Homemade burgers have already appeared on my blog, but like I mentioned before, I recently did some cleaning and I trashed that post (so it’s not only about looking/ admiring at my own posts eghm…). I didn’t like the pictures, and in general I didn’t think it was a good one. However, last week I decided to write it up once again. Last Friday I went to the famous Oberweis and I saw them! They had a new offer- burger buns! And these looked so pretty that I couldn’t help myself.

I knew we already had plans for Saturday evening, I sent a quick text to my boyfriend though, and asked if we were still on for Saturday or maybe… he would prefer my homemade burgers. The answer was “Homemade Burgers!”. How sneaky of me 😉 I will spare you all the details of my struggle when it came to the pictures part… Did you know that in most professional tutorials, books and I don’t know where else, people who really know how to photograph food say the burger is probably one of the most difficult ones. I remember Katie Quinn Davies saying in her book, that she went through around 17 burgers before she took the “hero” shot! Well, first of all I did NOT have 17 burgers. I had ONLY 4 right?! I also had a hungry man waiting for them- so include here the time pressure factor. Another thing, Katie has two assistants, a food stylist and another photographer in her team- I guess once you became famous things get a bit easier ha? So I had to get on with what I had- after the dinner I had 1 burger left… 1 burger… but it was all mine and I could do with it whatever I wanted! Yuupee! After the photo session I started reading a little bit more about burgers, just to see where these were coming from, as it seems to be a typical American dish, but the tradition says- and the Wikipedia too 😀 – that the story of a burger is more complicated. Not sure if you knew, that the burger was originated in Europe- it was known in XVIII century in Germany- in Hamburg- nomen omen hamburger! Apparently the colonists from Europe brought it to America, and the local bars in New York started serving burgers to remind the immigrants of their home in Europe- how thoughtful of them… Hamburg was one of the most popular ports, where all the ships were taking off for America.

And now I’m hoping to start a little debate here- is the burger a healthy meal? Don’t you think it’s such a pity that these days the burger has been considered as the main representative of the fast food industry, where if you think of it, it’s just a piece of meat- and good quality beef cannot be bad for you, a piece of bread- if it comes from a good bakery bring it on! and all the vegetables you put inside- lettuce and tomatoes- what’s wrong with that?? pickles – even better, and the cheese- and imagine here a nice piece of 24 months matured Comte- just saying… The truth is, if you use good quality ingredients, your burgers can be an enjoyable and healthy meal, perfect for Sunday picnics or garden parties. So I guess we should start thinking of our homemade burgers as proud representatives of slow food. I don’t make them very often, but when I do, I use only the top class meat from the butcher, yummy cheese and the veggies from the food market. And of course some bacon! Do you like burgers?? Because we do 🙂

Ingredients

Makes for 4 people, preparation time- not more than 30 min, time in the oven- 30 min, oven temperature- 180 C

1. 400 g of ground meat- I mix beef and pork
2. 8 slices of bacon/lard- 2 for each burger
3. 1 onion- medium seized
4. 1 clove of garlic
5. 1 egg
6. some bread- I use it instead of bread crumbs, 2 slices without crust is enough, you need to soak it in the water, drain it and add it to the meat, if you prefer using bread crumbs it will be fine too
7. salt, black pepper and sweet red pepper
8. fresh thyme and rosemary- as much as you want
9. 2 big tomatoes
10. lettuce
11. cheese- like I said above- get some good quality cheese, we like ship cheese for example
12. burger buns- I got 4 of those

Method

In a glass bowl combine together the meat, finely chopped onions and garlic. Add the egg, bread (or some bread crumbs), thyme, rosemary and the spices. Mix all ingredients until incorporated evenly. Leave on a side for 10 min or so.

Now you are going to shape the meat in burgers. Look at the picture below. I tried to make them as roundy as possible, and I also tried to fit them to the size of the buns.

When the burgers are ready wrap each of them in two slices of bacon. I know that usually you should do it separately, but I always combine the bacon with burgers. They get this nice smoked kind of taste, and we really like it this way. Set the wrapped burgers on a baking sheet and place them in the oven for about 30 minutes.

And this is the sneak peak of your burgers… yummy…

So now the grand finale. This is the way I make  our burgers. I slice the tomatoes, take some lettuce, and of course the cheese. On occasions I also fry some onions and mushrooms.

I place the lettuce as the first layer on the bun, then usually comes the burger, the tomatoe, the cheese and the bun again.

And… tadaaa 😀

 

One thing on the tomato though. When I was looking at the pictures of burgers on Google Images I realized that the tomato goes actually after the lettuce 😀 So I changed it for the “official” pictures for this post! We simply like tomatoes and cheese together- you can say it’s more French 😉 I hope you will like it the way we have it. These burgers are delicious with a good ol’ cold beer!