Blessed Beef

Those who have seen the recorded programs list on my DVR or have seen me in a kitchen store probably know that I am one of the many food geeks who worships upon the altar of the great foodsmith AB. Nice new website, Alton, but I miss the blog. So last weekend, thanks to my wonderful birthday gift of a food processor, I made a pilgrimage to the temple of taste: I built the Burger of The Gods. This Good Eats recipe is pretty simple: a pound of meat, a dash of salt, add fire. But the inventive part is that you start with a couple of steaks, and grind the meat yourself. The idea is that, free of handling and bits of intestine, self-ground meat is a lot safer than the ground meat you get at the store, and consequently cooking it to death is not required. And apart from cleaning the equipment afterwards, chopping up the meat in a food processor is quick and dead simple. The result: heavenly.

I’ve had other favorite burgers in the past: the ones I’d make with butter in the middle, Five Guys, the list goes on. But if one had to annoint a pope of hamburgerdom, this sandwich would get a Habemus Papam from any conclave.