best burger sliders ever!

this past week we had the privilege of having our friend Josh Chen over for a dinner/study party! i figured the least i could do was make the dudes some good food.

back in the fall when kevin and i were making burgers about every other week, i discovered an interesting technique for making AMAZINGLY juicy and delicious burgers. (big thanks to The Kitchn!) i didn’t have a chance to write a post about it then because i was busy, but here it is now! it’s ALL in how to make the patties.

Ingredients for umami patties:

• 2 lb ground beef
• 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 2 Tbs fish sauce
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 pinch of sugar
• freshly ground pepper

1) While the grill is warming, prepare the burgers. Gently pat the ground beef into a log roughly 2 feet long (or two longs, each 1 ft long) on a clean baking sheet. Use your thumb to make a deep trough in the center. Sprinkle the onions evenly down the trough.

2) Whisk together the garlic, fish sauce, soy sauce, garlic powder, and sugar, and sprinkle over the onions. Finish with a few grinds of fresh black pepper over everything.

3) Pinch ground beef closed around the onions.

4) Divide the meat into 18-20 portions for sliders (or 8-10 for regular burgers) using a chef knife, a bench scraper, or your fingers. Use your hands to gently shape each portion into a burger patty about 1-inch thick. Try not to compact or overwork the meat.

now, onto the grilling! make sure the patties are at room temperature before grilling. for medium rare sliders, only cook for about 1 min on each side.

we made 3 kinds of burgers:

1) aloha burger: w/ swiss cheese, grilled pineapple, terriyaki sauce, sesame coleslaw

2) goat cheese lover’s burger: w/ garlic & chive goat cheese, caramelized onions, arugula

3) wasabi burger: w/ swiss cheese, wasabi mayo, tomatoes

we also made 2 kinds of french fries, sweet potato fries with powdered sugar (inspired by Gordon Ramsey’s Burgr) and garlic parmesan fries.

let’s just say that our tummies were verry happy

21 Mar This entry was published on March 21, 2014 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.