Blended Double-Patty Smashburgers

Great, just making sure

we're not starting any fires over here.

I'm Chris Morocco from the Bon Appétit test kitchen.

Today, we are making blended double=patty smashburgers.

What exactly is the blend, right?

We are gonna be combining ground beef

with chopped raw mushrooms.

About one pound of ground beef to five ounces of mushrooms

will yield about 75/25% ratio.

The mushrooms actually are gonna kind of crisp and brown

just as the meat crisps and browns

so there's no need to precook these.

You can keep a lot of the stem on.

There's no need to take the whole stem off

or discard too much of it.

When you do a smashburger,

you put tons of that meat mixture, that patty mixture

into contact with the griddle

so you get tons of surface area in contact with the heat.

Alright, so this is about the consistency

I'm kind of looking at.

You're just trying to kinda mimic around

the same kind of texture of the ground meat

so that everything kinda cooks super evenly.

Meat is going in.

I wanna work the mushrooms really well into the meat

but I don't wanna overwork it

making sure I'm getting all the bits

that are hiding at the bottom there.

Alright, I think we're there.

The blend is blended.

I'm just gonna break this into eight even size balls.

All that mushroom is perfectly incorporated into this blend

and the fact that the mushroom's gonna be put in contact

with that griddle surface is gonna mean

you've got tons of browning, tons of flavor development,

tons of umami.

So it looks like we are ready to start griddling.

Just gonna add a touch of oil to this.

Just gonna season these balls of blended mixture.

I'm doing all sides

and I wanna season just before I'm ready to cook.

I don't want 'em to sit with the salt on them

for more than a few minutes

because that's gonna start to draw moisture out

which is then gonna work against

our ability to get a really nice sear on these

and I'm just gonna top each

with a little bit of sliced onion.

I'm using Vidalia onion

which has the least amount of that raw onion bite to it

but it looks like we are good to go here

so I am gonna smash.

I'm pressing this blend really flat to the griddle surface.

That's gonna help us develop tons of browning,

tons of flavor.

If I'm worried I'm not quite getting enough browning,

I can add just a few drops of oil.

That's just gonna create great contact

between the mushrooms, the meat and the griddle surface.

So everything's gonna get super browned and crisped.

I actually developed this recipe at home which is,

if you have two young kids at home,

they actually hate this and if you knew my kids,

your head might spin off your shoulders

because honestly, mushroom,

it kind of disappears into the meat.

People aren't gonna sit there and say,

oh, why are there mushrooms in my burger?

They'd be hard-pressed.

Alright, so we've got great color, great browning.

Cheese is going on.

I'm not going nearly as long on this second side

as I did on the first.

I just want that cheese to melt and these are cooked.

The advantage of doing that double stack burger

is that now we have so much area

that's kind of crisped and gotten tons of flavor.

There is so much flavor and kind of texture

going on in this burger now.

I don't really find the need to eat it with condiments.

Of course, my kids wanted ketchup on it

just like they want ketchup

on everything else in their lives

but for me, this is great just as is

'cause you've got the unctuousness of the cheese,

you've got that kind of nice hit of balance,

salt and the umami from the burger.

You have a little bit of punchiness from the onion

and then the bread and butter pickle

just adds a little bit of roundness in the form of sweetness

so I am gonna call that a success.

I'm honestly tasting such an intense level of crispiness

and a beautiful sear on that patty.

The umami quality to it is just kind of off the chain.

It doesn't have to be a smashburger.

You could honestly add mushrooms

to any kind of burger blend you wanted to make.

It's just gonna add that intense level of savory depth to it

and honestly, the texture matches up

kind of perfectly with that ground meat.

So all you taste is one unified kinda beautiful sensation

of richness and the other flavor is just complemented

and it's so good.

I will keep eating it until you yell cut.

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