Burgers!

I love burgers. You can do so much with them, doesn't have to be beef. You can use chicken, pork, fish or any kind of seafood. Like I've said before, the possibilities are endless with food!

I want to share with you something amazing. Well, I've been told it was amazing and I agree. We had a family gathering with a couple friends added in and I made these burgers which didn't fall apart when you handled them yet were so juicy and flavourful that I wanted a third one but was too stuffed to have!

I started out with this recipe from Jamie's Food Revolution cookbook. I wanted to add more and see where that led, so here's the recipe that I used:

My Twist on "A Cracking Burger"

12 Jacob's Crackers (can find these at any supermarket)

8 sprigs of italian parsley (not regular parsley)

Few sprigs of fresh oregano, leaves only

3 cloves of garlic

2 heaped teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 lbs good quality ground beef, not frozen (if in abbotsford go to Lepp Farm Market!)

1 large egg

sea or kosher salt, although I prefer Kosher salt

ground black pepper

olive oil

You'll want to make these the night before.

-Grab a large bowl and set that aside

-You can blend the crackers in a food processor if you have one, if you don't have one, take a kitchen towel and wrap the crackers in it and bash them on the counter top, or you can take a rolling pin and bash the crackers that way. Great stress reliever if you're stressed, but who's stressed when they're about to taste awesome burgers? Break any larger pieces up, you want the crackers to be as fine as you can get, with a few chunks here and there (which is why I prefer using the towel method, that, and it's a lot more fun!)

-Finely chop or blend your parsley, including stalks, oregano, and garlic

-Add the crackers, parsley, oregano, garlic, mustard and beef to your large bowl

-Crack in your egg and add a good pinch of salt and pepper

-Mix everything up well

-Now, the size of your burgers all depends on, well, how large or small you want them. What I do is take some of the mix, roll it into a ball in your hand then squish it, using the palm of my hand as a guide for the size. I also like my burgers between 3/4 and 1 inch thick, what can I say, I love beef. With this recipe I stretched it out to nine burgers.

-Set your newly formed burgers on a pan with parchment paper and drizzle both sides of each burger with olive oil. You may have to do two layers.

-Stick them in the fridge the day before to let the flavours spread and this also helps firm the burgers so that they don't fall apart on you when you cook them.

Next Day:

-Preheat your barbeque thirty minutes before you want to cook your burgers

-Turn the heat down to medium

-Put your burgers on the grill and watch them closely. Do not, I repeat, do not walk away or close the lid because there are a lot of flames coming!

-Don't let the burgers sit in flames at all, I had to keep moving mine about, this helps to not make your burgers into solid burnt pucks.

-Cook your burgers until the temperature is 160F, flipping them every 3-4 minutes, if you don't have a meat thermometer, then take one off the grill and cut it open. I encourage all of you to invest in a meat thermometer though.

*if you don't have a bbq then heat up a frying pan or grill pan on the stove to high for five minutes then turn it down to medium, don't put any oil in the pan, there's already olive oil on the burgers. Cook about 3-4 minutes per side.

Now they're done! What you do with them afterwards is up to you, we cut up some red onion and green leaf lettuce, added some ketchup and mustard to the bun. You can toast your bun or not, that's up to you. As for the mix beforehand, you can see in the picture above that I have parmesan cheese and rosemary leaves there. I tried this recipe again and added these two things, I love the parmesan cheese in the mix! The rosemary I wasn't sold on, I would add less next time. You can add anything to your burgers though, but I recommend trying these first and going from there, adding or taking away, it's all up to you!

We also had a salad made up to go with the burgers, some green leaf lettuce, radicchio and spinach leaves. Mix it all up in even portions and don't dress your salad until you want to eat it. I made Jamie's Creamy French Dressing, so good!

Enjoy!