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
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.
What was it that I wish I would have done?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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