Following my earlier post about burgers, I was inundated (well, that is a slight exaggeration) with requests for my burger recipe. It is VERY good, but not particularly unusual or difficult. The trouble is, I have never measured the amounts of the seasonings I use. I just put them in and mix them up. Here is a very rough guess of the amounts and proportions.
1 lb of medium ground beef (you need the fat to hold the burgers together properly)
1 lb of lean ground beef
1/3 cup dried minced onions
1 tablespoon powdered garlic
1 tablespoon finely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon parsley flakes
1 egg (if necessary, to hold the patties together)
Mix the meat in a large mixing bowl. Add dried minced onions and continue mixing. Mix in a LOT of powdered garlic (I think I end up using maybe a tablespoon or so) and mix in a LOT of finely ground black pepper (again maybe as much as a tablespoon). Sometimes I also add a bit of dried parsley, but not always. And I sometimes add an egg to hold the patties together, which happens if I use meat that doesn't have enough fat in it.
With two lbs of ground beef, we tend to get 4 half-pound patties, so we usually double or triple this recipe. At one time when we were nearly mass-producing these burgers, I used a K-Tel patty stacker to make them, but I think we must have given that away when we down-sized to the condo. Now I just shape the patties by hand.
For me the thing that makes this such a good recipe is the abundant use of garlic, onion, and pepper. I don't much care for burgers with thyme or sage or oregano in them; nor do I like to use coarsely ground black pepper on much of anything mostly because it is too overwhelming when you bite down on a piece.
I haven't tried the recipe with fresh onions or fresh garlic. I expect it would be quite good. But I like the dried minced onions because they are small, they blend well, and they are very easy to use. And I like using garlic powder because it blends in well.
We usually barbecue the burgers year-round (we live in a high-rise condo, so we use an electric bbq on our balcony). Ms. Eclectic prefers hers medium; I like mine medium to medium-well.
Also, we have different cheese preferences. Ms. Eclectic likes a slice of jalapeno-havarti cheese on her burger, whereas I like a plastic white slice on mine.
And of course no buns.