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September 12th,
2011
written by Arthur

Yes, yes, as Loren so eloquently pointed out in his last post: it’s football season once gain.  Like Loren, I slowly developed a serious interest in the Vikings and was lured in to the game all together by my first fantasy team last year.  This year, without homework to fill my Saturdays, I’m hoping to develop a casual following of college ball.  It’s not the NFL and, having gone to Macalester College, I never experienced seriously cheering for my alma mater’s team–but I’m always up for a chance to watch a good game with a good beer and some great food.

For this weekend’s NFL opener it was time to fire up the grill for some burgers.  Lately Nick has been mixing some BBQ sauce (among other undisclosed ingredients) into the burger meat before forming the patties.  The result is a flavorful moist burger with little caramelization.  But there is a problem:  the patty become too moist and falls apart easily during grilling.

My thought on Sunday was to use a little honey, some onion, and some dry spices to get a similar flavor without the structural problems.  But when I went to the spices I got distracted and decided to try something crazy and went the curry route.  That’s right, curry hamburgers.  The result was a mean tasting burger.  I just kind of threw stuff together, but here is an approximation of a recipe:

 

  • 1 lbs ground beef
  • 3 table spoons of honey
  • 1/2 a small onion finely chopped/diced on the large side
  • 1-2 table spoons of red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 cup of curry powder
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Put that all in medium sized bowl, mix well, and form larger sized patties.  (I actually decided to make this batch cheese filled, but just cheese on top would work great.)  Cook the burgers to taste over low-medium heat on the grill.  Don’t use higher heat.  The honey will give a nice crispy outside on low-medium and anything more risks unpleasant over charring.
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The flavor is sweet curry, but with a smoky burger flavor and nice crisp texture on the outside.  For condiments I kept it simple and just went with a stone ground mustard and a little mayo.  I think that, given the flavor burger, there is a lot of room to play with some fun sauces.  I’m thinking of something like a yogurt cucumber sauce or some other riff on a Mediterranean theme.
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But grilling was just lunch.  For the night game there was pork shoulder slow cooked through the day of football from 11am until 7pm.  Pork shoulder is cheap at $1.29 a pound so I see more experimentation with this protein on many a Sunday this football season.
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