These smokey beef sliders are mouth wateringly delicious. Full of rich smokey flavour, topped with smokey bacon and smoked cheese, they’re so moreish!
Nine years ago – has it really been that long? – when Mr Fare Sage and I were attending the wedding of our dear friends in England, we were lucky enough to take an extended break from our day jobs and clock up a bit of travelling around the other side of globe and back again. To kick off our world tour we meandered around England for a few weeks stopping when the mood struck. One such stop was in Bath, Somerset, where husband had what is still referred to as “The Best Burger Ever” in a side-of-the-road pub.
The benchmark was set. It was something to do with the burger itself, the bun, the choice of cheese, the addition of onion rings and the particular relish that had been used. For the last near-decade all burgers have been compared to this one. When making beef burgers at home the recipe has been tweaked and changed bit by bit each time to bring it as close as possible to that marvellous day in 2007. We’ve not quite managed to top the fabled Bath Burger yet but these smokey beef sliders come awfully close.
Everybody loves a good slider. We regularly have them for dinner – either this moreish smokey beef version, or grilled fish with lemon-dill mayonnaise, or our favourite lamb with feta and cucumber laced labne. Those recipes to follow another day…
Pre-made slider buns are fairly easy to come by these days. In New Zealand they are readily available in the major supermarket chains or gourmet food outlets. Though if you have trouble locating them you can either take slices of a french loaf to make mini sandwich style burgers, or choose your favourite bun and use a round 70mm cookie-cutter to cut them down to a smaller size.
For me the key to a superb burger is the meatiness of the patty. I don’t like to bind my burger patties with egg and breadcrumbs because I tend to think adding too many things to the mix dilutes the meaty flavour. Instead I pound the meat against the side of my mixing bowl until it holds together on its own. Its quite noisy and can be hard work but very therapeutic. It’s a technique I saw on a cooking programme about Vietnamese street food where the hawker slapped pork mince against the side of his pan until it formed a paste (I don’t take it all the way to the paste stage but the theory is the same). I also don’t like to add anything too chunky, like diced onion, to flavour the burger mixture so its essentially 100% meat with some enhancements.
Tonight my patties were given the thumbs up by our resident burger expert and declared our ‘best beef burger yet’. Still not quite up to the Bath Burger standard but maybe one day… a girls got to have goals! Find out how I make my burgers…..
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 8 delicious sliders
- 400g beef mince
- ½ tsp mild Indian curry powder
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tbsp worchestershire sauce
- ½ tbsp dijon mustard
- freshly ground black pepper
- 8 slider buns
- 150g smoked cheddar cheese
- 8 rashers streaky bacon
- 8 iceberg lettuce leaves
- mayonnaise
- tomato sauce or relish
- margarine or butter
- Put all ingredients for the burger patties into a large, strong mixing bowl and mix well with your hands. Once combined, pick up the entire mixture and throw it back down in to the bowl with some force. Do this over and over for about 10 minutes until the texture has changed (it will be much smoother than raw mince) and the mixture is holding together well on its own.
- Divide the mince into 8 portions and roll into balls. Place the balls on to a sheet of greaseproof paper.
- Place another sheet of greaseproof paper of top of the balls and press the balls down gently with your hand. Take a rolling pin and roll it over the top of the second sheet of paper until the balls have formed patties about twice as big as you want them to be when cooked. No matter what I do I can't stop mince shrinking when I cook it...
- Next, prep your other burger ingredients:
- Slice your slider buns in half horizontally and spread both halves with margarine or butter
- Wash the lettuce leaves and give them a spin in a salad spinner or pat dry with paper towels.
- Slice the smoked cheddar into 2 slices per slider
- Cut each bacon rasher in half - Heat a hot plate or barbecue until hot. Drizzle with a little oil and then cook your burger patties until browned, around 4 minutes on each side. Cook the bacon on the same hot plate until crisp. When the burgers and bacon are cooked, lay two pieces of bacon on top of each burger, then lay two slices of cheese over the bacon. Cook for a few minutes until the cheese begins to melt.
- Lightly toast the slider buns - I usually do this on the grill side of the barbecue, it only takes a couple of minutes.
- Finally, assemble your burgers. Spread a little tomato sauce or relish on the bottom half of each slider, then top with a burger, bacon and cheese. Lay a lettuce leaf on top. Spread the top half of the slider bun with mayonnaise and top off the burger. Devour.
You can make the mince mixture for these yummy little morsels well in advance if you like, and then its just a matter of cooking the burgers so they make a really quick meal. The shaped patties would store well, covered, in the fridge for a couple of days before cooking.
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