BURGER TIME FUN TIME!

Howdy all! Sorry for the late update, this has been quite the hectic time.

I am on a quest. I seek to right a wrong unleashed upon humanity, one that is rife with injustice. I quest... to show people that turkey burgers can, in fact, be tasty and exciting! Too long has this noble creation been subject to bland preparation and trite toppings. It has been packed with bread crumbs, doused in hot sauce, and had more and more stuff thrown on and in it with no thought to what this meat actually is.

NO MORE, I SAY!

So, with ground turkey finding its way into my fridge this week, I decided to build a better burger. 

Now I won't lie- lean ground turkey is not exactly bursting with flavor in its own right. With the right touches of stuff, though, that flavor gets brightened, lifted, and allowed to shine. We need- some fat, some heat, and some zing.

Fat- comes in one of two forms here- bacon fat, or (for those who can't or won't eat bacon) a touch of olive oil.

Heat- for those of you unfamiliar with the sriracha family (sriracha, sriracha chili garlic sauce, and sriracha sambal), I strongly suggest you pick up a bottle or three. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. In this case, I used sriracha sambal, but any of the three will do just fine.

Zing- Garlic and Worcestershire sauce. 'Nuff said. (note- if you're using the chili garlic sauce (comes in a jar, not a squeeze bottle), go light on the garlic here. Unless lots of garlic is your thing. Which is perfectly cool.)

Okay, so now we've got some tasty patties, but that's only half the battle. What do we put on these little pillows of meaty heaven?

Step back for a second.

Let's think about flavor. What makes something tasty? It's not any one thing, but a combo of things. Sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and umami. (umami is a flavor that kinda defies a single word description. Think... hearty. The satisfying flavor you get from a piece of meat, or a sauteed mushroom, for example. Fulfilling. Something that has body.) Other things help too (e.g. smoky flavor can add a sense of umami, spicy things can make the taste buds more receptive to flavors) and of course, think about how what you're adding meshes with the big picture (aka- just because you can put pears and sea bass together, doesn't mean you should).

So we have some good umami from our meat and fat. We have a portion of our salty as well, and we'll get a touch of bitter from the sear the meat will develop as it cooks. 

So first, let's just add some bacon to the tops of our sliders. It'll up that smokiness and umami from the burger, and if you're adding bacon fat to your burgers, you probably fried some bacon for that end anyway. Apple goes with bacon quite well, so we'll saute some apple to bring out its sweetness. Sour... nothing like a good smear of dijon mustard. Last but absolutely not least, a slice of cheddar style cheese (in this case, Beecher's flagship cheese) helps to tie everything together. (turkey, apple, bacon, and mustard all go well with cheddar cheese, so adding it will help to tie all these flavors together).

My one hiccup? No burger buns. Luckily, I had some baguette on hand. cut that into little round slices, and now our burgers will be sliders!

With that, it's burger time.

Turkey Burger Sliders-

1 lb lean ground turkey

1 1/2 tsp sriracha

2 medium sized cloves garlic, Finely diced.

2 strips bacon (or 2 tbsp olive oil)

1 apple (anything but red delicious), chopped

1 tsp worchestershire

dijon mustard

8 round slices baguette

8 small slices cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350.

In a pan (anything but nonstick), fry your bacon over medium heat, flipping when brown. When bacon is done, take pan off heat. Remove bacon from pan and reserve. let fat in pan cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, combine turkey, sriracha, garlic, 1 tbsp bacon fat or oil, and Worcestershire. Mix together thoroughly. form 8 small patties (or do like I did, form 2 large patties and then quarter them). Season generously with salt and pepper.

place pan with remaining fat (or remaining 1 tbsp oil) on medium heat. When hot, place burgers in pan. (if they don't sizzle, the pan isn't hot enough. remove the burgers and wait until it is). Do not move or twist the burgers for 3-4 minutes. Then flip burgers (you'll know you did it right if the burgers lift off the pan easily. if they come apart, they weren't done searing on that side). Let sear for another 2-3 minutes, place cheese on burgers then transfer to oven. Burgers are done when juice runs clear and center is no longer pink. Set aside to let rest for 5 minutes.

Place pan back on medium low heat, add apples, stirring frequently until soft and lightly browned. Don't bother cleaning the pan beforehand, you want the apples to pick up some of the burnt crusty bits left over from your burgers

Cut bacon to size, and assemble your burgers! Smear a little mustard on the bottom, and enjoy!

Until next time, you got nothin' on me, turkeys.

PS- Here's a technique to make life a lot easier. Peeling garlic is a pain. Instead, take your cloves, place them under the flat of a knife, or a pan (or in this case, a bench scraper), and then give your flat surface a good downward whack!

Don't aim to crush the clove, but no need to be gentle.

Voila! the cloves separate nicely from the skin. They may crack or crush a little, but not enough to be a problem. Chop away!