Coffee rubbed spice burger .

This burger had the special honor of having my mom come and visit. While she is not quite as adventurous as I am in eating she played along and ate the burger anyway. But as I told her, my blog would be pretty boring if every week was a plain cheeseburger. For this burger I created a spice rub which was similar to one I saw Bobby Flay use on a steak. The rub consisted of Mexican chili powder, sweet smoked paprika, garlic salt, yellow mustard seed, coriander, salt, black pepper, red chili flakes, and the main ingredient coffee grinds. The yellow mustard seed and the coriander I grinded myself and the rest was in powder form. Then I dumped all of the spices into a bowl on top of the ground beef and hand mixed until all the seasonings were soaked up by the beef. Then I hand formed into three even spice rubbed patties. The next step was to grate the cheese. For this burger I decided to use an aged Gouda cheese. For those of you who have never had Gouda it is probably my favorite cheese. I would recommend a 3 year aged Gouda. It is similar to cheddar but has a fuller and deeper flavor. It is also kind of a nutty cheese where a little goes a long way. I heated the cast iron skillet with a little vegetable oil and turned the heat up to high. Then when the skillet was hot enough I placed the burger on it to get a nice sear and really crust up those spices on the outside of the burger. Then after about 4 minutes I added some water onto the skillet to create the steam and covered it with a lid. Another 3 minutes and I flipped the burger over and covered with the grated Gouda. Then I added some more water and recovered just until the cheese was melted on top. For the bun this week I chose a Portuguese roll. The last step in the burger was a slathering of Mesa Grill barbecue sauce on top. The variety of pepper in this burger was evident from the first bite. Between the Mexican chili powder, the smoked paprika, and the black pepper the burger had plenty of flavor and a great crust. For those of you who have never used coffee as a rub before it really doesn't overpower the other flavorings. In fact the coffee just added a little richer flavor to the burger. If you didn't know it was coffee rubbed you probably wouldn't be able to pick it out by taste. I wouldn't say this burger was spicy but more so it was heavily seasoned. The spices make the different textures in the burger. The beef remains moist on the inside while the spices form a nice crunchy crust. The BBQ sauce from Mesa Grill is a nice touch as well because it has a little kick to it with great flavor and obviously moisture. The burger was solid. I wouldn't put this is my top five but it was definitely good. I recommend clicking on the picture of the burger to zoom in and really see the spice crust. I am down to only four weeks left.

Cheddar Bacon sliders with a honey mayo dressing

This week's burger was on Saturday night because my wife and I have a valentine's dinner date tomorrow at the Spanish Tavern in Newark. I wanted to go back to using my slider maker. I bought all of the ingredients at Whole Foods. I used beef for this burger. The ground beef was organic grass fed and was 85% lean meat. For the bacon I used an uncured peppercorn seasoned bacon that was delicious. I used a rack and set the oven to 400 degrees. While the bacon was cooking in the oven I prepared the beef into thin little patties and seasoned them with some sea salt. After the bacon was about half done I wrapped each burger with a thick slice of peppercorn bacon and covered it with some grated extra sharp cheddar cheese. Then I preheated the slider maker and the press and cooked the bacon wrapped cheddar burger until it was about medium. I found these great little rolls in the bread section at Whole Foods. These were soft and had a nice outer crust. I would say they were sort of like Potato rolls. The last step was to make my dressing to go on the buns. In a mixing bowl I combined some olive oil mayo and some honey. Then I seasoned it with salt, pepper, and red chili flakes. Lastly, I mixed in some brown mustard for taste. This burger was really good. The peppercorn bacon alone would have made anything taste good. It was seasoned very heavily which I loved. The dressing was a little sweet and a little spicy and provided a creamy back taste to the rest of the burger. As a whole the burger was another success. And finally for dessert I had a Reese's peanut butter heart and a chocolate covered pretzel which were valentine's day gifts from my wife and my mother in law. I better get to the gym early tomorrow morning because after this dinner and the Spanish Tavern tomorrow I will need to cut back for a while. To all of the people who read my blog please sign in as a follower. Also, I am not sure if everyone knows this but if you click on the pictures of the burgers you can see them zoomed in for a better look. See you next week.

Buffalo Chicken Burger

In honor of the super bowl I tried to recreate America's favorite game time food. The buffalo wing is a Super Bowl favorite which I am sure is being consumed by the dozens all over the country today. To make this burger I used ground chicken and formed it into a patty. I seasoned with salt and pepper and tossed with the wing sauce in a large mixing bowl. The sauce I used was Frank's Buffalo wing sauce which can be found in any grocery store. I coated the chicken patties nicely with the sauce and then placed it onto a hot cast iron pan. After A good sear for about six minutes I flipped it over. Then I cooked it on the other side for another six minutes. Then I turned the heat down to medium and I added a handful of crumbled blue cheese on top of the burger. I poured a little bit of water onto the pan to create some steam and covered it with a lid to steam the burger and to melt the blue cheese into a sauce. After two more minutes the burger was done. I placed it on a whole wheat bun and covered with a little bit more of Frank's extra hot sauce. The only thing missing was some celery sticks. The blue cheese and the wing sauce goes together incredibly and the bun was nice and soft which helped absorb the sauce. The chicken remained moist but the outside had a great crust. Another burger down and not many more to go but I have to get going because this game is getting interesting.

Italian Burger

Sorry that this post is late. Someone who will remain nameless had to have pizza and ice cream last night so I had to wait until today to make this week's burger. This burger was a mix of Italian seasonings and flavors. I decided to steam the burger once again this week after the success of last week's steamed delight. I heated my cast iron skillet with a little bit of olive oil and some habenero butter. Ok so maybe the habenero butter isn't exactly Italian but I couldn't help myself. Then I seasoned the pan with some red pepper flakes and some fresh cracked black pepper. I mixed the grass fed organic chopped beef with garlic, basil, parsley, and oregano. Then I folded the seasoning into the patties and pounded them nice and thin. After placing the burger on the flat top I added a little water and covered the burger with a lid to steam it. One of the nice things about steaming a burger like this is that you don't have to flip it. Also, it doesn't take very long at all to cook. After 3 minutes I covered the burger with a slice of genoa silami and provolone cheese. Then I added more water and covered again for three minutes. When the burger was done I put it on a potato roll. Again not exactly Italian bread but I didn't want to waste what I already had. Perhaps this Italian burger had touches of Irish and Spanish just like me. Then I covered the gooey salami and provolone burger with some spicy vinegar cherry peppers. Lastly I covered that with a nice thin piece of prosciutto and again topped with a few more cherry peppers. I didn't need to add any salt because between the prosciutto and the salami this burger was salty enough. The burger was really good. It was salty and spicy with a tang from the peppers. The bun was nice and soft while the burger was moist and cooked to a medium temperature. Each bite was as moist as soft as a burger can be. The prosciutto was fatty enough to melt right in your mouth. I am looking forward to next week's burger. I do have to give a shout out to a new website I found about burgers. It's called A Hamburger Today. It is a really excellent burger blog that has ties to a pizza blog and a general serious eats blog as well. It is very extensive and I found myself just shuffling through all the pages. Go check it out.