French Hambugers, Ooh La La!
Cook me like one of your French foods.
Actually, I don’t know if these are French, but they’re at least a la cuisine so I’m going to run with it. It’s certainly something they’d do – take hamburgers and dump a sauce on it. You’re not likely to find it at the local McDonald’s any time soon, in any case. We don’t make ’em too often, and I’m not sure why – it certainly makes Kat Folland happy when I do.
And it’s pretty simple – hamburgers topped with a sauce made with sour cream and consummé. Egg noodles and green beans round it out well, but other veggies can be complementary too.
French Hamburgers
Shopping cart:
- 2 lbs ground beef
- a slice of bread – doesn’t matter what kind, really
- a splash of milk
- salt
- pepper
- butter
- sour cream
- beef consummé
- noodles (egg noodles go best)
- something green for a side. I like the French green beans
So to begin, break up 1/3 cup (about one slice) of bread and soak in about 2 tbsp milk for a few minutes. Put two pounds of ground beef in a bowl, add the soggy breadcrumbs, and about 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper. Knead the mixture until it’s evenly distributed. Divide the mix into six patties.
Now is probably a good time to start some water for pasta, and get your sides set up if you haven’t already, by the way. Things go pretty fast. Whenever the water is ready, go ahead and cook them.
Next, heat up a large skillet, and add at least 3 tbps butter. You want a thick-ish layer all the way across when it’s melted. Add the meat patties in – as may as will fit. They’ll shrink, so you can add more later and make a little assembly line of nom. Cook the burgers on 5 minutes or so per side. I know the FDA has a temperature but I can’t remember it, and this ain’t a restaurant. If I have any questions, I poke a patty open a bit and peek.
When the burgers are done, take them out of the pan and put on a warm plate to await burger nirvana.
Drain off the fat, but leave all the crunchy stuff in the pan. Reduce the heat so you don’t kill anything. Add 1 cup of sour cream and 1 cup of beef consummé to the pan and start stirring like you mean it. Bring the mix up to a ‘boil’ – a heavy simmer – and keep stirring like there’s no tomorrow until all the bits that are going to dissolve into the sauce have done so.
Now, this will seem like a lot of sauce, but it’s not. One can never have too much sauce. Sauciness is one of the things that keep a good household together, but I digress.
Plate the burgers and noodles, put as much sauce as you can over both, add something green to the plate, and dig in!
Easy, right?