Sunday, October 25, 2009
Food, Recipes, Atlanta

Beefcake

The Wales Burger at Salt Factory

Photos/courtesy of Salt Factory

Burgers are a crowd pleaser year-round, and the Wales Burger is a take on a basic burger with some gourmet upgrades. In the chillier of seasons, burgers are the ideal comfort food and a tailgate favorite. This recipe is for four, but you can easily add more to the mix and up the amount. For the meat patties, I suggest combining a ground prime beef skirt steak to your round beef; this adds a wonderfully deep beefy flavor and richness. The recipe calls for a sweet Vidalia onion and I highly recommend buying local; using the local Georgia Vidalia onion is great for the local economy and helps to provide a truer sense of farm-to-table community. When preparing the mustard ketchup, turbinated organic sugar is a great alternative. This organic sugar is less refined, which means it is better for you. The Cajun seasoning blend adds a bit of heat to the tempura batter mix, but you can enhance or reduce this as you like. SP
Richard Wilt is the executive chef of Salt Factory, which is located in the Historic Roswell Square at 952 Canton Street. 770-998-4850. www.saltfactorypub.com.
 

THE WALES BURGER

Serves 4

Ingredients: 


1 pound freshly ground certified Angus top round beef

1 pound freshly ground prime beef skirt steak

1 sweet Georgia Vidalia onion 

1 pound white button mushrooms

1 cup apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup of turbinated organic sugar
Vegetable oil 

4 slices Double Gloucester Stilton cheese
1 cup flour

1.5 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon Cajun or blackening seasoning

1.5 cup soda water
1 teaspoon white truffle oil
4 organic salted Kaiser or Kimmelwick sandwich buns

Dill pickle chips

Local sliced beefsteak red tomato
Red-leaf lettuce

Instructions:

Tempura batter: Combine flour, baking powder, salt, pepper and Cajun seasoning with soda water and whisk until incorporated. Keep chilled until use.

Mushroom ketchup: Combine mushrooms, vinegar and sugar and cook in a sauce pan until almost dry. Puree in food processor with salt and pepper to taste and truffle oil.

Onion rings: Slice onion into half-inch rings and separate. Dredge in flour. Tempura-fry in vegetable oil at 350 degrees F. for two minutes or until golden brown.

Burgers: Combine ground meat into a homogeneous mixture with salt and freshly ground black pepper to form 8-ounce patties.
 
On a wood or gas grill, cook the burger patties to desired preparation and temperature and top with Double Gloucester Stilton cheese, tempura Vidalia onion ring and mushroom ketchup.
 
Serve on the Kaiser bun with lettuce tomato and pickles.