Sasha's Kitchen: Best Steak Burgers With Shake Shack Inspired Sauce

Usually, I have always purchased organic ground beef for my burgers, but I decided to prepare a quality steak burger, in the spirit of one of my favorite NYC burger places, Shake Shack.  Shake Shack is Danny Meyer's famous burger joint, of course with spots all over Manhattan (and long lines, especially on sunny days as well).  I'm waiting for them to open a Park Slope / Prospect Heights outpost in Brooklyn, because it is definitely time!

I wasn't obsessed with making an identical burger to Shake Shack's, but I absolutely love the Shack Sauce and their burgers, so I looked at Kenjie Lopez-Alt's article from Serious Eats on reverse engineering the famous Shake Shack burger for some ideas and inspiration.  According to Alt, his "sources" believe that the true Shake Shack burger is a mixture of three types of ground beef - sirloin, well marbled brisket and well marbled beef chunk.  For those of you who are going to try the burger will all three cuts, keep in mind that well marbled probably means to use the "second cut" brisket or chunk, which is not as lean.

Brisket is hard to come by in such small quantities, as Lopez-Alt only calls for 4 oz in his reverse engineered recipe, and most butchers generally sell three to five pound briskets.  So this time, I decided not so search for a small amount of brisket, but to just go with a mixture of sirloin and well marbled beef chunk.

I prepared the reverse engineered Shack Sauce just as Lopez-Alt directed, using his recipe.  I may want to adjust next time to add a bit more heat, and ketchup, but it was delicious.  It reminded me of the "Animal Style" sauce at In-N-Out Burger.  In addition, I went with provolone rather than American Cheese.

Steak Burgers (recipe derived loosely from this site)
8 lb well marbled beef  chunk
8 lb sirloin
salt and pepper to taste
4 Martin's Sandwich Rolls (potato rolls)
4 leaves of green lettuce
4 slices provolone cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 T ketchup
1 T yellow mustard
4 slices kosher dill pickle (I used fairly thick slices)
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp paprika
canola oil
2 T of butter (melted)

Ask your butcher to grind up the steaks for you together.  Then, when you get the meat home, form into four patties and season with salt and pepper.  Toast the Martin's buns with the melted butter on each side. Grill the burgers using a grill pan or a large skillet, using canola oil.  Make sure to season the burgers with salt and pepper first.  Top with the provolone cheese and cover with tin foil for the last minute or two of cooking.  I like my burger medium, which takes about eight minutes to prepare over medium heat.  

To make the sauce, following Lopez-Alt's recipe, combine the ketchup, mayo, mustard, pickle slices, garlic powder, paprika and cayenne in a small food processor.  Top the cheeseburgers with the sauce and lettuce.  You can add a slice of tomato if you like as well.  These burgers (the recipe makes four) were very tasty and Shake Shack-esque, although I still love the real deal.

Sasha's Kitchen: Best Steak Burgers With Shake Shack Inspired Sauce

Sasha's Kitchen: Tuna Burgers (And My Unrelated Discovery Of Purple Cauliflower)

The Food Network's Bobby Flay inspired me to create a burger that combined the flavors of tuna, chipotle and pineapple from his similar burger in his new cookbook, Bobby Flay's Burgers Fries and Shakes.  However, my recipe differs from Bobby's with respect to several of the key ingredients and the way that I prepare my sauce.  He certainly was my inspiration in creating this healthier take on the burger.  The original recipe that I started with can be found here.

To prepare the burgers, you will need:

1 lb tuna steak
1 T dijon mustard
2-3 tsp chipotle puree (depending on how much heat you want)
1/4 cup red onion, diced (Flay uses scallions, instead but I much prefer the combination of the red onion with the tuna and chipotle)
1/2 T honey
1 T canola oil
2 T pineapple juice (my addition)

Cut up the tuna into small pieces and pulse until pureed in your Cuisinart.  Then mix in the other ingredients and form into four burgers.  Cook the burgers using a grill pan (or a regular grill, if you are somewhere other than Brooklyn in the dead of winter) for about 8 minutes, total over medium heat, being careful not to burn the burgers.

To prepare my version of the pineapple mustard sauce, which I turned into a honey mustard sauce, mix 4 T of Dijon mustard with 4 T of pineapple juice and 2 T of honey.  Top with fresh pineapple before serving on a lightly toasted bun.

Picture shows my tuna burger with pineapple and the pineapple honey-mustard sauce

Apparently I didn't get the memo that burgers are supposed to be fattening and unhealthy.  This one made me feel as good as it tasted.

Finally, I wanted to include an unrelated note about a pretty cool organic vegetable I discovered today at my local organic market here in Park Slope . . . purple cauliflower (which I had heard about but had never seen).  I am going to have to do something fun with it this week, but wanted to include a picture of it here first, in all its purple beauty.  This begs the question - did nature really create cauliflower this purple?  The answer is absolutely, this is not created wtih food coloring.  Rather, the presence of the antioxidant anthocyanin (also found in red wine and red cabbage) gives it this beautiful color.  There is currently being research done, according to the Wikipedia page linked to above, that may support some use for anthocyanins with respect to cancer and apoptosis (programmed cell death).

I have some exciting recipes planned to prepare and write about in the next two weeks, including a crab couscous, turkish meatballs, scrabble tile cookies, some beer and food pairing, bread puddings and two new surprise cupcake recipes.

Sasha's Kitchen: Tuna Burgers (And My Unrelated Discovery Of Purple Cauliflower)