The Lamb Burger with Beetroot Salsa and Goat’s Cheese

My Mother is an amazing cook. My Dad, hopeless. I once dropped in on him one night when my Mum was out and he was left to fend for himself. As I walked in, he had a steak and a fried egg cooking in the pan and he was in the middle of opening a tin of beetroot. That is the extent of his ability in the kitchen. I’ve often given him a hard time about this sad episode, but in a way I can see the logic. He had started cooking two things that he knew he could cook. I guess at some point he realised that he needed some vegetables in his meal so he reached for a tin of beetroot.

Most Aussies will tell you that tinned beetroot is the essential ingredient in any good burger. I’ve never really liked it myself, I find it runs all through the other ingredients and the flavour overpowers everything else. That was until I found this recipe on Taste.

In the patty:

• Lamb mince
• Chop half a red onion, a clove of garlic, some parsley leaves and mint, a couple of teaspoons of ground cumin
• Throw in some salt and pepper

The salsa:

• Cut some tinned baby beetroot into cubes
• Add the other half of the onion, a teaspoon of cumin, a good bunch of mint, some coriander leaves, a splash of lemon juice and some salt and pepper

Serve it on:

• Toasted sesame buns
• Salad leaves
• Melt some goat’s cheese on top of the patties

With:

• A combination of nicola and sweet potato chips. Par boil them and fry them up on the BBQ with plenty of butter. Serve with a sprinkle of salt and fresh thyme leaves.

The beer:

Sleeping Giant India Pale Ale, brewed by Gage Roads in Western Australia. It’s big on flavour with a hint of sweetness.

The verdict? The intensity of the goat’s cheese provides a good contrast to the sweetness of the beetroot. Both cut through the rich flavour of lamb nicely. Beetroot’s back!

The Great Burger, Tokyo

Let’s face it, finding an address in Japan has got to be about as difficult as finding a skinny sumo wrestler but the hours I spent traipsing the streets of Shibuya in Tokyo in search of  The Great Burger were well worth the effort.

Needless to say, by the time I found the place my appetite was sumo sized. But so was their menu and deciding on which burger to sink my teeth into was almost as hard as it was finding the restaurant. Besides the obvious classics like the single, double and triple cheeseburgers and Japan’s compulsory teriyaki burger, The Great Burger‘s menu includes mouthwatering jems such as the hickory burger, the mozarella paprika burger, the jamonserrano burger, the balsamico parmigiano burger, and for the sweet tooths, the baked apple burger (gorgonzola optional). In order to get through a menu like this, you really need to make this place your local and it seemed that was what the regulars had done.

But deciding which burger isn’t the only tough choice you’ll make here – their beer menu is almost as sprawling as Tokyo itself. They’ve got beers from all continents of the world. Heineken is on tap but notable mentions include the Kenyan Tusker, the American Anchor Steam Beer, and Belgium’s Duvel. With a list like this I’m embarrassed to say, their one and only beer representing Australia is VB. They also have their own house label, including an Amber Ale and a Red Rice Ale.

After much deliberation I decided to go with the avocado burger which came with a small side of wedges. It was fantastic. The patty was cooked to perfection and every element was fresh and assembled with serious Japanese precision. Truly a great burger.

Go there. The address, if you can make any sense of addresses in Japan is: J-Cube A Building 1F, 6-12-7 Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. You could ask for directions at a tourist information but you’ll probably have much more fun getting lost in the back streets of Shibuya trying to find it yourself. If you’re into merch, they have an online store. Check out the Save Japan charity shirts.

The Pork and Fennel Burger with Lemon Confit

This burger is unashamedly inspired by the pastry encrusted pork and fennel wonders found at Paul Allam and David McGuinness’s Bourke St Bakery. In turn, they say that their sausage rolls were inspired by butcher shops and backyard BBQs all over Sydney.

In the patty:

• Pork mince
• Chop a couple of cloves of garlic, a carrot, 2 sprigs of celery and half an onion
• Half a handful of fennel seeds
• A few sprigs of fresh thyme
• Salt and pepper
• Lemon zest

You could just chuck all of these ingredients in with the mince but I find you get so much more flavour if you cook the garlic in some olive oil then add the fennel seeds and thyme, wait until it’s aromatic. Then throw in the onion and celery and let them soften. Finally, the zest and carrot and cook them until you’ve got a nice mushy mess. Then let it all cool before mixing it in with the pork, salt and pepper.

Serve it on:

• Wholemeal buns, toast them
• Cheddar cheese, Crackerbarrel is good
• Rocket
• Okonomiyaki sauce, get it at a Japanese supermarket and while you’re there grab some Kewpie
• Mayonnaise

Now I know that this is looking like a pretty labour intensive burger, but wait there’s more. I happened to have a lemon confit that I’d  made a couple of days earlier to go with some John Dory – a recipe from Peter Gilmore. Anyway a small dollop was perfect on this burger. All you have to do is zest a couple of lemons and throw out the bitter white section and the seeds. Blanch the zest for a minute in boiling water (3 times if you’re keen) then mix the zest, lemon flesh and 100G of sugar and cook over a low heat until it’s all broken down into a concentrate. You can keep it in the fridge and eat it with anything you want.

• and lemon confit

With:

• Thick cut potato chips

The beer:

Pike’s Oakbank Pilsener goes perfectly. It’s got a fresh, crisp taste with a light, fruity aftertaste. This is a great example of some of the amazing beers being made by Australian winemakers right now.

The verdict? All the flavours of a Bourke St Bakery pork and fennel sausage roll with a zap of lemon. Not bad at all. I cooked it for a self confessed Bourkery addict and she was as happy as a pig in mud.

The Wagyu Burger

So what’s the go with all these wagyu burgers? It seems that everywhere you go, whether it’s just a pub or a flash restaurant, everybody has jumped onto the bandwagyun. Even Subway has got in on the act. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like wagyu beef, when I lived in Osaka you’d just had to say, ‘beef’ and in a flash I’d be on the super express train to Kobe. But that was different. Thinly sliced, highly marbled with fat and cooked to perfection it was definitely something worth traveling for.

But I’ve got to be honest, as much as I love burgers, I can’t help but think that using some of the finest beef in the world for mince should be classified a mortal sin and anybody who does so should be made into mince meat themselves. But in reality, wagyu mince is more than likely just made up of the cuts of meat that aren’t exported to Japan. By the look of the relatively low fat content in most wagyu mince, you would think that this is the case.

Anyway, I picked up a good lump of 100% wagyu mince from Glenmore meats in Glebe and thought I’d give the wagyu burger a red hot run. I wanted to taste the flavour of the beef as much as possible so I decided to season the mince with just salt and pepper and not worry about adding any other flavours to the patty. Enough talk let’s do this:

For the patty:

• Wagyu beef mince,
• A good shake of salt and pepper and
• An egg.

I subscribe to the Heston Blumenthal method of turning the patties every 30 seconds or so on the BBQ. This helps the meat to cook nice and evenly and ensures that you don’t end up with a dry patty.

Serve it on:

• Good quality buns, don’t buy the super sweet ones you find in most supermarkets. I went with nice buns from Brasserie Bread, they told me they’re made with real butter which makes me wonder what other buns are made with.
• A good dollop of mayo, I can never go past Kewpie
• A few slices of avocado
• Baby rocket
• A good strong cheddar, I picked up a Red Leicester which was perfect
• A squirt of tomato sauce

With:

• Kipfler potato chips. Slice them up, give them a par boil and fry them on the BBQ with lots of butter, they’ve got a really nice sweet flavour.

The beer:

Mad Brewers’ Limited Release Scribbly Gum Lager. From the makers of James Squire, this is a good, full flavoured lager. There’s a hint of smoke and a bit of a floral bouquet. I’ve got to go find this on tap before it runs out.

The verdict? Good. The mince tasted great but no better than a good quality angus mince. A lightly fried egg would go really well on top but some would argue that would disguise the wagyu flavour, a sin that should be punished with decapitation followed by a good plucking.

Just Gotta Go

The steady decline of Oporto has been the sauce of great angst for chicken burger lovers across Sydney over the past few years. Possibly brought on by the $60 million takeover by QSR (owners of Red Rooster) in 2007, the burgers simply don’t pack the flavour that they used to. The famous piripiri sauce isn’t the same, the chicken is dry and more often than not my visits to Oporto have been serious disappointments.

A few years ago a small cafe in McMahon’s Point made amazing Portuguese chicken burgers (pictured) and rumour had it that the owners were originally half of the partnership with Oporto founder Antonio Cerqueira. But the cafe had to close after a lengthy court battle, possibly over council zoning laws.

Sure, good alternatives exist in Petersham (more on this later), but I haven’t found anyone who does the Portuguese chicken burger quite like Olies. Located in the original shop where the Oporto phenomenon was born in 1986 in North Bondi, Olies is a living shrine to the original Oporto taste.

Olie’s classic burger is grilled chicken, lettuce, cheese and mayo. They also do the classic with chilli, which I was told was the most popular burger, and big versions of both.

I went for the Ben Buckler burger which included tomato and avocado but I asked for a splash of chilli sauce as well. Named after the area and a convict who, as legend has it, lived in a cave in the cliffs of North Bondi, the burger really hit the spot. Lightly toasted buns enveloped chicken that was grilled to perfection, crisp and golden brown on the outside and tender on the inside. A generous dollop of creamy mayonnaise sat atop a thick slice of tomato and blended nicely with the melted cheese. On the bottom slice, lettuce lay among a layer of avocado cream. It was rounded out with a portion of thick potato chips heavily dusted in chicken salt.

They also sell whole chickens, butterflied Portuguese style but if chicken’s not your thing there were plenty of other options including beef and veggie burgers.

It seems that North Bondi is the sauce of the great Portuguese chicken burger once more.

Coming Soon

Hot news! My favourite Japanese burger chain, Mos Burger are firing up their grills in Australia. It seems they’ll be opening their doors first in Brisbane on the 31st March. Mos Burger was a staple for me while I lived in Japan, I loved the chicken teriyaki burger. While the burgers are generally smaller than most other burger chains, they pack so much more flavour and they are all cooked fresh to order. They include onion ring options in their set, but I love the fact that they serve your coke in a glass with crushed ice. They are also famous for the rice burger, a burger that uses rice patties instead of buns. I can’t say that I’ve ever been tempted by this one though.

In typical Japanese style, they’ve often got a special limited edition flavour. Last time I was in Japan it was the Go! Go! Asia burger, a salt butter chicken burger which came complete with a french fry rosti. Can’t wait to see what they’ll bring out in Australia. I wonder whether their market research has uncovered Aussie classics like beetroot, egg and pineapple. Whatever, as long as it’s drowned in Kewpie Mayonnaise, I’ll be stoked.