It’s after midnight and I want a cheddar cheeseburger on toasted bread with lettuce, tomato and mayo. But I am too weary to make it.
A reason to get up in the morning. I might dream of this burger, and while I do not currently have bacon, I think I will go get some.
My life now has a purpose. I will make the cheddar cheeseburger tomorrow, then a mozzarella burger on a brioche bun the next day, and then one with American cheese on ciabatta bread.
Endless possibilities. Suggestions?
Toasted or grilled sourdough bread, Swiss cheese, mayo and sliced onions.
Add the bacon and a fried egg and it’s legit as breakfast.
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Moving thread from MPSIMS to Cafe Society.
I seldom add cheese to burgers but, when I do, it’s gotta be pretty strong like feta or blue. Raw onion is a must. Skip the bacon.
Words of wisdom from a sage:
Add to ground beef: cooking sherry, soy sauce, fresh grated ginger and garlic, minced onion, with chili powder optional. Grill lightly buttered crown and heel of bun. No cheese; you might dabble with some chutney as a sauce.
Yeah, I’m also of the “skip the bacon” kind when it comes to burgers. I like bacon a lot, but, I dunno, on a burger, for me, it’s kind of distracting. I do like cheese, though. Blue cheese I’ll put on if I’m making one of those big thick pub burgers and grilling them (which is fairly rarely). But when I’m making thin smash-burger style patties on a flattop or pan, I do like something simple like a deli American or medium cheddar. Raw vs cooked onions is based on my mood. Usually, I do raw, but sometimes a near-caramelized cooked onion with a couple slices of pickles, mustard, and ketchup just hits the spot.
I usually don’t like lettuce and tomato on my burgers, but lately I’ve been getting into that a bit more. When I do lettuce and tomato, I make a special sauce for it by mixing together ketchup, mayo, mustard, and relish (usually sweet) together. Occasionally, I’ll try something different like ketchup, mayo, and Maggi Seasoning (kind of like a Liquid Aminos sort of thing – lots of umami).
Another one of my favorites, if I have the time, is green chile cheeseburger. Cheddar with green chile sauce (made from Hatch chiles that I have frozen).
Skip the bacon and add hot or sweet Italian sausage to your ground beef (75/25 is a good ratio). I like my burgers with lettuce, but it has to be shredded. Leaf lettuce is just asking for trouble. Condiment-wise I’m up for just about anything but mayo. No matter what anybody says, mayo does NOT belong on a burger! Ketchup, mustard, 1000 Island, BBQ sauce, whatever…just not mayo. No tomato, because your tomato sucks unless you grew it yourself. Onion is required. Pickles belong on the side. Relish belongs on the burger. Sweet or dill - doesn’t matter.
Several years ago, I had a cheeseburger in Custer, South Dakota, comprised of a medium rare patty on a roll spread with cream cheese, dressed with bacon, salsa verde, and thin slices of raw jalapeño. When I am finally arrested for grand larceny, serial murder, and general mopery, THAT is what I request for my last meal. With onion rings and an icy cold Pilsener.
Some big deal magazine out west ran a contest for best sandwich…not burger, but sandwich…and that damn burger came in first place.
I have recreated it at home, sans bacon — I agree with puly about bacon on burgers — terrific, but still not as good as the original.
Read your John Thorne — the maestro — on cheap cheeseburgers. (The essay “Burger Heaven” in the collection Serious Pig) Mayonnaise is necessary to make each bite cleave to the roof of your mouth.
I don’t do lettuce or tomato either, I didn’t order a fucking salad. Raw onion is required. I prefer dill pickle slices to be added to the burger (along with the onions, mustard, ketchup, and mayo) rather than on the side. Relish should only be applied to Chicago style hot dogs.
Other than that, I’m totally on your side.
Funny, I had that hankering yesterday (actually, my son did, and I went along with it). Fortunately it wasn’t after midnight, it was just before dinnertime, so I hied myself over to one of the slightly more distant groceries known for the quality of its meats, got some fresh premade patties and some premium buns.
I see from this thread that the gang here have vastly different tastes. My theory with burgers is “less is more” and I try to be minimalist but with good ingredients. These consisted simply of grilled burgers on toasted buns, with Kraft processed cheese (I love all kinds of fancy cheeses but there’s something about basic processed yellow cheese slices that just works with a burger), two slices of thinly sliced garlic pickle, raw white onion, and ketchup. The patties were just fatty enough to smoke a lot on the grill, which was perfect. I’ll be making these again!
I have three kinds of mustard, mayo, and other stuff, but none of it belongs on a burger IMHO. Possibly lettuce and a tomato slice, if you must.
I’m contemplating grilling a Jucy Lucy, but with feta inside instead of american. Montreal steak seasoning, a little worcestershire sauce. Probably put some cheddar on top, too.
As long as we are together, they can never defeat us! Right, guys?
Guys?
Anybody?
I lived with a cheeseburger junkie for years. I would cook well sesoned burgers to medium rare on the George Foreman grill or the bbq grill outside, and put them in a container. Also cooked bacon, packets of cheese, jars of sliced pickles, and a package of hamburger buns at hand. He could heat up the burger in the microwave while he toasted the bun, and then add cheese, ketchup, and pickles . I know for some here, half the fun is cooking the burger, but this worked out so well, the cheeseburger freak thought I ought to win the Nobel Prize.(I would cook some chunks of steak and for my midnight snack gnaw on them, cold and salted, like a dog with a bone, grr grr grr…)
I’ve been making cheeseburgers in a cast-iron pan for a while. Cook with a lid on it until the pan gets really hot, then put in Worchestershire sauce which creates a dark, tasty caramelly skin on the burger, and the steam helps cook the top of the burger and hence the inside too (I start with frozen patties).
I thought I’d do one better last night, it being the “last day of summer” for me, and got our old portable gas grill going. It hasn’t been used in 4 years! So the grill was rusty and the “heat plate” over the burner was all but rusted away. And the burgers themselves were really fatty, something like 27% fat, thanks to the quarantine forcing us to use hired shoppers. (They like to grab inferior substitute items. I think a prerequisite for being a hired shopper is having zero actual shopping / consumer experience.) In the pan, a burger this fatty just means a lot of leftover grease. But on this old grill…
Well, there was a lot of fire. And fire-driven droplets of flaming grease. I singed my hand numerous times, as trying to flip the burgers resulted in a fresh downpour of liquid grease followed by a whoosh of hot yellow fire. The patties themselves, surrounded by grease, were actually on fire at times.
The end result was…OK. Sort of tasted like flaming grease pellets. One of my two burgers was actually uncooked in the center despite the outside being quite well done.
Long story short, unless you’ve got a good grilling setup, I’d recommend a cast iron pan or other well-controlled cooking setup. Don’t pin your cheeseburger dreams on to an untested setup.
I personally prefer flattop burgers to grilled burgers. There’s a couple places around here (Edzo’s in Evanston and Fatso’s Last Stand in Ukrainian Village) that give you a choice, and I always go for the flattop. I just prefer the all-around browning/Maillard you get with a flattop, and, as I prefer thin patties to thick ones, when you get those nice caramelized crispy edges, I’m in hamburger heaven!
Cheeseburger sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJePACBoIo
Wasn’t that supposed to be in Chicago?
Yep, based on The Billy Goat Tavern.
It’s never too early for a cheeseburger. And never too late for breakfast.