it was barbecue weather this weekend up in Lincolnshire and with guests at the cottage I couldn’t resist but to fire up the coals… all I had to do was to find the perfect thing to grill… and the thing is I feel like i’ve moved on from the days of cooking a billion things on the bbq… hundreds of packs of sausages, chicken legs and those nasty processed burgers that come ‘ready seasoned’… I guess because of our crappy, un-reliable weather, it seems to be a uniquely British quirk that we’re not experts at using the bbq as an outside oven, rather we see the sun, buy coals and do this mad splurge of shopping followed by a ritual of burning meat and under-cooking chicken…
… we are slowly learning from our international cousins that there is another way… choose just the one item, make it yourself and cook it beautifully on patiently burning coals (none of this gas bbq malarky… not for me anyway!)
… and so it was with total inspiration from the brilliant Food Viking (no, not related in any way to my own Viking) I found myself purchasing a pound of minced steak and a block of very strong cheddar cheese…
… and then it started to rain!
cheese-on-the-inside cheeseburgers
my recipe gave us 6 very generous burgers, you could probably make 8 but we’re all greedy pigs here…
… the Food Viking gives a great step-by-step to forming the burgers, so I won’t go over it again here!
500g minced Tetford Longhorn steak (purchased from the excellent Meridian Meats in Louth)
a bunch of spring onions (about 7) finely chopped
7 medium mushrooms – finely chopped
4 garlic cloves – finely chopped
a sprig of rosemary and thyme
a tablespoon of tomato ketchup
a tablespoon of light soy sauce
1 egg – beaten
seasoning
a large amount of strong cheddar cheese
– with a little oil and butter in a pan, gently saute the onions, garlic and mushrooms until soft, set aside to cool
– once cool, place all the ingredients (excluding the cheese) in a bowl and smoosh together with your hands, let this sit in the fridge for a good hour
– form the mince into burger size patties, halve them, then flatten each half.
– with one half in the palm of your hand, add a good spoonful of the grated cheese and then place the other half of the pattie on top. bring the seams together and roll the pattie around until you have a nice fat burger
because of the rain I pan-fried them all until golden and then finished them off in a very hot oven for a further 5 minutes… they were dripping with flavour as well as the cheese and were quite simply bloody fantastic!
– serve in a nice, soft white bread roll… the only way to go baby!
eat and of course, enjoy!
It looks unbelievable!
Love the addition of garlic 🙂
It's so cheese and appetizing! 🙂
Ah, the Jucy Lucy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jucy_Lucy
Nice! I love Louth!
I adore cheese stuffed burgers.. there is just something so amazing about them!! Yours look divine!
there is definitely something wonderful about bbq over coals…BUT…growing up int he depths of Canadian winters…there is also something magical about being able to fire up the bbq with the flick of a switch! these burgers look AWESOME! 🙂 x
Hi Dom, my husband is a BBQ snob (me too) ~ charcoal only in our home! No gas grills here!
Your burgers look divine, and my mouth is watering. I haven't made these in a while and I don't know why. You can also add other items like hot/sweet peppers, or sweet vidalia onion mixed right through the burger for a few other delicious tastes.
It's supposed to hit 100F/37C in New England today and grilling is the only type of cooking I'll be doing!
Have a wonderful weekend! I'll be heading to the ocean tomorrow!
thanks all for the lovely words…
@OBaCS… wow 37C!!!! that is HOT mama!… I wish it was that hot here… it was lovely for the whole of May but June has been a bit of a damp squib… hopefully July will hot up a bit! x
Haha! This is why I am more than happy to have my wee barbie on the balcony, that way I can cook outdoors year round and never get wet. Great looking burgers.
Rain always gets in the way – our planned 'picnic' yesterday took place inside due to rain 🙁
The burgers look awesome!! Love the filling, especially with mushrooms in too!
This looks awesome! I had a great burger too today at the Royal Cornwall Show – pork and apple with onions mustard and apple sauce – sometimes only a burger will do the trick and you've proved it..
What a killer burger! Strong cheddar oozing out of medium rare beef … pretty much heaven! I have to agree about charcoal being the better grilling medium… we do have a gas grill, though. All about the health benefits of not doing the charbroil thing …
Yesterday, though, we camped out in the backwoods and used charcoal to grill … so much better than our gas grill!
Oh yum. I like to make these with blue cheese, too.
Love the look of this will definitely be trying this soon
I'm not a fan of bbqs at all, mostly due to the horror of cleaning the grill afterwards! I love to eat outside, so cook the food then take it out to eat, these do look very good.
Burger is one of my favourite foods and the burger you made looks absolutely incredible Dom! My mouth waters reading this… Yum!
I’ve tried several iterations of this in the past. My current favorite is to grind up bacon into the beef. Then sandwich cheddar and diced onions in the center.
Wow, those are heavy on the old digestive system. But damn good.