I have a hankering for a nice medium-grilled burger every month or so. Most times, I'll make a late night burger run with the fast food pal, but my monthly craving came this last week, and I decided to do it myself. My next thoughts immediately came to how to dress it. These thoughts involved recalling what Dave...uh...Smith had told me about his time in Australia and how they will put a sliced beet on your hamburger at the Ozzie Burger King for a dollar more. I then went to sleuth what is on an Ozzie burger. Apparently, their eponymous burger offers, in addition to a slice of beet, a fried egg and a ring of pineapple. I had pickled beets that I regularly keep in the fridge. I wasn't going to dress my burger too much beyond that this night. Here's my pickled beet recipe that I use for pickled eggs but works well without the eggs:
8 eggs
1 lb beets (boiled, roasted, grilled, etc.)
1 red onion, sliced
1 c white sugar
3/4 c cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
12 whole cloves
1/4 cup(4 tbs) Tabasco (or 6 árbol chilis)
For starters, I prepped everything while the coals started. I only had sesame rolls and buttered them--a practice neglected by many burger joints nowadays that contributes a nice buttery and toasted bun.
I fished the beets and onions from their brine and crumbled the feta cheese I planned on topping the burger with.
To keep the bun from getting soggy from meat juice, I mixed the grease/separating layer with mayo, julienned basil and the homemade scriracha that I make. This smelled and tasted really great. It kept the smooth texture of the mayo, had the floral aroma of the basil, and a restrained zip from the pepper sauce.
Spread on the toasted buttered roll...
What can I say? The burger was tastey. It was like eating a burger with a zippy sharp start through the salt & peppered ground beef met with a cooling dairy layer and a crunchy, sweet and sour wrap-up. It was good, and I'll say that the beet goes on the next bunned hamburg steak that I eat.
