I figured if I could plan my wedding in four days, I could entertain 20 in two days. Luckily my friend D and I were able to pull it off. There were a few glitches, including my apprehension that we may not have enough food if more people showed up, and the trusty grill that the wheels broke when traveling to the site.
My assignment was burgers and I was going to make them from scratch. I had to make 24 burgers so had the butcher, only a few hours before I was to put them together, to put three 2# packages up for me, 85/15 beef. I looked that beef in the eye and made up my recipe right there. The key is to keep the meat cold and not compact it too much. For this recipe I had to do everything to scale, which is how I can give you the recipe.
For two pounds of freshly-ground 85/15 beef:
Two cloves garlic
One Shallot
Microplane them into a bowl with
One egg, 1t salt, 1/2 t pepper, 1 t Worcestershire
Mix ’em up
1/4 c bread crumbs, have on hand cowpoke
When you finish settin’ up, take the 2# of meat out of the frig and put it in a chilled bowl, if y’all can. If not just get moving. Break it apart quickly with a large fork, do not compress. Add the eggs/seasonings and fluff up again with the fork. Add bread crumb until it comes together. That’ll depend on the day and the humidity. Don’t make them into hockey pucks like the Scots do.
Form and cook on a good hot grill. I measured mine out and actually made them into rectangles (I had so many to do and wanted to make them uniform in size) but do whatever you like. Just handle them as little as possible and if the grill isn’t ready, put them on a plate and refrigerate them until it’s time to cook. They were a hit, not like the Royals in the US, but pretty durn close. Cheers, Dee
ps Homage to Alton Brown? My husband loves you because you’ve reduced cooking to a science. Now he thinks a robot can do what I do in the kitchen…
Cooking with Dee 