great burgers

A burger is just a burger, right? I mean we love 'em and all, but not much to think about, is there...

Well, a couple of months ago, Carl was watching something, or reading something, or making something up (well maybe not that) about making stuffed burgers. See, what you do is this. You have your ground meat soft and ready to go. You need a flat pan, like a cookie sheet with a lip. Put a layer of plastic wrap in the bottom of the pan, then spread the meat out. Then, put another layer of plastic wrap. Smush out the layer of meat evenly between the two layers of plastic wrap. Use a rolling pin to help you, don't be shy. Once you have the meat evenly spread, with no holes, let it rest for about 5 minutes.

Now comes the fun part. Pick something you want to go in those burgers. It can be as easy as opening a package of onion soup mix, or sprinkling cajun spices and covering about half of the meat with it. You can get creative with your filling. We sauteed some onions and added jack cheese to ours last time. We were going for a patty melt kind of idea. We didn't really get that, but the burgers were fabulous! Next time? Green chile, onions, and cheese. mmmm Remember to remove the top layer of plastic wrap for this step, though.

Once you have placed your filling, use the bottom layer of plastic wrap to help you fold the meat in half, covering the goodies. While you can make the patties as thick as you like, neither layer needs to be all that thick. Once you fold over the meat, let this sit for about another 5 minutes.

Next, cut the meat into patties, probably somewhere between 4 and 8 of them, depending on how much meat you used and how big you like your patties. Grill, broil or cook in a pan. It won't take long. I think the ones we broiled took about 5 minutes per side (and I'm pretty picky about well done-ness). Add cheese on top if you wish. They are great with or without a bun. These things have me thinking about having burgers all the time! Now, I'm thinking how great they would be with sauteed mushrooms and swiss cheese inside... mmmmm.

Let me know how yours turn out!