Bymark Hamburger

I had a date tonight.  With my favorite boyfriend.  Well, ok, he's my hubby too.  We went to see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at Civic Theatre.  What a production.  We loved it.  It's fun when you've attended enough theatre that you recognize some of the actors.  Tonight we got to see Jim Trofatter who is the playwright for the Benjamin Harrison House and their mystery theatre.  And, Ed Mobley who we've seen in many plays and whose wife, Catherine, was in one of my all-time favorites - Menopause the Musical.  We've got season tickets to Civic which forces us to find the time to go.  It's one of the smartest moves we've ever made.  I'm not a fan of movies but love, love, love live theatre.  So, we got to take a break from all the party prep and all of the year end fun at the office. 


Early last weekend, I'd realized we were going to have a pretty hectic week.  That meant planning my meals well so I could get them made in the time allotted.  I'm infamous for not leaving enough prep time and eating late.  That wasn't happening tonight.  We walked in from the office and Connie started feeding the furry critters.  I put the grill pan on the stove and turned it on, then started getting the food out of the fridge.  We had an hour to prepare and eat dinner.  As usual, I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  I added some Andria's Steak Sauce.  And, a bit of black truffle salt.  And, some morel mushroom dust. 


What did we think?  We loved these burgers.  Connie took one bite and said, "You can make these again!"  I'd have to agree.  They were very simple to put together and the flavors played really well together.  I had to substitute portabellas for the porcinis the recipe called for.  That's why I ground up a morel and added the morel dust.  To amp up the mushroom flavor.  The brie was perfect.  It needs be put on the burgers when they're hot off the grill.  But, don't totally melt it. 


Bymark Hamburgers


Ingredients:


1 lb 90% lean ground beef
freshly ground pepper
Andria's steak sauce (or a few dashes of Worcestershire)
1/2 t black truffle salt
1 dried morel mushroom, finely ground
two portabella mushrooms, sliced
4 slices brie cheese
onion rolls
1/4 c mayonnaise
1 t white truffle oil
1/2 t lemon juice


Directions:


Heat a grill pan or heat a skillet for the mushrooms and light the grill for the burgers.  Mix the ground beef, truffle salt, ground pepper

and steak sauce.  Form two burgers.


Grind the dried morel very finely.

To cook the mushrooms either grill them on the grill pan or saute them in olive oil in the skillet.  I found they cooked better when cooked on my grill pan at the edges so they'd get some of the olive oil I'd put in the pan.  Pat the morel dust onto the burgers.  Grill the burgers until they're your desired temp.  

We typically aim for medium rare but these wound up at about 140 and were still moist and juicy thanks to the Andria's Steak Sauce.  (nb: you can order the steak sauce directly from Andria's.  It's worth it to order it because it's fabulous.  I use it in about anything that I put hamburger in.)  Be sure to put the cheese on the burgers just as you remove them from the grill.  You want it to soften but not run.  While the burgers are grilling, mix the mayonnaise, truffle oil and lemon juice to make the spread for the buns.  Broil or grill the buns until they're golden brown.  Slather them with the truffle mayonnaise, the put on the hamburgers and mushrooms.

adapted from Burgers by Paul Gayler