Burger Week at Arcisfoodblog comes to an end. This is the last of 7 posts on some of the more remarkable burgers I “encountered” in the past couple of months. It was really my pleasure. 😇This burger is one that Koen and I made during the summer on the BBQ and is based on the “Wealthy Wagyu” from the cookbook from “De Burgerij“. This is a chain of burger bars in Belgium, that has recently opened 2 outlets in the Netherlands: in Amsterdam (in Central Station) and in Rotterdam (Botersloot 24B, about 300m from Blaak station). Perhaps I need to use public transport more often. 😊
The Recipe:
The patties:
- 500g / 1lb wagyu mince
- 1 egg
- 1 or 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
- salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp butter
The sauce:
- 1 tbsp of truffle paste or truffle tapenade
- 4 tbsp of mayonnaise
To serve:
- 4 eggs
- olive oil
- lemon juice
- 1/2 head of lettuce
- salt and pepper
- slices of cornichons / gherkin / dill pickle
- Combine the wagyu mince with the egg and add the breadcrumbs gradually until it just comes together and then season. Don’t overwork the meat or the burgers will become too dense. Shape into 4 burgers and chill for a while (we had some ready-made wagyu beef patties, so we skipped this step)
- Mix the truffle paste/tapenade into the mayonnaise
- Toast 4 thick slices of rustic white bread
- Heat 1 tbsp of butter in a frying pan and make 4 sunny-side-up eggs and season with salt and pepper
- In another large pan on high heat, fry the wagyu burgers in foaming butter until they are medium-rare
- Make a quick vinaigrette from olive oil and lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Toss some the whole lettuce leaves in a bowl with the vinaigrette
- Put some truffle mayo and lettuce leaves on the toasted bread, add the cooked wagyu burger, the fried egg and finish with some slices of dill pickle
What worked and what didn’t:
Truffle and egg are a great combination and it was fantastic and super-rich in flavor together with the wagyu burger. The acidity of the cornichons really cuts through that richness, making it nicely balanced.
It is supposed to be an open-faced burger with a slice of toasted rustic bread, but we only had burger buns. In the end, the buns were helpful with those sunny side up eggs. 😉 Otherwise, this one really is a cutlery-only burger.
Suggested tweaks:
We used some whole truffles to make our own truffle mayo, but that turned out not to be the best use of truffle as the eventual truffle flavor of the mayo was only very faint. Shaving some extra truffle on top was the way we resolved that. However, nowadays quite good truffle mayonnaises are available in the supermarkets, so no problem to resort to those either (or stick to the truffle paste or truffle tapenade from the original recipe).
Verdict: 8/10
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