The TH Food Lab: Strange and Wonderful Burger Flavor Combinations
Honey on a burger? It's not as crazy as you might think.
Sometimes, you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. Burgers are burgers. They’re American fare and have been for over a century, ever since at least the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Many people, both German and American, have laid claim to inventing the first hamburger. I’m not here to argue in semantics. Anyway, there’s scant little one can do to revitalize the burger outside of shifting around ingredients. Sometimes, you hit a home run in your taste testing. Other times, you strike out. Either way, few sandwiches are amenable to experimentation like the hamburger. Basically, the only constants are a bun and a beef patty cooked in some fashion. Most people like cheese on them. Everything else is left to the imagination.
Most people don’t really have great imaginations when it comes to burgers, and I don’t blame them. For as much of a rasa tabula that the burger can be, it’s the fast food staple of choice in the United States because it’s simple and quick to make. You don’t have to think making a cheeseburger, nor does one have to really stand slack-jawed at a fast food counter or in a drive-thru deciding specifically how they want their burger prepared. There’s variety, sure. Any combination of the following ingredients is boilerplate on most burgers consumed in a hurry, aside from cheese of course: ketchup, mustard, onion, tomato, lettuce, and pickle. You can have a tasty burger with just those ingredients too.
Some people crave adventure though. Where you get to places like Red Robin, fast casual places, or boutique burger joints where they pride themselves on how creative they can get with a burger is the entry level of customization. It’s from those places where the fried egg as a standard burger topping has emanated, and I thank whoever it was who revived the practice. One of the original inventors of the burger, Otto Kuase, originally served them with eggs on top. Fun fact! However, placing an egg on a burger is entry level. Here at the TH Food Lab, I strive to get a little crazy-go-nuts, eh?
What I wanted to do was elevate the burger just a tad. No, I wasn’t putting gold flake on it or making a patty out of wagyu beef, but the idea of a “regular” cheeseburger being made in a self-proclaimed “culinary laboratory” felt a bit hollow. I decided to think about what ingredients might go together, be out of the box, and fall under the banner of special enough to celebrate my last night of temporary bachelordom. The combination came to me almost in a fugue-like state, as if angels were calling me home to make a sacred burger.
The first item was hot honey. Obviously, few people think of honey as going with beef, and I can see why. Unlike chicken, which has a neutral flavor, or seafood, which can be naturally sweet, beef has more of a strong grassy or iron-forward flavor which might clash with sweet flavors. That being said, beef loves capsicum, which hot honey has big-time, and I’ve had burgers with sweet toppings, both, oddly enough, at Red Robin. Sweet needs to be tempered with acid, so the second ingredient I thought of was the pickled onion. Beef and onions go together like a boy and his dog. Regular onions and burgers go great, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to use that ingredient as the acid. Next up would be the cheese, which would have to be gooey and melty. Brie cheese fit that bill expertly, both melting super well but also providing a little bit of funk. Finally, I would put the whole thing on a brioche bun, the fanciest and tastiest kind of bread for a burger.
Sadly for my word count but thankfully for my effort in the kitchen, only one of the ingredients really required to have extensive preparation before the actual cooking started. Hot honey is available in little squeeze bottles. I have Mike’s, which is a good brand. You can buy brioche buns and brie cheese at the supermarket or, if you’re fancy, at a bakery or a farmer’s market respectively. The beef is the beef. I’m going to make a confession here. I tried grinding my own this time, and I failed spectacularly for whatever reason. I don’t know what went wrong with the grinding attachment or how I was using it, but that part was a bust. However, if you do have a reliable grinder or you do know what you’re doing with it, always grind your own beef, or if all else fails, have the butcher grind it for you. I really don’t want to concentrate on the failures here, because, spoiler alert, the flavors did meld together really well.
Pickled onions require some time before you can eat them. You can do a long pickle if you want to pickle thicker pieces, but I recommend a quicker one with thin slices. I went down to one millimeter on my mandoline slicer and shaved one medium-large yellow onion down into a bunch of little slices which I then separated into rings. For the pickling liquid, I put equal parts vinegar and water, in this case a half-cup of water and a quarter-cup apiece of white and apple cider vinegars, on medium heat along with a tablespoon-and-a-half of the hot honey and a couple of pinches of kosher salt. I heated until the honey and salt were dissolved and the liquid had come to a gentle simmer before pouring it over the onions. After that time, I waited for two hours or so before I tasted them. They came out wonderful.
After that point, it was time to grill the burger, which is one of the easier things one can do in making food for themselves or others. All you have to do is keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t go over. Using self-ground beef gives you leeway in the under direction because the beef doesn’t have all that time to develop all the bacteria you have to kill with cooking. It’s not much in terms of describing process, but it is a real winner of a flavor combination.
As I expected, the onions complemented the beef well and mellowed out the sweetness of the honey so that it was rich, hot, and just a kiss of sweet. The brie cheese melted fabulously and added even more depth of flavor. My only real complaint outside of the debacle with grinding the beef was that the brioche buns were a little flimsy. That being said, I could have toasted them and will do so next time. All in all, it was a success of flavors.
Burgers can be as complex or as simple as you want them to be, but it does pay to liven it up a bit from time to time. I’m not saying you should harass a minimum wage employee to give you the perfect burger at McDonald’s. In fact, I’m saying you should probably try to make your own burgers at home more often, and that’s where you can be as adventurous as you want. Any idea you have that you try on your own can become a hit at the next cookout if it hits just right with you. Don’t be shy and don’t be afraid. Burgers can be an adventure if you want them to be.