A Hamburger Today
Dear AHT: Should I Make Burgers with My Elk Meat?
Hey Guys,
I'm a daily reader and respect all of your knowledge on burgers so I thought I'd come to you guys for advice. My father-in-law is an avid hunter and this year he brought home an elk. He gave me about a little over a pound of ground elk and some round steak. My question to you guys is are elk burgers any good? I figured if anyone has had elk burgers it has to be you or your readers. If burgers are out I'll just make some chili or tacos out of the ground. Thanks for your help!
—Tony B.
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Dear Tony,
I don't know how much help this will be, but I've had a bit of an elk burger once. The thing is, it was from a frozen patty, which automatically takes the burger quality down a notch. If you have fresh elk meat, maybe it's better.
We actually served an elk burger at an AHT burger bash that we had a couple years ago. Here's what I said about it:
First up was the elk burger. The patties for this burger were shipped in from Idaho, frozen. I had a small chunk of a friend's, saving my own four-burger allotment for the following rounds of meaty goodness. The elk burger was interesting -- gamy and dry and a bit tough, due to its leanness and, no doubt, frozen state. Now that I've sampled it, I could probably live without eating an elk burger again.
The crowd at the event sorta reacted the same way. I heard from a lot of people that it was nice to try once, just to try it, but they were glad that the regular burgers started rolling off the grill soon after.
Chars,
Adam
And now, let's open it up to the readers. Yo, meatheads: Have you ever had an elk burger? If so, what did you think?