Homemade Burgers & Garlic herb butter for a great BBQ

Last week I hosted a BBQ, what better time to show off my burger making skills, aside from other goodies you need to make it great. I bought this awesome burger press, to make actual burgers and easily freeze any for a later date. The press was really inexpensive (£4.49) and super simple, but the results are great. If you like burgers, I can only recommend you get one yourself.

One guest didn’t like hot food, well so he said before anyway. I made mild/medium hot burgers and he devoured them like there is no tomorrow. Anyways, the recipe is flavoursome without too much heat so I hope you like it.

I also made garlic and herb butter to go with it. It's great on the buns. The coleslaw is from a previous post, find it here.

Ingredients:

For about 13 burgers:

750gr minced beef

2 small red onions

3 fresh chilies

6 garlic cloves

2 tsp ginger puree

2 tbs paprika

½ tsp chili powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Garlic & Herb butter:

6 tbsp butter

4 cloves of garlic

Handful fresh parsley

1 tsp dried mixed herbs

Salt and pepper to taste

First of all prepare the base for the burgers, take hand held mixer or food processor. Mix up ginger, chili, onions and garlic. Whizz it up until it is a smooth paste. It will smell strong and possibly make you eyes water.

Then put the mince into a bowl, add the base together with paprika, chili powder and season with salt and pepper. Knead it all into the meat and make sure all ingredients are properly distributed. Set aside in the fridge for 30 minutes to infuse. One more thing to mention is that you will lose some size of the burger; this depends on the fat percentage of the meat used. Go as low fat as possible or best thing is to use a mincer and make your own steak mince. This will ensure you keep the size when cooking.

In the meantime we can get a start on the butters. I make one with just garlic and one with herbs. You can also mix it up all together, just some people aren’t the biggest fan’s of garlic, so to be on the save side, I separate them. I personally like garlic butter and if everyone has some, then there is no problem and garlic is so good for you too.

Make sure your butter is soft enough and divide it between 2 little bowls; I use the garlic press and just add garlic to one bowl, then finely chop the parsley and dried herbs and add to the other. Add salt and pepper to both of them and mix the ingredients in each bowl to a smooth consistency. That’s done. Depending on how hot it is and how long until the BBQ is ready, put them back into the fridge. It should still be easily spreadable. The worst thing is, when the butter is too firm and your bun tears when trying to spread it.

Take the meat out and now we come to my new favourite kitchen toy. The press comes with little wax paper sheets, so the burgers are easy to handle, store and freeze. I have added cheese to a few to try but left them out on purpose in the ingredients above. If you want to add cheese then cut a few fine slices, otherwise the burger will be too big to press properly.

Add a wax sheet, a couple spoons of meat, another waxsheet and press. This is the whole magic! So simple. If you want to add cheese, then you will have to add one spoon, flatten it a bit, cheese in and more meat on top before you press the burger.

 

The only thing that takes time is making your way through a whole lot of meat.

One tip is to lay out the wax sheets before you start with the meat and pressing. They are so thin and might stick together, plus you don’t want to contaminate all sheets with raw meat.

Once you have all burgers done, put them in the fridge until the BBQ is ready, a man job that I don’t involved in.

I use brioche burger buns as I think they bring out a better flavour but you can use whatever you like.

I have loads of condiments and sauces for every occasion, they all go on the table, buns, cold drinks and the BBQ is off to a good start.

I hope your BBQ will be a successful as mine was. Bon appétit.