Sunday, June 16, 2013.
Father's Day.
Mary Ann, sounding as if she didn't really want to hear my reply, said that if I wanted to go anywhere for Father's Day lunch or dinner, I should say so, and it would be mine. But what I really wanted was a day of at least a little bit of rest.
I told her that homemade hamburgers would suit me just fine, knowing that this would also be the pleasure of everyone else.
Beyond that, I wanted to follow through on an idea from Tommy, The Gourmet Retired 747 Pilot. He's a frequent caller to the radio show. During a conversation about improving the bun parts of hamburgers, he suggested an idea that sounded promising: English muffins.
I made up the burgers my way, using ground round and a seasoning made specifically for hamburgers by McCormick. Mary Leigh likes this stuff. I am intrigued by the fact that it's salt-free, and contains a lot of dried onion that looks a little caramelized. Good!
Even better was the English muffin experiment. I tried it two ways. One muffin went into the toaster whole, to be split afterwards. That made the inside very hot but moist and steamy. Perfect for breakfast with butter and jelly. Not quite right for a burger.
The other version was split before being toasted. It needed to be toasted twice, even with the timer at maximum. That gave just the kind of light browning of both the outside and inside. The hamburger was exactly the size of the muffin--I made the patty that way on purpose. I spread on some of my hamburger sauce (mayo, Creole mustard, barbecue sauce, dill relish--a take on the #1 sauce at Bud's Broiler). The first bite told me everything I wanted to know. Here is the perfect bread for hamburgers, at last.
If I say so myself, I griddled the burgers just right, too. Juicy inside, almost crunchy and black on the outside. If all the new stands trying to sell $10-plus, only slightly better than average hamburgers would put out a burger like the ones we ate this Father's Day, this better-burger trend would be a more fulfilling.
Of course, I have the advantage of being able to cook everything exactly the way I like it. But I'll bet if a new stand opened with my Daddyburgers 3.1, they'd be a big hit.
The last joy of the day was being given three bowties selected by Mary Leigh from the rack I told her about yesterday. She even made a hand-drawn card in which one of the ties was incorporated into the graphics. I wish I could talk her into doing design work for the New Orleans Menu.
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