Chomp!

By Ron Aiken

Turkey Burgers! Kill me now!

Chomp! does his best. He really does. But sometimes, dear Reader, ingredients let him down. I will pause now for you to gasp. Please, gasp.

Such it was when Chomp!’s dinner request from his family was for hamburgers cooked on the grill he recently purchased for his family. Joy! But wait, what’s that? How about we use that ground turkey that’s about to go bad instead of real, you know, meat?

Womp, waaaahhhh.

How is any self-respecting Chomp! supposed to fancy THAT up? Why, by adding the only thing that can make a turkey into a man! Steak!

Which is what I did! Behold!!!

This probably without a doubt the most boring picture Chomp! ever has taken, but it shows what I did, which was to take a leftover sirloin from the weekend and dice it into a bowl.)

 

From there, I added the packet (20 oz.) of lean ground turkey and, according to family custom, added two eggs for binding and flavor purposes. I seasoned the mixture lightly with Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. That’s it. I didn’t GO CRAZY with the seasonings here, but by all means YOU can empty your spice cabinet into the ground turkey and NOBODY will complain.

The ground turkey in the bowl, ready to mix by hand!

 

After mixing it all up – and to confess, they got a little runny on me, prompting me to add a bit panko bread crumbs to bind it – I rolled them into generous patties. Behold them!!!!

My beautiful, glistening babies! To the flame with you!

 

And here they are on the new family grill!

Grill! Grill like there’s no tomorrow!

 

For cheese, I used some nice sharp cheddar slices on the kids’ burgers and some tasty Havarti slices for the adults. Also, to the adult burgers, I added cubes of feta cheese (you can’t see them in the pic below because they’re under the cheese) before I put them on the grill, which provided a FANTASTIC result. I highly encourage this. And on a final cheese-related note, in the pic below you’ll notice one burger with a bit of a, um, patina. This was on order of the oldest child, Jacob, for whom I had put his requested Mexican cheese INSIDE the burger! If you look very close, you can see it dripping out!

Behold! The steak-and-cheese infused turkey burgers!

WAY better than you thought they’d be, right?!

 

As a side, I made my homemade potato chips. For this I like to use new, or red potatoes (in the bag I bought they’re called “ruby sensations”). I used half a bag, and cut them up in some random ways. Here the are on the cookie sheet:

Fun, right?!

 

After placing them on the sheet, I LIBERALLY coat them with olive oil, using the brush pictured, on both sides. This is important because if you don’t they will STICK LIKE CRAZY. It’s also a good idea to flip them halfway through. I then sprinkle them CONSERVATIVELY with sea salt and put the oven at 395 degrees for no real good reason except that temperature pleases me for reasons I can’t articulate. I cook them for about 15 minutes per side. I like them done and a bit crispy, but if they’re not, that’s OK, because your kids will love them just the same and you WIL NOT have any left by the end of the meal, if not much sooner. I cut up a half a bag for four people; for five or more I’d go ahead and cut up the whole bag.

Sadly, there is no picture of the finished potatoes because Chomp! Forgot to take a picture, and by the time he remembered, they were no more.

The burgers came out wonderfully, with a good, firm outside and juicy middle. I put them on medium-high heat and cooked them for about 7-8 minutes per side, finishing them by adding the cheese on top. The steak, I thought, was a nice textural and flavor component to the turkey meat, though if Chomp! Is brutally honest, which he tries his best to be, that verdict was not shared by three out of the four Philistines  people at the table, each of whom nefariously picked out the steak bits and tried to hide them on their plated behind their burgers so that Chomp! wouldn’t see. But Chomp! did see 🙁

At any rate, Chomp! ate the bits, and they were delicious. So there!

I hope you get to enjoy your own REAL burgers on the grill sometime soon. And if you have any interesting things you do with your burger mix to make them fantastic, please let me know at [email protected]. I don’t need to know about your wonderful toppings – things like bacon, avocado and the like – but I would like to know how you season your meat internally that makes a difference! I really would! And I’d write about it! So there’s that!

Until then, Cheers from Chomp!