A Burger to Believe In: Recipes and Fundamentals [A Cookbook]
240A Burger to Believe In: Recipes and Fundamentals [A Cookbook]
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Overview
Chris Kronner has dedicated his creative energy, professional skills, and a lifetime of burger experiences to understanding America's favorite sandwich. In his debut cookbook, this trusted chef reveals the secrets behind his art and obsession, and teaches you how to create all of the elements of a perfect burger at home. Including tips for sourcing and grinding high-quality meat, musings on what makes a good bun, creative ideas for toppings (spoiler alert: there are more bad ideas out there than good, and restraint is the name of the game), and more than forty burger accompaniments and alternatives—from superior onion rings to seasonal salads to Filet-O-Fish-inspired Crab Burgers—this book is not only a burger bible, but also a meditation on creating perfection in simplicity.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780399579271 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed |
Publication date: | 05/22/2018 |
Sold by: | Random House |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 240 |
File size: | 136 MB |
Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
PAOLO LUCCHESI is the editor of the award-winning food and wine section at the San Francisco Chronicle and was a founding editor of Eater. He is the co-author of Flour + Water: Pasta and The Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream Book.
Read an Excerpt
PREAMBLE
There is no perfect.
The hamburger is possibly America’s most recognizable and representative food. What started as the most democratic, wholesome square meal meant to be consumed quickly for a fair price has mutated into forms unrecognizable to those original burger salesmen, not to mention the ranchers who raised the beef. Since the hamburger’s creation, it has followed the revolutions and undulations of farming and economics in this country. Its path—and current forms—cannot be separated from the divergent systems of farming and animal rearing in the United States. On one extreme, there is the fast-food hamburger. Like the corporate industrial farms of which it is a product, it champions speed, quantity, and a price only achievable through subsidies and methods that compromise taste, animals, land, and the people involved in the systems that produce and consume it. On the other side is the well-intentioned, but often fetishized, higher-end product, which places importance on better values but struggles to make its product financially viable and accessible to the masses.
I have eaten a thousand hamburgers. Hamburgers made of young beef, old beef, dry-aged beef, wet-aged beef, goose, wild boar, venison. Hamburgers made of A5 Kobe, water buffalo, plant-based “meat,” brown bear (also made into burritos), elk, prosciutto. And hamburgers made of the crummiest, grayest, unidentifiably sad meat imaginable.
I have eaten hamburgers in cars, restaurants, backyards, ballparks, and the woods; on trains and boats; at the movies and the entrance to Machu Picchu; in Denver, Atlanta, Asheville, Seattle, Portland, Nashville, New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Detroit, London, Paris, Beirut, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Montevideo, Mexico City, Lyon, Tokyo; and everywhere in between.
I have cooked close to a billion hamburgers, mostly in restaurants, many at home, on grills, in microwaves, in alleys, in a couple of museums, on rooftops, in art galleries, in parking lots, and in fields next to said hamburger’s still-grazing brethren.
I have looked a cow in its eyes before putting a bullet between them. I have seen cows birthed and watched them die.
What is presented in the following pages is the result of a lot of burger cooking and burger eating. With this book, I originally set out with very specific intentions, to write about the ONE way to make ONE burger using ONE very specific type of beef only. That was dumb. I am dumb. What I found, as Paolo and I dove deeper, is that there are many ways to make a better burger, in the choices you make both in your purchases and preparations.
Before and during the process of writing of this book, I tried as many types of beef as possible. I also explored as many variations of burger cooking as possible. I have talked burgers and beef with meat salespeople, burger eaters, fancy chefs, line cooks, and beef ranchers of many stripes. We very likely missed some points of view and more than a few closely guarded burger secrets. Maybe your dad cooks burgers over an old, abandoned well full of smoldering tires and lit fireworks. Maybe your grandmother swears by a burger ratio of 80 percent beef, 5 percent French onion soup mix, and 15 percent lean hawk meat. I fully respect your hamburger traditions.
The beef that I find to be best, in my home of Northern California, may not be available to you. Depending on where you live and cook, use the best of what is available, the ingredients you like the most. If you have access to lovingly raised animals that you can see from your driveway, you are very lucky. If you have the ability to dry-age beef and bake bread, you are very lucky. If you can’t go shake hands with the steer you eat and don’t have desire or space to slowly dry-age your meat, don’t worry, because we have useful burger information for every level of interest and devotion.
There is no “perfect,” but there is bad. Bad should be avoided if possible. (Trust me on this one.)
I have watched hamburgers be eaten by the very young and very old, by cowboys and vegans, by beautiful women and equally beautiful boys, mostly resulting in smiles and elation, occasionally total revulsion.
Which hamburger was the best? Almost all of them.
You have eaten hamburgers, too. At least one. You may have even enjoyed it. What did it taste like?
This book is for you.
Table of Contents
Foreword 6
Preamble 10
1 Cows and Beef and Burgers 23
2 The Kronnerburger 57
Pain de Mie Bun (aka Official Kronnerburger Bun) 62
Dill Pickles 64
Charred Onion 65
Cheddar Mayonnaise 65
Roasted Bone Marrow 66
Tomato 66
Lettuce 66
Kronnerburger: A Burger to Believe In 71
3 Other Burgers 73
Patty Melt 74
Otherburger (Served Not Rare) 77
Earth Burger 82
Breakfast Burger 87
Crab Burger 88
Fried Crab Burger 90
Slow Club Burger 94
Bar Tartine Burger 99
Pickle-Brined Fried Chicken 100
Pork Burger 102
Lamb Burger 104
Shrimp Burger 106
Hand-Cut Burger 108
Rawburger (Served Raw) 111
4 Burger Sides 113
Onion Rings 114
French Fries 118
Steak Fries 124
Potato Chips 125
Sweet Potato Tots 126
French Fry Pavé 127
Gluten Freedom Fries with Freedom Gravy (aka Poutine) 128
Vegan Chili-Cheese Fries 130
Tartare 132
Crab Dip 133
Pimento Cheese 135
Mushroom Dip 136
Chicken Wings Salad 137
A Cool Recipe for Hot Chicken 140
Grilled Chicken Wings 143
Grilled Vegetables 144
Padróns 146
5 Salads 149
Wedge Salad 150
Grilled Cabbage with Grapefruit 153
Tomato and Oyster Salad 154
A Perfectly Simple Chicory Salad 157
Vegan Chopped Salad 158
Okra and Mushroom Salad 164
Radish and Stone Fruit Caesar Salad 167
Tuna Salad 168
Louie Salad (aka Sea Salad) 170
Perfect Eggs 173
Avocado and Crispy Rice 174
Winter Vegetable Salad 176
Kale Salads Are Over 179
Smoky Potato Salad 180
Bean Salad 183
Cauliflower and Fava Salad 184
6 Drinks 187
Alcoholic Drinks
KB Carbonated Margarita 190
Dandy 190
KB Martini 191
Sunshine Sour 191
Falling and Laughing 192
Wanderlust 192
Black Sun 193
Cloud 29 193
Non-Alcoholic Drinks
Lemonade 198
Cucumber Cilantro Cooler 198
Orange Cream Soda 198
Ginger Turmeric Soda 199
Strawberry Mint Lime Soda 199
7 Desserts 201
Honey Pie 202
Devil's Food Cake 205
Doughnut Muffins 208
Passion Fruit Bars 210
Fruit Salad 210
Bacon-Fat Blondies 212
Vegan Coconut Sorbet 213
8 Condiments and Burge Pantry 215
Basic Mayo 216
Calabrian Chile Mayonnaise 216
Vegan "Cheddar" Mayonnaise 217
Quick Mushroom Dip 218
Tofu Mayo 218
Aioli 219
Ranch Dressing 219
Tartar Sauce 220
Yuba Bacon 220
American Cheese 221
Chile Oil 221
Quick Pickled Chiles 223
Bread and Butter Pickles 223
Lacto-Fermented Pickles 224
Chad's Sourdough Leaven 225
Brioche Bun 226
Vegan Bun 227
Gluten-Free Bun 229
Biscuits 230
Pullman Loaf Levain 231
Acknowledgments 234
Index 236