I thought way outside the bun for mine; my burger is resting on a hand-tossed whole wheat pizza round, about seven inches in diameter. To save time, I bought a ball of pizza dough from the local Wegman's and separated it into six pieces. I then stretched each piece into a seven inch round and let them rest before baking; resting allows them to remain flexible and chewy instead of getting crispy, as I wanted them to be able to be folded like a taco around the burger and the insalata caprese.
After I had baked the dough rounds, I started on the burgers. My burger mix was 90/10 lean ground beef, fortified with 8 ounces of mild Italian sausage, spices and a little ketchup, mixed lightly:
After mixing the meat, I used one of the plates that I would be building the burger on as a guide for the half-moon shape of the burger I wanted:
On to the grill. I used my Brinkman smoker with my turkey fryer as a heat source. As the smoker had the smoke residue in it from the brisket I smoked over the fourth, the burgers got a little smoke flavor on them, and even turned a little red as they cooked:
As the burgers cooked, I started building the rest. After selecting the most visually appealing pizza crust, I spooned on some Wegman's Roasted Garlic marinara sauce and layered the burger side with some sandwich size pepperoni:
I then built the caprese salad, layering vine-ripened tomato slices with fresh mozzarella. I then added red onion rings, cut in half, and then sprinkled it with chiffonade-cut basil leaves:
I sautéed some steak-cut mushrooms in butter, Italian seasoning, and salt over high heat, just long enough to cook the mushrooms through but still retain their form. I retrieved the burgers from the grill, laid one over the pepperoni, and put the mushrooms on top:
The burger in the picture is about 10 ounces before cooking; unfortunately, being that size with everything else, Melissa couldn't fold it up and eat it as I had designed, and resorted to eating it open-faced with a knife and fork. I managed to get it folded and eat it as I had hoped; the combination of the various flavors was incredible.
What I had in mind with using the pizza crust was something that you could fold and keep all of the burger goodness together while you ate it; Derek Payne mentioned on Mega’s blog that a burger should have “buns” – could you imagine trying to eat this burger on a bun? Everything would be sliding out as you attempted to eat it. If you used an insubstantial bun, it would fall apart before you finished; too substantial, and you increase the likelihood of wearing the burger as you try to gnaw through the bun. It’s not really a wrap, either, as I envision a wrap as something that would enclose the whole thing. This was more of a soft-taco shape.
On to the next challenge – Skinnyboy wants to do a burger using grilled cheese sandwiches as the bread. Can’t figure out at this time how to come up with a presentation for that yet, but something will bubble up through the subconscious.
Thanks to all of you who visited our blogs and voted for this throwdown!
What I had in mind with using the pizza crust was something that you could fold and keep all of the burger goodness together while you ate it; Derek Payne mentioned on Mega’s blog that a burger should have “buns” – could you imagine trying to eat this burger on a bun? Everything would be sliding out as you attempted to eat it. If you used an insubstantial bun, it would fall apart before you finished; too substantial, and you increase the likelihood of wearing the burger as you try to gnaw through the bun. It’s not really a wrap, either, as I envision a wrap as something that would enclose the whole thing. This was more of a soft-taco shape.
On to the next challenge – Skinnyboy wants to do a burger using grilled cheese sandwiches as the bread. Can’t figure out at this time how to come up with a presentation for that yet, but something will bubble up through the subconscious.
Thanks to all of you who visited our blogs and voted for this throwdown!
