The Accidental Beauty

First off, lemme just say thank you so much for the lovely birthday wishes. I love you guys so much <3 I know I haven’t been updating lately but I have great excuses, I promise lol. I couldn’t log into my own site for about a week because of my shitball hosting company All is well again, though — at least for now! I thought I’d jump back into this week by posting the recipe for this awesome burger (can you tell by now how much I loooove a good burger?) I made last night. It was — absolutely amazing! Best burger I’ve ever made, hands down. Simple ingredients, huge flavors, but the difference was the meat…instead of using the regular “ready-made” packet of ground beef, I asked the butcher to grind up a new york strip steak for me and the difference was incredible.

I primarily shop at Wegmans, and they have an awesome bread section full of tasty artisan loafs, infused with yummy flavors and accents. I always loved their Garlic Tuscan bread, and wondered how amazing it would be to build a juicy burger with it. The loaf itself is filled with the aromatic scent of sweet garlic and is brushed with a garlic oil on the outside. It’s so good. I made two thick slices and stacked a behemoth chunk of cow in-between.

fry your shallots in butter and olive oil over medium heat

1 lb. ground ny strip steak — look at all of that beautiful marbling!

seasoning added, with drizzle of olive oil for a bit more moisture

form into patties

white cheddar, beefsteak tomato, bacon

bacon!

you can tell it’s ready to flip by the browning on the bottom…

flip her over and let her finish

fried shallots are done!

RECIPE

• 1 lb. ground New York Strip Steak — makes up to 4 patties
• 1 thick slice of quality white cheddar cheese
• 1 large shallot, roughly chopped
• 2 slices of cooked bacon (optional)
• 1 beefsteak tomato slice
• 1/2 cup of field greens (any variety of lettuce will do)
• 2 slices of toasted Garlic Tuscan bread (can use any kind of bread you want, including reg. hamburger buns)
• Seasoning: Kosher salt, granulated garlic, pepper, onion powder
• olive oil
• butter
• 1 tsp horseradish mustard
• 1 tsp mayo

DIRECTIONS

Season your ground NY strip with kosher salt, pepper, granulated garlic and onion powder. Drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil into the meat and lightly mix with your hands. Don’t overwork the meat or it’ll toughen up. Create as many patties as you’d like. Let the patties rest, and chop your shallot. In a small frying pan, melt 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Add your chopped shallot. Allow the shallots to sweat and turn a golden brown color, slowly. Try not to fry these in high heat, start out low so that you don’t burn it. Once they’ve reached your desire color, remove from heat and set to the side. Either in the same pan or on a griddle (which is how I did it), fry 2 slices of bacon until done and set to the side. Finally, fry your hamburger patty over medium heat. It should be ready to flip over about 6-7 minutes later, depending on how thick you’ve made it. Once you flip it, don’t press it down with your spatula because you’ll squeeze all of the lovely juices out and end up with a dried piece of meat. As a matter of fact, don’t handle the patty too much — it should only be flipped once. After it’s browned on both sides, turn the heat off and add your cheese. To get it to melt beautifully, put a lid on the frying pan to create a sweaty situation which will slightly melt your cheese. Toast your bread. Mix 1 tsp of mayo and 1 tsp of horseradish mayo together and apply a super thin layer on each slice of your toasted bread.

Begin building your burger in any order you’d like. Eat immediately and try not to slap anyone because it’s gonna be good as hell LOL! Serve along chips or fries or just eat it alone.

Enjoy!

*if you don’t eat red meat, you can use ground chicken, ground turkey, or even a portobello mushroom.