a Slider Recipe

A slider recipe. Really? Yeah, it seems so simple you don’t even need one but consider these two fundamental burger realities:

1. Everybody loves the sound of making burgers on the grill but they don’t always come out primetime.
2. Everybody loves the sound of sliders but lots of restaurants serve up overpriced lil’ burgers and let’s be real: White Castle is awesome in idea, less so in reality. Unless you are hammered.

Which brings me to an enchanted recipe that merges two great ideas to into an easily executed reality: making sliders in the backyard.

So here is what you will need . . .

ingredients

• • 1 pound ground beef
  • Kosher Salt
  • Fresh Ground Pepper
  • pickles
  • ketchup
  • Thousand Island dressing(I make my own)
  • chopped white onion
  • Brioche dinner rolls(Costco)

essential equipment

• • cast iron pan

This slider recipe ranks up there with my secret for show stopping Carne Asada and Bahn Mi sandwiches. In both cases I turn to open fire cooking because if you can cook over tasty smoke . . . you should. The key here is to forgo the cooking grate and instead opt for cast iron over the open flame.

You will get an even sear, lose zero juices and take advantage of all that flavor that comes from the most essential part of this recipe, besides the beef, the onions.

I don’t care if you say you are not down for onions and won’t have them on your burger. Truth is you can skip them on the finished burger. The key with this slider recipe is that you start by seasoning the pan by cooking these onions till they’re golden.

Stay Gold Pony Boy. And now it’s time to throw the beef on there.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m prone to forming a thick patty. Some may call this poor slider etiquette. Perhaps I am a rube. I am also the guy who is serving up these.

At my house there is a 2/3 majority for ketchup. I am a Thousand Island dressing fan 4 LIFE. I chalk it up to my twenty years living in SoCal where the pink sauce is life, just ask any In-N-Out aficionado. I didn’t include the recipe for my 1000 island because it is so simple: ketchup and mayo. In the past and perhaps in the near future I will add relish, maybe even Worcestershire but really friends its freaking ketchup and mayo. Boom.

If you are extra observant you might notice that I skipped the cheese. So the beef I used for this batch is a Wagyu called Mishima Reserve. It’s super rich and to be real, I think cheese is a distraction to the flavor. Also I’m beef first when it comes to burgers. Cheese is an add on, not a requisite in my burger playbook.

So that’s where I’m at with the whole burger recipe thang. Think sliders, keep it simple, get a good char on your patty with a cast iron seasoned with griddled onions and you will be getting accolades for your burger game.