Building a Better Burger

When I was living at home, I was often teased about my culinary abilities (or lack thereof). One thing that I was trusted to do was prepare hamburger patties for the odd barbeque. I basically followed by mom's instructions, which meant adding an egg, some cracker crumbs, and a variety of basic seasonings to the ground beef. I have stayed pretty true to that formula over the years because the burgers always turned out very good. I might add some chopped onions, or some interesting sauce, but I didn't dabble much.

Then, we read a newspaper article about Michael Noble and his recipe for excellent burgers. We paid attention to this because Michael Noble is the only Canadian chef to appear on the original Iron Chef (didn't win) and more recently he was the executive chef at a restaurant we like. Anyway, he proposed the idea of adding oatmeal to the raw hamburger mixture, which I took to be a stand-in for the cracker crumbs I was accustomed to. We've tried it twice so far, and the burgers are actually really good with the oatmeal. They don't remind me of breakfast time Quaker Oats at all, thank goodness!

Comments

[ani]

Oooh got to try that! Thanks!

[christina]

I've made them with oatmeal before and they turned out great. Another addition that I've tried is grated raw potato - it makes the burgers really juicy.