Recipe: Parmesan Bacon Burgers

[ellyssian]

• 2 lbs fresh ground beef
• 4 slices of bacon
• 1/2 cup parmesan-romano-asiago cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup tomato, minced
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• white peppercorns, freshly ground

This is pretty simple, but worked out very well. While I'd love to use only bison and ditch the cow altogether (sorry, Bessie!), this recipe seems better suited to the flavor of beef ~ in fact I took the ground bison and prepared that differently, and will post that recipe in a little while.

Pan-fry the bacon to a crisp and set on paper towels to drain.

In a large metal bowl, mix the ground beef and other ingredients. Separate out into six big meatballs ~ keeping the round ball shape makes it easier to compare sizes and get roughly equivalent proportions. Once you've got it all divided, and all six lumps of mix are the same size, set them, one by one, on pieces of wax paper. Press a bit to flatten, fixing up any fault-lines that may appear. Fold the wax paper over the burger and press down, using a large flat object (a saucepan works good). The burger should be no more than 1 inch thick.

Refrigerate until ready to cook.

While the best method may be to toss them on an open flame grill, it was a bit too cold and windy for that today.

The second-best method is a combination effort:

Set the burgers on a foil lined baking sheet, and broil.

At an internal temperature of around 90 degrees or so, flip them, and at 100 or so take them out of the broiler. To measure the temperature, the probe should be inserted from the side of the burger and extend in to the center, about 2 inches or so.

I used a grill pan to finish them off and put the final sear on them without sending them too far past the medium rare stage.

Ideally, this grill would be superheated, but that gets back to the rant about venting and the lack thereof ~ I had the heat set on medium, and used the thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature.

The grill pan can be skipped ~ just cook them in the broiler until done ~ but I like that little extra bit of sear.

Serve on crustini rolls with some lettuce.