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Recipe: Poor Man's Town Burger

Posted by Matt Jacobs, January 25, 2006 at 11:33 AM

One of my resolutions this year was to cook more. One of my Chanukah gifts was this hamburger cookbook by Rebecca Bent. Putting two and two together means a bunch more burger recipes for you cats.

The book has a ton of nutty and interesting recipes like a chili burger (the chili is in the burger) and a chocolate-encrusted cranberry burger, but I thought I'd start out simple and make Geoffrey Zakarian's Town Burger. Zackarian is the chef at Town in the Chambers Hotel, hence the name of the burger.

Typically, I'll just follow a recipe exactly since my knowledge in the kitchen is still relatively weak. But this time, Geoffrey's expectations for quality are a little overboard. Since I didn't feel like running around town for Wolferman's english muffins, I bring you the Poor Man's Town Burger.

After the jump you'll get the actual recipe, my modifications and some photos. If you want the Town burger without all the work, I suggest you visit the restaurant during brunch, which is the only time they serve the burger.

The Recipe
1 to 2 tbsp olive oil (to season grill or skillet)
4 8-ounce prepackaged organic prime ground beef patties
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp salted butter
1 tbsp chopped parsley
4 english muffins, preferably Wolferman's
4 thick slices of beefsteak tomato

To start with, you'll need a heavy skillet or a grill pan. I used a cast-iron skillet. In order to season the pan, pour the olive oil on and rub it into the pan with a paper towl before turning on the heat. Once seasoned, bring the burner to a medium-high heat.

If you feel like tracking down prepackaged organic prime ground beef patties, be my guest. I used ground chuck and it tasted just fine. I'll give you a minute to make up your mind... Okay, take your patties and season them with salt and pepper. Cook them through on each side, but remove them from the heat just before they're at your desired doneness. Put them aside and let them cool for five minutes. While cooling, garnish the burgers with the parsley and the butter.

Personally, I thought the cooling was silly because it left a lot of the juice behind. If I were to do it over, I would let them cool on the muffin so that you don't lose that delicious meat sweat. After the break, return the burgers to the heat. In theory, the butter should melt most of the way through. I decided to flip the burgers for a minute so it would melt through. You'll lose some butter, though.

Once the burgers are warm, take them off the grill and throw them on a toasted muffin with the tomato. We didn't use any mustard or ketchup and it was plenty tasty.

Although I ended up enjoying with my burgers, I'm sure it tastes nothing like those in the restaurant. Like I said earlier, if you want an honest to goodness Town burger, go to Town (he he). Although it's fun to try and replicate a chef's recipe, I'd rather just pay to have him do it right.

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