We don’t eat much meat onboard, but when we do, we make damned sure that poor animal didn’t die in vain. Here’s one of the best burger recipes we’ve ever developed!
There’s a burger joint in town called Hekkan burger, and they make the best burgers you can get here in Stavanger. My buddy Ole is the man behind them, and their best burger is “Ole sin favoritt” (Ole’s favorite); it’s a double bacon, double patty, double cheese, double everything, all slathered in copious amounts of delicious, smoky chipotle mayo, and it’s a work of art. I mean look at this beauty!!
So of course I had to replicate that at home. And of course I had to add my own twist to it.
We found it a bit on the heavy, rich side, so we instantly knew we wanted to add some crisp lettuce. And while we love red onion, we absolutely prefer it pickled. And since we’re whores for chili, we added some jalapeño cream to add a bit more freshness and crisp heat to counter the heavy smoky heat from the chipotle mayo.
Here’s how to make the damn thing:
Ingredients:
- 800 g ground angus beef (or halloumi cheese. We use Glør from Stavanger Ysteri)
- Small pinch cayenne powder
- Small pinch garlic powder
- Sprinkle fine sea salt
- 4 slices dry cured streaky bacon (we use from A. Idsøe)
- 4 delicious store bought burger buns (or bake the Best goddamn burger buns)
- Lettuce
- Quality pickled cucumbers (we used Änglamark organic )
- Pickled red onion
- 12 slices Ridder cheese (or authentic French Port Salut or Saint-Paulin)
- Chipotle mayo
- Jalapeño cream
Pickled red onion
- 100 ml white sugar
- 200 ml red wine vinegar
- 300 ml water
Chipotle mayo
- 100 g mayo
- 1 tsp chipotle flakes
- 1 tsp cayenne powder
- 2 tsp sherry vinegar
- 1 tbsp tomato puré
- 1 tbsp finely chopped sun dried tomatoes (optional)
Jalapeño cream
- 100 g sour cream
- 3 jalapeno, deseeded
- Handfull fresh coriander
Method
Start by making the pickled red onion. Take a small pot, throw in everything but the onion, and bring to a boil. Find a jar, finely slice the onion, stuff it right in there. Pour over the pickling liquid and put the lid on. Set aside. Done!
Next make the jalapeño cream. Cut the peppers into chunks, quickly blitz everything in a suitably small container with a stick blender. Set aside. Fuckin done.
Mix everything for the chipotle mayo. Again, set aside, fuckin done!
Now find your grass fed Angus beef (or whatever else top notch beef cattle meat you can get!). It should ideally have a fat content of around 18%, but 14% works well enough too. Do NOT use any leaner, or its gonna turn out dry as fuck no matter what you do.
Sprinkle it with the spices and salt, and shape into patties. I absolutely swear by Heston Blumenthal’s method. His video below is elaborate (well, duh, it’s heston Blumenthal!!), but I assure you, it’s all done in just a few minutes if your beef is already ground!
Fry your bacon crisp, set aside, sear off the patties in the bacon fat on a white hot pan (or grill!). Turn the heat down to toast the buns in the beef fat.
Assemble the burger like this: Take a good dollop chipotle mayo and spread on the bottom bun. Put on some lettuce and however much pickled onion you want.
Carefully place the patty on top, then the cheese, then grill the cheese with a kitchen blowtorch (or whatever other method you prefer). Add the pickles on top of the cheese, then the bacon.
Take the top bun and spread a good dollop jalapeno cream, BAM you’re done!
We like to serve this beast with sweet potato fries and more chipotle mayo to dip. A nice NEIPA pairs extremely well with this mouthgasm of a burger!
Skål!
