is perfectly fine. Ketchup. Mustard. Dill pickle. Onions. Done.
On the other hand, sometimes I do like California-izing it by throwing lettuce, tomato, and “hamburger sauce” (usu. some 1000 island variant) on it. Preferably if I’m making it myself and have access to my garden tomatoes.
But when it comes to pub burgers (1/2 lb or so), that one’s different. That one I take medium-rare-to-rare. My favorite would be topped with blue cheese, with mustard and onion, served on a rye bun, if possible.
It should be noted that a hamburger patty “done right” is made thin, with maximum surface area to develop tasty Maillard reactions, with crispy bits around the edges. Thick meatballs with significant pink in the middle do not belong between buns.
Making one at home: 80/20 ground chuck, mixed 75/25 with hot Italian sausage. Grill to medium-well and serve on a good-sized sesame seed bun, with mustard, ketchup, grilled onions, shredded lettuce and maybe a little relish. Eat with lots of relish!
Growing up we almost always had hamburgers on wonder bread (as opposed to a hamburger bun) and it always made me feel like white trash. I mean, we were white trash, but this is one of the things that really made it obvious.
I basically consider them two different things, the first being a fast-food style burger, the second being a pub burger. Nine times out of ten, I will prefer the first, but every once in awhile, I just want a faceful of meat. Not stupid large so you can’t even hold it in your hand and get your mouth around it: it still needs to be patty shaped.
Oh, and that reminds me, I also love a greasy and gooey patty melt, with well cooked onions, rye bread, and plenty o’ cheese. Plus there’s a local burger around here called the Big Baby, which is just double cheeseburger with a single slice of cheese in the middle, pickles, mustard, and ketchup, but served with a generous amount of griddled onions. The onions are maybe not quite fully caramelized, but they’re definitely not just cooked to a translucent stage. I love fried onions, so this is also a burger after my heart. (Video here of one, with onions shown at 2 minutes.)
We just called that a ‘hamburger deluxe’, I’d never heard of it as a California thing because I’ve seen it everywhere.
My perfect burger has a hamburger patty (naturally), ketchup, mustard, mayo (or sandwich spread), dill pickle, onion, lettuce and tomato on a bun. Notice I did not include cheese.
