Recipe: Country-Fried Cheese-stuffed Baconburger with Bacon

http://www.peppersandsmoke.com/bbq/deepfried/

You had me at 'stuff the ground bacon patty, made exclusively of ground bacon, with half a container of fresh mozzarella, wrap in pepper jack, dip in butter and beer batter, deep fry, and serve with deep-fried jalapenos.'

Wow. Just, wow.

How do you even think this up? That said, I'd eat two.

Can you please pass this along to the guy at Kuma's? I'd like to see this on their menu. Only, grilled, not deep-fried...

Out of curiosity...what do you think would happen if you mixed ground beef and ground bacon for a patty? Would it cook evenly?

I don't know if I should be embarrased to admit this but I just added a good couple of ounces of finely diced bacon to the batch of pan-fried burgers I made last night. I served them with a veal stock/mushroom pan sauce, though and not on a bun.

The cooked evenly and uniformly and had a nice smokiness. The bacon was some incredible farm-made bacon I'd picked up before Christmas and was worried it was nearing the end of its shelf life. I figured that it wasn't too much of a stretch from the ground pork and/or prociutto I normally add to meatballs/pan-fried beef patties. The pan sauce was initially a little fatty but it was easy enough to spoon off the excess.

But there's (at least) one thing I don't understand with this post: how does the author keep the patties from shrinking to 50% of their original size? Either he's eating a lot of uncooked, warmish bacon fat or they end up a lot smaller than they appear in the photos.

Bridgestone wrote:But there's (at least) one thing I don't understand with this post: how does the author keep the patties from shrinking to 50% of their original size? Either he's eating a lot of uncooked, warmish bacon fat or they end up a lot smaller than they appear in the photos.

My thought exactly!

Bridgestone, I assume you mean you added bacon to the raw ground beef, not as a topping? Lately, I've been using lean ground beef, but adding rendered drippings to the raw mix. I like it better than fatty beef, it doesn't emulsify and tends to melt inside the burger, moisturize it and drain off. I have ground pork, more than I need to use with the beef liver ...hmmmm

Mhays - I mean (as you assumed) that I used raw, ground (or very finely diced) bacon mixed into the raw ground beef that I then made patties out of.

Bridgestone wrote:But there's (at least) one thing I don't understand with this post: how does the author keep the patties from shrinking to 50% of their original size? Either he's eating a lot of uncooked, warmish bacon fat or they end up a lot smaller than they appear in the photos.

Did you notice that the patty is batter-dipped before it goes into the deep fryer? So it probably does shrink inside the coating. And then all the bacon fat soaks into the coating from the inside. Ugh.

I grind up beef to make burgers regularly.

I eyeball it, but it's usually a round or chuck roast cubed - and then a little less than 1/4 of that volume is either pork fat or bacon.

Thats standard practice for me. It always turns out great. How could it not?

Also, i think that all of us LTHers have asked Paulina Meat market for a little pork fat so often - that it's actually a packaged item now I feel partly responsible and proud.

I wouldn't half mind trying the plain ground-bacon burger, but not with all the cheese and breading. Though I never understood what my mom meant by "too rich" when I was a kid, I find myself saying that now -- there is such a think as too much grease.

And all of this reminds me of a recent thread about how MacDonald's is keeping us thin.

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... =mcdonalds

Cynthia wrote:find myself saying that now -- there is such a think as too much grease.

I agree - the deep frying aspect of that recipe is absurd.

To me, if it were cooked on the grill or a griddle, topped with an over easy egg, lettuce, tomato, mayo and red onion on a nice thick roll - thats a good burger right there.

the guy lost me as soon as he dropped it in the deep fryer as the novelty factor of the recipe flew through the roof.

Though I can see why - if you bread it and load it into the deep fryer, you have a chance that the thing won't shrink to nothingness; on the grill, it probably will wind up the size of a slider.