Ah, and we’re back with some smashburger love. What I love most about the smashburger is that the elegance is dirty. It’s not a fancy burger, it’s finding the cheap ol’ pickles, the cheap white bun.. chemical cheese. It’s dirty. Yet so good. I love throwing some onion soup mix in with the burger, so that’s exactly what we’re doing. This time, Lipton’s beefy onion. Sounded appropriate, let’s put it to the test.
The Prep Table
I know – we’re not putting ketchup or mustard on these burgers. My perfect burger is the cheese, pickle and onion. On occasion, I’ll throw a BBQ sauce, maybe a mayo based sauce.. but never do I intentionally put ketchup nor mustard on my burger. Now that we’ve addressed that, let’s get the ball of meat blended with that onion.
I do enjoy a raw onion on a burger for sure, but this time, we’re going to dabble in the caramelized onion. I tried to do this awhile back and I ran the propane dry on the blackstone. Total rookie mistake. I got time today, so we’re going to do it. If done right, it’ll overshadow the burger as the star of the cook.
I read somewhere that the rounded slice results in a much more proportional onion slice. I usually just cut as easily as I can. I still haven’t gotten the chef-slice down yet. Maybe one day. Today isn’t that day.
The Process
The onions are what’s going to take the longest. We went for a good hour on the lowest setting and just let ’em cook down. It was kind of cool to see the stages of the cook down. How we went from a giant pile to just a handful. There’s a relatively famous burger spot I used to live by where “burnt onions” was a topping. Man, they were good. I’m going to try to get close to that, but as this is a first real attempt at the caramelization – I don’t want to ruin them right out of the gate.
I hope that onion collage above translates well for you mobile readers. If not, open this up on your computer and really take it in. Before I took them to borderline burnt, I gave some to MrsForensicBBQ for her recipe.. then we cooked ’em down even further.
Smashburgers require the element of the smash, so that’s exactly what we’re doing. Made the 1/4 pound (ish) patties – I know, that’s a big boy up front.. then I took the spatula and made ’em flat. Real flat. Y’all like that onion progression from before? How about the patty progression:
I love making these so much. And because they’re as blue-collar a burger as you can make – they taste pretty darn good re-heated as well. Onions are dark, burgers are cheesed, buns toasted.. let’s see where we’re at.
The Result
Okay, them onions were perfect! So dark and flavorful. One of my leftover burgers got whatever onions I had remaining – and it was so oniony and good. If you recall, we mixed in that beefy onion soup mix and holy onion bomb. This is a mainstay. By the time this goes live, I’ll have probably already done this again. We’re finally getting into spring, so lets hope for a lot more grill days. Let’s put a cherry on this post with a finale pic:
And there ya go! Thanks for being patient the last few weeks. Maybe one day we’ll share some more of the personal side of ForensicBBQ/MrsForensicBBQ. A lot of away-from-home time, a lot of house-repair time, a lot of pet-memory time.. we’ve been quite busy. Still trying to pump one out a week- but man have we been busy.
Mix yourself up a beefy onion smashburger and let me know how it turns out!