Hang Fire's AA bacon cheeseburger

By: Samantha Evans, Shauna Guinn
From: The Hang Fire Cookbook
Makes: 5 large burgers

It seems you can’t move these days without burger recipes filling buns with everything from goat’s cheese to peanut butter – kind of like burger white noise. In saying this, we are big fans of a simple bacon cheeseburger with a deliciously juicy, fall-apart patty. Our thoughts stray to the Californian leg of our road trip where we ate a lot of In-N-Out Burger. And up through Utah and Denver, where we ate the most simple, and exquisitely executed, burgers from many ‘mom and pop’ joints. It’s tough to beat a classic, so here’s how we make our AA (All American) bacon cheeseburger.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
75g	raw bone marrow
800g	coarsely minced chuck steak
100g	coarsely minced skirt steak
100g	coarsely minced beef brisket
1 1/2 teaspoons	fine sea salt
2 teaspoons	cracked black pepper

For the burger sauce

Quantity	Ingredient
3 tablespoons	Hang Fire's homestyle ketchup, or good quality shop-bought ketchup
2 tablespoons	mayonnaise
1 tablespoons	* south carolina mustard sauce [rid:33217]
1 tablespoons	Hang Fire smokehouse barbecue sauce
or 1 teaspoon	american mustard
1 teaspoon	dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon	freshly cracked black pepper
dash	your favourite hot sauce
	sea salt flakes
	freshly cracked pepper, to taste

To serve

Quantity	Ingredient
5	* pretzel buns [rid:33266]
or 5	kaiser rolls
or 5	brioche buns
10	batavia lettuce leaves or little gem leaves
5	large ripe tomato slices
5 slices	red onion
5 slices	monterey jack cheese
10 slices	Bread & butter pickles
15 slices	crispy cooked streaky bacon

Method

Start by carefully removing the bone marrow from the bone if this hasn’t been done for you. We recommend placing the removed marrow in the freezer for 30 minutes. Put your minced meat into a bowl. Then, with a coarse grater, grate the marrow into your mince, making sure it’s distributed evenly, along with the salt and pepper. Trying not to overwork the mince (it will make your burgers chewy not juicy) divide it into five 200g balls. Flatten them out until each patty is about 15mm thick. Use your fingers to press a disc-like dent in the centre of each patty – the meat will contract and shrink when it hits the heat, but the disc will ensure the patty stays fairly flat during this process and won’t end up like a meatball. Put the patties on an oiled plate, cover, and transfer to the fridge for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, whisk the sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Adjust the seasoning to your taste and refrigerate until you need it.
Next, set up your grill so it’s nice and hot. Take the burger patties out of the fridge and season both sides well with salt and pepper. Put the patties on the hot grill (you can cook your bacon at this point too), and cook for 4–5 minutes, turning when browned and removing when cooked to your liking. Place a slice of cheese on each patty and close the lid of the grill for 1 minute to allow the cheese to melt. Move the patties to the cool side of the grill while you toast the cut sides of the buns.
We’re sure you know how to construct a burger, but for the record… Smear the burger sauce all over the top and bottom of the bun, put some lettuce on the bottom half followed by the tomato, top with a burger patty, the bacon, onion and pickles, and sandwich together with the bun top.

Cooking method

Grilling

It ain't big, it ain't clever

Why eat a super-thick burger? Simply double up the patties if you want more. You get double the flavour through double the delicious ‘Mailliard’ reaction (a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars that gives a beautiful, chargrilled colour and flavour), which is what a tasty burger is all about.