{"id":82,"date":"2011-10-02T12:17:32","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T11:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=82"},"modified":"2012-07-30T14:45:24","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T13:45:24","slug":"bacon-chilli-cheese-burgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=82","title":{"rendered":"Bacon Chili Cheese Burgers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love a good burger, but it has to be a good one.\u00a0 By that I mean using real mince, not the sand blasted beef bone stuff.\u00a0 It has to have some quality cheese, processed slices just won’t do!\u00a0 But above all it can’t have any beef tomato in it.\u00a0 Nothing ruins a burger more than a slice of beef tomato.\u00a0 It’s so bad, that everytime a “chef” puts a beef tomato in a burger, I feel a disturbance in the force.<\/p>\n

I love tomatoes, but beef tomatoes are the button mushroom of the tomato world.\u00a0 Watery, tasteless and ubiquitous.\u00a0 They are the reason why so many people hate tomatoes and mushrooms.\u00a0 They have to be the worst examples of their respective vegetables, yet they are the most common types found in cooking.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 What possess someone to use such an awful ingredient?\u00a0 Do they not taste their own food or are they just sadistic?\u00a0 It’s like the coffee chocolate in a selection box.\u00a0 Nobody wants it, except great-aunt Beatrice with her impaired sense of taste and smell.\u00a0 She will no doubt tell you that it’s good for you, which is usually code for “it tastes awful”.\u00a0 The only other time they get eaten is when that poor unsuspecting guest gets offered it, and then they have to do their best to hide their face of disgust while you try not to laugh at them.<\/p>\n

If you want an idea of what my face looks like when I bite into a burger containing a beef tomato, picture this… You are tucking in to a nice plate of delicious juicy steak.\u00a0 Only after you’ve eaten half of it are you are told that it’s actually your pet dog.\u00a0 Yup, that look of horror and disgust is about as close an approximation as I can give you. Just imagine that only 10 times worse.<\/p>\n

So as you have probably now guessed, my burgers contain no beef tomato. What they do contain is something around 10-25% fat.\u00a0 Burgers need fat.\u00a0 Without it they are dry and tasteless.\u00a0 So if you are hoping for some kind of healthy burger, you are going to be disappointed.\u00a0 Burgers don’t exactly scream “health food” anyway.\u00a0 I’m going to focus on gourmet burgers because let’s face it, anyone can do an ordinary burger – beef, salt and pepper… done.\u00a0 It doesn’t make for the most exciting recipe!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ingredients (Serves 4):<\/strong><\/p>\n

Burgers:<\/strong><\/p>\n

500g Quality Beef Mince<\/p>\n

4 Brioche Buns<\/p>\n

4 Rashers of Smoked Back Bacon<\/p>\n

8 Rashers of Smoked Streaky Bacon<\/p>\n

2 large red Chilies (de-seeded)<\/p>\n

1 medium sized Onion<\/p>\n

1 clove Garlic<\/p>\n

2 large Eggs<\/p>\n

100g Double Gloucester Cheese<\/p>\n

Worcester Sauce<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Relish:<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 large green Chilies (de-seeded)<\/p>\n

1 sweet pointed red Pepper<\/p>\n

20g Jalapeno Peppers<\/p>\n

1 small red Onion<\/p>\n

8 small vine ripened Tomatoes<\/p>\n

White Vinegar<\/p>\n

Honey<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Method:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Finely chop the streaky bacon, red chilies, garlic and onion.\u00a0 A food processor can also be used.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Add the mixture to the mince, along with one egg and some Worcester sauce, salt and pepper and mix well.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Roll the combined mixture into a big ball and separate into four equal patties, ensuring each has the same thickness throughout – about an inch is good.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Heat a grill pan to a very high heat.\u00a0 While the pan is heating, crack the remaining egg and separate the yolk.\u00a0 Brush the egg yolk on to each patty before searing on the grill pan, this will give the burgers a golden crust.\u00a0 Turn each patty only once.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 When you have done one side and flipped the burger, add the slices of cheese.\u00a0 Once the burger is nearly done, grill the rashers of back bacon and place on top of the now melted cheese.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Cut the buns in half and toast lightly under a traditional grill.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Serve the burgers with the relish and a leafy side salad (I like wild rocket) dressed with some white balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Relish:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Roughly chop all the vegetables and blitz in a food processor.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Strain the vegetable mix using a fine sieve or muslin cloth, the tomatoes will produce a lot of juice and we don’t want a watery relish.\u00a0 Reserve the juice for now.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Add the white vinegar and honey to taste.\u00a0 The honey will make the relish a little thicker and stickier.\u00a0 You can add some of the reserved vegetable juices to get the consistency you want.\u00a0 Add a little salt and pepper and give it all a good mix.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tips:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best meat to use for a burger is minced chuck (braising steak if you are looking in the supermarkets).\u00a0 It contains a good mix of meat and fat, usually the supermarket “high-end” mince is made out of chuck.\u00a0 Brisket and Rib also work quite well but (in the case of rib) you have the bones to deal with – unless you know a friendly butcher who will take care of that for you.\u00a0 A mixture of the three meats is a good idea.<\/p>\n

If you buy lean steak mince you need to add more fat.\u00a0 Be that butter, bacon fat or beef fat – it is going to need more fat or it will end up dry.\u00a0 My advice is not to use lean mince for burgers!<\/p>\n

If you buy mince from the supermarket it will be all tangled in a block.\u00a0 It’s important to untangle it as much as possible and get it back into long strips of meat, that will make the whole burger less heavy in texture.<\/p>\n

A grill pan is essential in my opinion.\u00a0 A traditional grill won’t be the same as it drains a lot of the fat, the grill pan is the closest thing you can get to a BBQ.\u00a0 And that is the best way to cook a burger.\u00a0 If you don’t have a grill pan you can use a frying pan but it’s not quite the same.<\/p>\n

You can use lots of different cheeses.\u00a0 Monterey Jack and Mozzarella are two of my favourites.\u00a0 But Double Gloucester and Applewood smoked Cheddar are good alternatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love a good burger, but it has to be a good one.\u00a0 By that I mean using real mince, not the sand blasted beef bone stuff.\u00a0 It has to have some quality cheese, processed slices just won’t do!\u00a0 But above all it can’t have any beef tomato in it.\u00a0 Nothing ruins a burger more than a slice of beef tomato.\u00a0 It’s so bad, that everytime a “chef” puts a beef tomato in a burger,[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[37,5,19],"tags":[10,8,11,42],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-recipes","category-west","tag-beef","tag-cheese","tag-pork","tag-spicy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/IMAG0282.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PTCG-1k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}