Anatomy Of A Burger

It’s often referred to the official start of the grill season, so it seemed only appropriate to start Memorial Day weekend with a burger bar. I love a good burger, and in my mind they are very similar to pizza in that they are the vehicle for limitless toppings. With that said, it makes it a challenge to show all types of burgers, when I am often the only person in our home eating them. That led to the backyard (or poolside) burger bar. Let’s get started.

First stop, Treuth’s (or your local butcher, if Central MD isn’t your backyard) for ground chuck, and a lot of it. I walked out with six pounds of ground chuck and two pounds of bacon.

I oven roasted the bacon while I assembled the patties. To be honest, I am pretty easy when it comes to the burgers. I like some Lea and Perrins’ Worcestershire, and McCormick’s Pub Burger blend. When I neglect to grab the blend, cracked pepper and salt are just as great.

I weighed each burger to make sure I would have enough. It’s a little extra, unnecessary work, but worth it to be sure I got the 24 burgers I was looking for. It also makes it easy to grill because at the same size they would all grill the same amount of time.

Once the burgers were assembled, I started working on all the toppings. To keep myself organized, I created a list.

I worked up the more obvious choices –

A little note about the mushrooms and onions, I sautéed them at home ahead on the stove top and then wrapped them in foil to throw in the grill.

I gathered up all kids of toppings, old standbys, a ridiculous amount of pickles, and added a few extras like roasted garlic and onion jam, tzatziki (I was kinda jonesing for a lamb burger after the fact), and tiger sauce. It was a lot of fun watching everyone grab their favorites.