93. Grilled Hamburgers with Garlic, Chipotles, and Scallions

Date Cooked: August 7, 2009
Page: 449
Rating: B+

I’m still on a grilling kick and I have been trying to use my grill a lot more this summer, especially since I won the new one. I figured I would try my hand at burgers again considering my previous failure with them. I am not as dense as those previous burgers were though and this time I picked up ground beef that had a higher fat content. I will spoil the ending by saying that it changed things greatly.

I might have deviated a little from this recipe. I’m supposed to start with 1 ½ pounds of ground beef but once I had measured it out I felt it looked a bit... weak? I figured I would just add the rest of the package since I wasn’t really going to freeze a ½ pound. So I am already courting failure but increasing the amount of prime ingredients. The next step was to mix in minced scallions, chipotle chile in adobo sauce and garlic… okay I need to back up a step.

Let’s talk about garlic. Ladies and Gentleman, this was my very first attempt at dry roasting garlic (not counting roasting it in the oven with other foods), and since I had never done it before I didn’t quite know what to expect. After toasting them on the stove I removed them and was marveled at how soft they become and how much more fragrant, as well as the fact that the bitterness mellows out completely. I loved it! So they were minced and thrown into the ground beef.

Some salt and pepper added to season and then I got my hands dirty. There is a relaxing aspect to working the ground beef with bare hands. The only problem is you have to be careful not to overwork it so the relaxation needs to end. Once everything was mixed I left my math and reading skills behind and began to form the patties. Somewhere in my mind I thought the book wanted six patties (from an initial 1 ½ pounds) meaning scrawny little 4oz patties. This was unacceptable so I made fewer of them but larger. I ended up with 5 of them from the two pounds I used, around 6.5 oz each. Turns out that as I review the recipe while typing this that I was illiterate. The original amounts were supposed to make 4 patties not the 6 I had assumed. If you are as confused about this paragraph as I am then don’t worry. I’ll summarize it as follows. It all worked out in the end.

Once the patties were formed with their little divot in the middle (to help them cook up a more uniform thickness), I prepped the grill which had been heating up nicely. The burgers only took a few minutes on each side to cook through nicely. They were removed and left to rest for a few minutes while I grilled up a side dish.

Rating: B+. Definitely getting better. The chile came through nicely but I felt that the garlic and scallions were lost in the burger. The burger definitely turned out moist although a little smaller than I would have liked. I can see myself practicing many burger variations in the coming weeks. I am having my doubts that these burger recipes are the “best” though.