Saturdays are days that Karen and I usually cook together. She said earlier today…”Tonight is gonna be Smash Burger Night.” to which I replied “What the heck is a smash burger”? Apparently it is very thin seared burgers stacked up with cheese between the patties so it was a no brainer – I was in. When I eat a hamburger, I like it loaded – bacon, cheese, onion, pickles… basically “the works”. I’m not picky, any combination is welcome.
There used to be a restaurant just down the road where I loved to order burgers. It closed several years ago, but on the menu they had the “Shut up and eat it!” burger. You only had two choices: Hot or Mild. Then it was up to the chef to decided what would be stacked on your burger – sort of at his creative whim. One night it even had cheese sticks on it! Naturally, I always went for the “hot” option. It would have jalapeños, some kind of diablo sauce or sometimes both. Wow, thinking about these burgers really makes me miss that restaurant.
Preparation tonight began with caramelizing some onions. You know, the ones you smell at the fair and you start looking for the sausage sandwich booth because, come on, you just gotta have one. I looked in the pan and said “That’s a lot of onions!” and she kind of looked back and said “They will cook down”. The smell permeated the kitchen as the onions started to turn to that familiar brown color.
While the onions were cooking she measured out the beef, about 2 oz per patty, which is basically a meatball. We do a blend of meat mixing half lean (like 92%) with a more fatty ground beef (80%) for a flavorful combination. We haven’t been eating much beef since we realized that we both seem to get “bloated” from it and the scale shows it in the morning. These patties are really small, but that’s okay since they will be “smashed” and “stacked” to make one burger. In the end, you are getting the same amount of beef as a regular hamburger.
Once the onions were done, she fried up some pepper bacon (it said gluten free on the package…. too funny) and then prepped a shallow flat pan with parchment paper to place the “burger stack” on when cooked. This is to keep the first “stacks” warm in the oven (about 200 degrees should do the trick) while the others cook. If you have a bigger griddle, you will be able to cook them all at the same time and can avoid this step.
Time to start cooking the burgers. First, spray a griddle with some cooking spray. Allow some time to warm up the griddle (we waited about 10 minutes) before putting the burgers on. You want it pretty hot so the meat sears immediately.
Once the griddle is hot, drop a meatball on and smash it flat with a heavy spatula/flipper. Use caution and the correct tool if you are on a non-stick griddle. Do your best to flatten them (even the edges), otherwise they just look like sliders. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on the burger while it is cooking. You want to flip them once you begin to see the meat darkening in several places on top (imagine it like the bubbles on a pancake). Once you flip it to brown the other side, you are ready to start adding the first part of the “assembly”. Put a slice of cheese on both patties. Add some onions on one of the cheesy patties, then place the other cheese patty on top of the onions. Set the stack aside on the parchment papered pan and repeat for the remaining meatballs. We did one plain patty for the very top for a three patty stack.
All that is left is the burger sauce. We mixed mayonnaise, Worcestershire Sauce and black pepper. We drizzled the stack or toasted bun with the sauce, added some bacon pieces and tucked a napkin in our collar.
We felt our patties ended up a bit on the small side, so next time we will probably make the meatballs a bit bigger. Karen had her smash burger without the bun with a small side salad and I had mine on a toasted bun with a fresh pickle.
