In the midst of my 18,000 word missive on the food in Philly, I addressed my feelings on what should be considered a good burger. I was sick of complicated restaurant burgers with foie gras and chutney instead of bacon and ketchup being considered the best in a city just because they essentially buy your taste buds. So I ranted about it. But you likely missed that since the post was intolerably long.
Allow me to refresh you on my thoughts. A great burger is ground beef, heavily salted and peppered, charred on a rarely cleaned grill, and served on a simple bun with a strong cheese and mushrooms/bacon/onions/condiments as desired. Simple and really delicious, it especially helps if the ground beef is closer to 80/20 than 93/7.
That doesn’t mean I avoid messing around with burgers and trying to come up with new delicious ways to eat them. I love trying to make new stuff (very eloquent, Pete). So, while I will address the perfect traditional burger and the famous Dupee burger at another time, let’s kick off this new post category with the burger we made in Naples, FL last week: The Wellington Burger.
My mom lives in an awesome condo in Naples with lots of perks; high-end community grills, great restaurants, and a butcher shop that has adventurous cuts. Most importantly: delicious tasting kiddie pool water, at least according to Janet
We made a Beef Wellington over Christmas in Michigan 5 or 6 years ago and I wasn’t the biggest fan. Each component sounded awesome; beef tenderloin, liver pate, duxelles (mixture of mushrooms, onions, and shallots), all wrapped in pastry dough. It ended up being way too much in my opinion; just insanely rich. But stuffed in a burger…. that had some potential.
We started out by throwing a sliced red onion in a pan to caramelize and sauteing a half pound of sliced mushrooms in butter.
Tim is such a nerd, he looked up a recipe for caramelizing onions. Admittedly, he did an awesome job and even cooked in bacon grease which got my nod of approval. But, honestly, who looks up a recipe to pan cook an onion?
Kristi prepared the mushrooms and didn't even need a recipe to do so. Tim was completely blown away! He was all like, "how did you know how to do THAT?!?!?" Friggin jerk, I'll show him
While those cooked, I got the other ingredients prepped. First, the duck liver mousse.
Annnnd prepped! Went with the pre-made gourmet food store variety since I can't fathom taking the time to make a liver mousse then stuffing it into a burger. That's a Bells Two Hearted in the background. For those keeping track, Naples has Michigan beer, Philadelphia scrapple, and a Skyline Chili franchise. Great place
The selection of what kind of liver pate to use wasn’t that complicated since Mommy Ryan had a block of duck liver mousse in her fridge. She is a Ryan after all, and odds are that if you look in a Ryan fridge or freezer there will be some form of liver product somewhere. Makes choices in these situations easy.
The ground beef headed into a bowl for seasoning with lots of salt and pepper.
I know it looks like a ton, but you need a lot of salt for two lbs of meat. It didn't taste salty. Side note: I mysteriously dropped my rant on the stupidity of ground Kobe beef and people paying more for it because Mommy Ryan bought ground Wagyu (American Kobe) despite my pleas not to do so. Lets just move on and pretend it's regular 85/15, OK?
With the ground beef mixed and the onions and mushrooms cooked, the burgers were ready for final prep before grilling.
Wow Tim, those look great! And it only took you 45 minutes of research and 30 minutes of cook time? Amazing! Can you blame Tim for wanting to start a blog about how awful I am at cooking?
I combined big spoonfuls of the onions and mushrooms and a thick slab of the duck liver mousse in a bowl and mashed together for each burger.
Pre-mashing. On it's own it looks decadent, then you remember it's heading inside of (Wagyu) ground beef. Diet still isn't going well, thanks for asking
On wax paper I flattened out large thin patties of the ground beef to roughly the same size. The idea was that two patties would surround the filling and be pinched together at the edges. Each burger got a hefty spoonful of the filling.
Burger #1. You know that looks absurdly delicious, even if you're not a huge poultry liver fan
Burgers #2 and #3. They weren't just for Tim and I, Mommy Ryan was extremely into the idea as well. Kristi sat out, she's still not on the liver bandwagon
Throw the 2nd half on top, pinch the corners, and you have what looks like an innocuous normal burger. Albeit an extremely large one.
Even without seeing the size of the plate you can tell these burgers were enormous. That plate is the equivalent of the tags on my shirts
The three stuffed burgers went onto a hot grill along with three normal burgers (Tim and I both wanted the best of both worlds). Big error was putting them all on the grill at the same time since we only wanted the stuffed ones to cook well done with the lid down. Pretty stupid; the regular burgers ended up medium-well, which is how you narrowly avoided this being my preachy post about a correctly-made real hamburger.
A little perspective on the difference in size. Also, I should give credit where credit is due, Tim really pushed his Wellington burger into a different world (of unhealthiness) with that handful of blue cheese on top. I was extremely jealous once I had time to think about it
From the grill directly onto the essential toasted Martin’s potato rolls, served along with extra condiments and toppings as needed.
Added a little mayo for richness on the Wellington burger. Also, because mayo is awesome. Look, these love handles weren't going to maintain themselves. Wait, what? I already did that one? Dag, how long ago? Oh well
I had to slice into the Wellington and check it out, it would have been less enjoyable without doing so.
I wanted the filling a little more runny for picture purposes but it was warm and mushy throughout. In a good way. Best part was that the filling ran up to the edges of the burger
Despite my previous complaints about traditional Beef Wellington, you can’t combine this many delicious ingredients, in this type of preparation, and have it come out poorly. The flavor was rich, very decadent, and delicious. A stuffed burger is the only case where well-done is an acceptable temperature because the contrast of textures is great and the meat stays moist from the filling. Really amazing, but not really a hamburger.
Next week will either be the crazy surf and turf I referenced previously or something else. I pickup a cooler full of cow organs this weekend courtesy of Uncle Billy, so, you’ve got that going for you.
The Pete Is On 