Last week I was sitting at this very PC talking to the only person from my first secondary school that I still speak to on a regular basis. We were doing one of the things we always do – discuss food. She was having Steak that night. I sure as hell wasn’t. I had some mince that I had to use and said I’d pop over the shop and get a jar of curry or chilli and make a simple curry or chilli. She said I should make burgers. I deliberated on this and then thought about it a bit after looking up burger recipes. I thought I could actually do this.
I had no eggs but she assured me that wasn’t a problem. Good I thought as I hate eggs and the smell makes me gag. I had onions, bread and thought I could empty the remains of a Jack Daniels Sauce bottle in. Ok I thought. I’m going to do this. So I went to the kitchen and the first problem was I didn’t have a mixing bowl so how on Earth was I going to mix the ingredients? So I opened the cupboard and lo and behold I had a mixing bowl. I don’t ever remember buying a mixing bowl but there it was. I suspect this is down to a former housemate who when I moved out of that place went shopping with me and told me all the things I needed to buy and just put them in the trolley. I assume this is where I got the mixing bowl.
So hurray. A mixing bowl. So I dumped in the mince and the onions and then my very roughly chopped breadcrumbs/large bits of bread before emptying the JD sauce bottle and seasoned with salt and ground black pepper. Then I mixed it all up. So far so good. I separated the mixture into five patties and put them in the fridge to chill. Now we get a problem. I was going to grill my burgers on the George Foreman but guess who had cleaned the grill but left the bits in the sink with a tap dripping? Yes that’s right. Me. Now I could of course wipe dry the grill bits but I didn’t. I made a late decision to shallow fry the burgers. This would be problematic.
So I shallow fry the burgers and put them in bread (I had no burger buns and cba to go and get any) and tucked into my burgers. They tasted ok but the insides of the burgers weren’t cooked properly and were pink. I thought to myself that it was fine and carried on but then Googled it and homemade burger patties that aren’t cooked properly can result in what they call ‘Hamburger disease’ or as scientists call it Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7. It is pretty bad. So I spent two to three days waiting for the food poisoning but happily it never came. I ate the rest of the burgers having grilled them thoroughly and they were cooked through fine.
As for the overall meal. Meh they were edible burgers but most certainly not anything to write home about. Too much onion and needed more seasoning and maybe some herbs. Would I try it again? Sure but next time I would actually plan it. The biggest moral of the story is I haven’t died and therefore no-one should feel any guilt over my potential death for suggesting I should make burgers…
Here is the photographic evidence:
Mixing bowl of ingredients
Mixture mixed up into a giant pattie
Five home made burger patties
Burgers in Pan
Cooked(ish) burgers in pan
Burgers on Bread
Burgers in Bread
