A Hamburger

How about something as simple as a hamburger? This was lunch.

Sometimes this thing about being a classically trained French chef takes a back seat.

Raw:


Serves: 3

Ingredients

• 450 g ground beef & pork mixed [1#] (a ratio of 2 or 3 parts beef to pork)
  
• 1 egg
• 2 T chives, chopped (fresh from the back porch)
• 1 T Worcestershire sauce
• 3 drops Tabasco sauce
  
• 2 T bread crumbs
• ¼ t salt
• dash black pepper, generous
• oil
  

Procedure

1. Mix Worcestershire, Tabasco, egg, salt, pepper, chives (whisk)
   
2. Add meat and bread crumbs
   
3. Mix, gently, not handling too much, with your (clean) hands
4. Form into patties (I used a hamburger press)
• Put an indentation in both sides with the back of a spoon (they bulge up when cooking)
  
5. oil into a frying pan, high heat, until just about smoking
6. hamburger into the pan
• and sear/brown side 1 really well
7. Flip to side 2 and sear that side too
• Dropping to medium low heat after a few seconds
  
8. Pull the pan off the fire and let things cool down
9. Flip back to side 1 and put it back on the heat
10. Fry slowly to desired doneness
• Flipping to side two half way through
11. Does it get any more normal than this?

Notes

1. Get really good meat but with some fat in it (fat captures flavour)
   
2. Freshly ground by your butcher (if you have one)
3. Or grind it yourself. In lieu of a grinder you can actually chop meat by hand without it taking too much time - - if you have sharp knives
4. The commercial method of doing this would be to fry the meat patty for colour and then finish cooking it in an oven at about 175C [350F]
   
5. Don't cook good meat all the way through 'til it's well done 'cause you'll lose the flavour
   
6. With a low carb angle you eat it without a bun
7. It's really good with a home-made "ketchup"
   

Cooked (on a bed of rucula [rocket]):