From the Kitchen : Smash Burgers and Onion Rings

For a burger fiend such as myself, I was pretty surprised that have only one recipe so far! So after some serious soul searching, here is another recipe that is absolutely incredible. Also, this was a great opportunity to remove some kitchen ring rust.

As always with the recipes in the blog, it is simple in execution but yields great dividends. As this is essentially two recipes in one, I will divide them into two parts.

Smash Burgers and Onion Rings


Part 1: Smash Burger

200 gm beef
2 slices of cheese (I used cheddar singles, ideally use American cheese)

veggies of your choice
sauce of your choice
burger bun of your choice

Steps:

Humble beginnings, before the seasoning of salt and pepper

1. Roll your beef into 100 gm balls and make sure they are well seasoned once they are rolled. Ensure that they are not too packed.

Hulk smash!

2. Place the ball onto a well oiled and ripping hot pan, like almost smoking hot. Once contact is made, almost immediately use the back of a spatula, or better yet a paint spatula and literally smash the ball down.

3. Leave it for about 45 seconds to a minute and a half, depending on the thickness of your pseudo-patty. A good indication that is cooked is when you see crispy brown bits forming around the patty.

Layer it on!

4. Flip the patty and place a slice of cheese on it after flipping and let it cook for about 30 seconds.  Add a small splash of water into the pan after that and close the pan with a lid for the thing to steam. Leave it for about another 30 seconds, depending on your preferred doneness.

Beautifully chaotic mess!

5. Remove the patty once cooked and toast a buttered up bun using the same pan. Naturally, repeat 2-5 for a double cheeseburger.

6. Sandwich the patty in between your bun and your favourite sauce and veggies. I used rocket again this time with some diced onions. As for the sauce, it was a ketchup and mayonnaise combo spiked with cayenne pepper and paprika.

Special sauce is special

Part 2: Onion rings

Pro tip: before I begin, please note as the batter really depends on the amount of onion rings that you are frying, I will place the ratio for the batter instead as a guide.

Batter:
3 parts all purpose flour
1 part  corn starch
cold water, best icy cold.
a dash of salt, paprika and black pepper.

Coating:
 Panko bread crumbs or regular bread crumbs, as much as you need

Trust me with this one. The cold water works. 

1. Mix the flour and corn starch well with cold water. What you need to look out for is a slurry that can still stick but a bit runny. Imagine a beaten egg yolk. We are looking for that texture. Make sure you have your breadcrumbs on standby.

2. Once you have your batter slurry down, slice your onion sideways into rings.

Ready for the grease bath!

3. Dunk the rings into the batter and coat them well. Once well coated, dunk it into the breadcrumbs and cover as evenly as possible.

Let it bubble! Toil and trouble!

4. Once all are coated with the batter and crumbs, drop a few rings at a time into boiling oil. There is no real time frame to observe as the size and thickness of the rings will determine cooking time. The best way is to eyeball it until it becomes golden brown.

Golden...

Pro tip: it is strongly recommended that cold water is used as warm water or at room temperature can cause gluten development, this causing a cake-like batter. Also, I recommend using a more mild onion like a yellow or Spanish onion as they are flavourful but not too sweet.

If looking at this does not make you hungry, I don't know what will. 

This is a recipe that will sure make you question your sanity whenever you eat from a big burger fast food chain. And the process is relatively easy. However there is some eyeballing and variations that can be made, so there is still a bit of skill required. Nonetheless, I recommend giving this a go. And once you do, you would probably not look at burgers the same way again.

Look at this mouthwatering cross section!