February 12, 2012

[PREVIEW] The 1/3lb Bacon Cheeseburger from Kua’Aina, Soho

Yes, that is quite a char isn’t it…

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[RECIPE] The Default Burger Anarchy Bun

February 9, 2012

Burger buns. So many different types. So many ways they can go very, very wrong.

Anyone remember that whole ‘Artisan-style Ciabatta’ debacle a while back? You catch my drift.

Most depressing of all is the bloody awful selection we get from the majority of our supermarkets and bakeries. Typically we have to suffer the following:

The humble white bap. A moisture-sucking floury roll that capitulates like an over-dunked Malted Milk in the face of burger juice
The crusty cob. A roof-of-mouth torturer.

And don’t even get me started on what they call burger buns, you may as well enclose your burger in two bits of fucking balsa wood.

Faced with this, I’ve tested various recipes over the last few months; from simple buns, to classic hamburger buns, to more fiddly potato rolls. More recently, with the increasing popularity of them at burger joints in London, I’ve had a go at differing brioche recipes too.

After finding some way too buttery or too sweet, I finally found this recipe.

And it’s a doozy, yielding light, beautifully textured buns, with that impressive shiny orange dome. Ever since, I’ve been using this for all of our burger experimentations, (including our Super Bowl Bacon Double Cheese, and the mini-concoctions for our rockumental burger fondue).

Give them a go, the prep is fiddly as fuck, but it delivers a very impressive cache of buns at the end, and they will give you results better than in most restaurants.

Burger buns

Brioche Burger Buns

Makes 10-12 4(ish) inch buns

3 tablespoons warm milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups strong bread flour
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Sesame seeds (optional)

In a glass measuring cup, combine one cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let it stand until nice n’ foamy, about ten minutes.
Beat one egg.
In a large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Gradually add butter and rub into the flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Using a dough scraper, stir in yeast mixture and your beaten egg until a dough forms. Scrape the dough onto a clean, well-floured counter and knead, scooping dough up, slapping it on counter and turning it, until smooth and elastic. I do it for 12-14 minutes. The dough will be on the sticky side, so it can be hella messy and will stick to your hands, the kitchen cupboards, the cat, hell, everywhere. But keep in mind that the more flour you knead in, the tougher the buns will be.
Shape the dough into a ball and return it back to bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, between one to two hours.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using dough scraper, divide dough into 10-12 equal parts. Gently roll each into a ball, place on the baking sheet and then swish down a bit with the palm of your hand, ideally they should be two to three inches apart on the sheet. Cover loosely with a piece of plastic wrap lightly coated in nonstick spray/sunflower oil and let buns rise in a warm place for one to two hours.
Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 205 degrees celsius with the rack in the middle. Beat the remaining egg with one tablespoon of water and brush some on top of buns. If you want sesame seeds on them, lob them on top now. I don’t, typically. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Boom.

Rob.

(Recipe adapted from the awesome Smitten Kitchen)

February 1, 2012

January 26, 2012

January 23, 2012

January 17, 2012

The joy of Monte Cristo

from Mama’s, San Francisco.

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January 15, 2012

The Cheeseburger from The Ship, Wandsworth.

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[FIELD REPORT] New Year's Eve Burger Swarm at the Admiral Codrington

January 9, 2012

Dude. Amazing. Dude.

Special Menu

A rallying cry from the head chef of the Admiral Codrington in Chelsea, site of our favourite London burger of 2011:

Who would be interested in a new years eve burger night? All the burgers I’ve done this year available. Please RT
— Fred Smith (@FredSmith_) November 18, 2011

Knowing our reputation, we were all over it like Lindsay Lohan on a Playboy cover.

After a pre-game round or two of Champagne with PBR chasers, we zoomed over to The Cod to get our celebration on.

Fred served up a masterful array of top notch gastro fare. We nearly over-did the starter platter, the highlight of which is definitely the calamari and mini sausages.

Bacon Cheeseburger

Bacon Cheeseburger Split

The bacon cheeseburger was incredible. The perfectly formed 8oz patty was a appropriately sizable chunk of soft, tender beef with a neatly seared outside, with cheese melted beautifuly on top. The bacon was crispy, but sweet and flavourful. Indeed, Rob was already half cut, but we’re pretty sure his incessant ramblings about how “fucking amazing” the burger was were mostly due to the quality of what he was eating.

Probably.

The Double Stack

The Double Stack Split

The Double Stack was a beauty of a Big Mac tribute. A nicely toasted bun with two thinner patties, a bevy of pickles and plenty of house special sauce. This needs to be a permanent menu fixture. It’s such a classic sandwich in the hearts of us all, and Fred has made it look better than the McDonald’s food stylists could ever hope to in a laboratory.

If these two were amazing, then the Ox Cheek Chilli burgers that came out, compliments of the chef, were other worldly.

Ox Cheek Chilli Split

This is a historic sandwich. He’s pulled the Double Beef out the bag. The Ox cheek chilli brought a second wave of meatiness to the table, flavouring the burger with a deeply rich beef ‘n umami flavour. At the same time, the crunchy chilli slaw provided a constant pleasurably gentle heat to the whole affair.

It was brilliant. Inspired. Fucking brilliant. There are no more superlatives. If you get the opportunity to get one of these from Fred, then take it.

After the meal, Fred came over for our verdict. Cue intoxicated shouts of “Dude” and “Amazing” and a few more “Dude”s, and thanking him in the best way we could think possible: buying him a Jagerbomb.

Dude. Amazing. Dude.

He tells us the next release of the Admiral Codrington Cheeseburger v2.1 arrives towards the end of January, and everyone should try it.

Not many other London kitchens are capable of nailing the classics and bringing us such assured, confident innovations like the Ox Cheek.

A fitting start to 2012. As you were.