Burger Week at Arcisfoodblog: 6 posts on some of the more remarkable burgers I “encountered” in the past couple of months; either homemade or in restaurants. This burger is based on the “Cherry” burger from the cookbook “Hamburger Gourmet” by Hamburger.
Why I picked this recipe:
Cherry jam and sheep’s cheese on a burger? Wait, what??? Were they high when they came up with this one? Was it an accident, perhaps? Anyway, I just had to try it… The things I do for this blog… 😋
The Recipe:
The patties
- 500g mixed ground beef
- few pinches of sea salt
The sauce
- 100g semi-hard sheep’s cheese, grated (I used Manchego)
- 40g cherry jam (I used Bonne Maman Confiture de Cerises Noires)
To serve
- 40g cherry jam
- ½ head of ice berg lettuce, shredded
- Form the beef into 4 patties and season with salt.
- Mix the grated cheese with the cherry jam.
- Cook the patties in a hot pan over high heat in the 4 minutes on each side for medium. Put the “cheese jam” mixture on top of the patties when turning and cover with a stainless steel bowl to melt the cheese (I used a slightly domed glass lid of a pan to be able to check)
- Toast the halved buns in 2 minutes. Spread the bottom halves with the remaining “cheese jam”, then add the patties and finish with the shredded lettuce.
What worked and what didn’t:
The cherry jam and manchego mixture was very nice. You do see semi-hard sheep cheeses combined with quince jelly or fig jam, so the cherry jam worked well too and it wasn’t as sweet as I expected.
After my announcement of preparing these burgers, the kids were intrigued yet reserved. Watching me prepare the sauce; however, they quickly decided that putting jam on a hamburger was just a bridge too far… I even couldn’t trick them into taking a bite and at least try them.
The burgers were nice, and the overall combination was not bad at all, but as the cherry flavour really faded into the background, it was certainly not as spectacular as I hoped it to be.
One of the added bonuses of making burgers (especially with grated cheese) is that part of the cheese will ooze from the burger onto the hot surface of the pan and create delicious cheese crisps that you can fish out afterwards. Do NOT attempt this with these burgers as the sugar in the jam caramelises and burns before the burgers are actually done. So the cheese crisps were very bitter and close to charred in a matter of minutes.😖
Verdict: 7½/10
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