The Soiled Burger Project 02

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Last week, I introduced The Soiled Burger Project; my attempt to up my burger grilling game. In my opinion, Burger 01 was a success to my ever growing belly and dulling taste buds.

I was set to continue the pointless, calorie rich project as the week went on, then I ran out of propane, then I was out-of-town for three days, but hey, I’m back in town now, with some fresh ‘pane and I’m set to continue on with Burger 02, a spicy, sriracha sauce tinged, hunk of ground meaty goodness on a bun. Or at least that’s what I had hoped.

Soiled Burger 02 (AKA The Soiled Sriracha Burger) Ingredients:

  • 1/2 pound or slightly less of  85/15 ground beef
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon cyan pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon (more or less) of sriracha sauce

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Additional toppings, etc.:

  • 1 sesame seed burger bun
  • Fresh garden lettuce
  • 1 slice of cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 tablespoon of low-fat mayo
  • Ketchup (to salvage the burger)

I will cut to the chase and say this burger was a fail. Sucked would be strong but fail seems to be proper adjative. From the moment I took my first bite I started thinking of the things I should have or shouldn’t have done. It was spicy, completely edible and not at all void of taste. Still, two bites in and I was reaching for some ketchup to boost the flavor and save my lunch.

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What was it that I wish I would have done?

  1. I forgot to add a bit of salt. I thought there would be enough sodium in the sriracha sauce, but there wasn’t and I should have added some.
  2. The meat. In the past I used a lot of ground turkey, and never minded grilling turkey burgers. However, Wifey is not a fan of ground turkey in burger form (I’m not sure why, just Wifey being Wifey and making my culinary life as difficult as possible I suppose). For some reason as soon as I started eating Burger 02 I felt that ground turkey would have been the perfect meat for the ingredients used.
  3. Pre-Soiled Burger Project I made a burger and added some diced green chilis and diced  jalapeño peppers (in a sorry attempt to recreate the unusually good Spicy Jalapeño Pretzel Cheeseburger at Ruby Tuesday). I wish I would have added some to this burger. Maybe not the  jalapeños, but the some green chillies and maybe some finely diced onion would have been a nice addition. Adding these extras may have forced me to add some egg to the mix to help bind, and that would have started the whole tiresome “that’s not a hamburger, that’s a meatloaf” debate amongst food bloggers with burger covered sticks up their asses.
  4. I also wish that instead of adding the sauce to the meat, I would have just topped it with a micro batch of Sriracha Sauce Mayo (mayo mixed with some sriracha sauce), something I often make up to dip spicy sweet potato fries in.
  5. Pepper jack cheese would have been better than cheddar. It just would have been.

It’s clear from all this that I wasn’t thinking properly as I went into today’s Soiled Burger Project and I kicked around the idea of not even posting this, and not just because this is a stupid blog topic on an already suck ass blog. But, The Soiled Burger Project is about my learning process, about the successes (See burger 01), and the failures (like today). I will try to make this burger again in the future, but not without making all the changes I listed above and possibly more.

All this burger eating has made me think about, maybe riding my bike in the near future. We’ll see.

Overall Soiled Burger Project Score: 4/10

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