Burger night

There’s been a recent spat of posts on food blogs in London relating to burgers. Having unsuccessfully attempted to snag a last minute table at Hawksmoor this weekend (they claim to serve unbeatable steaks and ‘the best burger’ in London) we resigned ourselves to making our own. Hell, we could probably do better anyway we thought and I think we can say that we did.

I arrived home from work bearing beer, surely the only suitable alcoholic accompaniment??


Thomas had already purchased the ingredients and we set straight to work! I was on chip duty as we’d decided to make our own, partly inspired by Dinner Diary, who strangely also prompted my craving earlier in the week for horseradish mash. Great minds think alike.

So, for a first attempt I think the chips turned out well. I found the process quite a scary one but luckily Thomas was at hand to take charge! The potatoes that we had were fairly small so the chips were therefore relatively short. We parboiled them then fried them in 2 batches for about 8 minutes. Drying them out on some tea towels (in the absence of kitchen towel) between stages.



They were beautifully crisp and we added lots of salt, Thomas said we should use chicken salt, which I’ve never had before but assume if to be a seasoned salt of some kind and I think this would have been better. And for personal preference I would have liked a liberal sprinkling of malt vinegar.

As for the burgers – they were magnificent! Even if I do say so myself.
Thomas made them using, beef, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, Tabasco, paprika, wholegrain mustard, 1 whole egg and salt and pepper. They were monsters and we cooked them for about 5 minutes on each side owing to how big they were.



On the basis of how well these turned out I’d say it is definitely worth making your own burgers. They beat anything I’ve had in London and the joy is that you can add or omit anything that you might want or not want. Customized hamburgers. We topped them with various things, a grilled portobello mushroom, mature cheddar cheese, gherkins, lettuce, tomato and onion. Then french’s mustard and ketchup.


This one was mine, a big tower of a burger, I couldn’t take a complete bite because it was so tall. It’s was a messy business but absolutely was not to be eaten with a knife and fork.


The actual burgers themselves were amazingly tender and juicy due to the use of a combination of 10% and 20% fat beef. The buns were granary with a variety of seeds atop each one.


This was Thomas’. We actually had 4 between us, both feeling extremely full by the end of it but the joy of making these together and seeing everything laid out before your eyes on your own table makes it impossible to not overindulge. I’m still very keen to try the burger at Hawksmoor. Judging by the pictures on Dos Hermanos they are a major contender for the best burger in London prize. We shall be visiting soon in our quest to find it.