A burger is both a simple and a profound culinary statement. I firmly believe if we could get our burgers right, the rest would follow.
I am not talking here of the sad processed variety that litter our supermarkets: frozen for perpetuity. Rather, I am speaking of the hand-formed variety (whether by a local butcher or by yourself).
My grandmother always purchased burgers from the local butcher. We ate them for lunch, strangely without the aid of a bun. I think touching your food was slightly removed from that generation. We were instructed to use a fork and a knife to eat it. I suppose it was more a patty then than a burger. But she always called it a burger.
No one really knows with certainty the origins of the hamburger. Perhaps Germany, perhaps New York. Whatever its origins, the hamburger has taken an unjust assault in the past 50 or so years. Like the pizza (a supreme whole food), it has been turned into a junk food. But it is no more junk than anything else in the culinary world. It is how we treat it that defines it. Give it respect, make it with good ingredients.
When it comes to adding ingredients to a burger, I am no purist. Of course, you can make a wonderful burger with just mince and salt, but in some cases I like to experiment with different flavours.
In our gastropub EAT in Galway, we have many burgers on the menu. One popular one is made from free range pork and Gubbeen chorizo.
Take a kilo of of pork mince. Fry an onion, a few smashed cloves of garlic and a handful of diced chorizo. Cool this and add the mix to the mince with some sea salt and chopped herbs. Shape into five burgers. Grill or fry. Serve with some mayo and cucumber pickle inside a toasted Waterford blaa. As simple and as tasty as it sounds. You can substitute lamb or beef mince instead of the pork if you wish.
