The Silent Room

So I was bored at home and feeling a little hungry. I didn’t feel like eating out, so I figured I’d look around the kitchen for any materials I can play with. I found a pack of frozen minced lamb that my mum bought a few days back. She’s out on vacation for the next few days so I figured I might as well use it. I thought of making some lamb burgers, so I walked a bit to the nearby kedai runcit and got myself some burger buns.

Then I scavenged some more stuff from the kitchen and here’s what I got.

• Minced lamb
• 1 egg
• Some garlic
• 5-spice powder
• Black pepper powder
• Steak sauce
• Corn flour
• Block of cheddar cheese

Making the Patty

First I crushed and chopped up the garlic. Then I mixed it in with the lamb, egg, spices, steak sauce and corn flour. Mixing was done lightly, because the lamb was minced very finely – and the mix ended up mushy. Good burger patties are best made from coarse minced meat so they won’t become gooey. I used corn flour because I didn’t have breadcrumbs to soak up excess moisture from the meat.

Okay, so after mixing them all up nicely, I split them into 3 (somewhat) equal parts and stuck them in the freezer for 10 minutes. Chilling the patties help them stay solid when you cook them so they wont break into small pieces. In the meantime, I set out the frying pan – because I’m too lazy to set up a charcoal grill :p

Alternatively, electric grills work fine, too.

Cooking the Patty

The first thing I did was to lightly coat the pan in some butter, so that the burger wouldn’t stick. Unfortunately, I don’t own a non-stick Teflon wok or pan, so the butter was really necessary. You can also use cooking oil, olive oil, sesame seed oil – but they don’t smell as nice as butter. I dunno about using ghee, that’d be awesome, I guess.

I turned up the heat high, made sure the pan was smoking hot (literally) before turning down to a low heat. I put down one of the patties and covered it with a lid. I needed the pan to be really hot so I could sear the surface, but I need the low heat so that the burger doesnt get burned and dry out. I left it to cook under the lid for about 3-4 minutes before flipping it. While that’s cooking, I pre-heated the top heater of my toaster oven, in preparation for the buns.

Don’t touch the burger after you’ve put it on the grill, because the meat will break before it has a chance to clump and cook. So, I flipped it, and let it cook for another 3-4 minutes. Flip it again, and I continued flipping until the meat feels firm. After that, I turned off the heat, and covered it to keep it warm while I toast the buns.

Final Touches

When toasting burger buns, I buttered them first. Then I put it inside a toaster oven buttered side up, and only switched on the top heater. That way, the buttered surface gets crispy, without charring the round sides. While the buns are toasting, I made some thin slices of the cheddar and set them aside.

I took out the toasted buns, set the burger on the one, and spread some mayo on the other. I laid the cheese on the burger and stuck them in the still-hot toaster oven to melt it. 30 seconds did the trick. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any lettuce or tomatoes to go with the burger otherwise it would’ve been perfect.

Extra notes

1. The burger mix would have had better texture if I had breadcrumbs.
2. Some onions, parsley or other fragrant herbs like thyme or rosemary helps too.
3. The best way to cook a burger is on a hot grate over some good old charcoal embers.
4. Tomatoes and lettuce would definitely have added richer flavors. Pickles, too.
5. I couldn’t find any sesame seed buns D:

Try it, and let me know how yours turned out!

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UPDATE:
For dinner, I used two patties and I actually went and bought ONE tomato and some chinese mustard leaves. Its looks (and tastes) so much better!

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Leftovers?

I still had some leftover buns, tomatoes and leaves. So the next morning, I quickly whipped up some Cheddar-melted Scrambled Egg Sandwich topped with 5-Spice Grilled Tomatoes. Lovely breakfast, it was.