A Burger to Believe In: Recipes and Fundamentals [A Cookbook]

A Burger to Believe In: Recipes and Fundamentals [A Cookbook]

A Burger to Believe In: Recipes and Fundamentals [A Cookbook]

A Burger to Believe In: Recipes and Fundamentals [A Cookbook]

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Overview

A deep-dive into the art and philosophy of making the perfect hamburger, with recipes for game-changing burgers and all the accoutrements.

Chris Kronner has dedicated his creative energy, professional skills, and a lifetime of burger experiences to understanding America's favorite sandwich. In his debut cookbook, this trusted chef reveals the secrets behind his art and obsession, and teaches you how to create all of the elements of a perfect burger at home. Including tips for sourcing and grinding high-quality meat, musings on what makes a good bun, creative ideas for toppings (spoiler alert: there are more bad ideas out there than good, and restraint is the name of the game), and more than forty burger accompaniments and alternatives—from superior onion rings to seasonal salads to Filet-O-Fish-inspired Crab Burgers—this book is not only a burger bible, but also a meditation on creating perfection in simplicity.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780399579271
Publisher: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date: 05/22/2018
Sold by: Random House
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 136 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

CHRIS KRONNER took over the kitchen at Slow Club at the age of 24. He has worked at Serpentine and Bar Tartine, where he continued to hone his burger chops, and after a run of pop-ups he opened KronnerBurger in 2015. He and the restaurant have been praised by writers from Vice, Eater, Food & Wine, and Bon Appetit.

PAOLO LUCCHESI is the editor of the award-winning food and wine section at the San Francisco Chronicle and was a founding editor of Eater. He is the co-author of Flour + Water: Pasta and The Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream Book.

Read an Excerpt

PREAMBLE 

There is no perfect. 

The hamburger is possibly America’s most recognizable and representative food. What started as the most democratic, wholesome square meal meant to be consumed quickly for a fair price has mutated into forms unrecognizable to those original burger salesmen, not to mention the ranchers who raised the beef. Since the hamburger’s creation, it has followed the revolutions and undulations of farming and economics in this country. Its path—and current forms—cannot be separated from the divergent systems of farming and animal rearing in the United States. On one extreme, there is the fast-food hamburger. Like the corporate industrial farms of which it is a product, it champions speed, quantity, and a price only achievable through subsidies and methods that compromise taste, animals, land, and the people involved in the systems that produce and consume it. On the other side is the well-intentioned, but often fetishized, higher-end product, which places importance on better values but struggles to make its product financially viable and accessible to the masses. 

I have eaten a thousand hamburgers. Hamburgers made of young beef, old beef, dry-aged beef, wet-aged beef, goose, wild boar, venison. Hamburgers made of A5 Kobe, water buffalo, plant-based “meat,” brown bear (also made into burritos), elk, prosciutto. And hamburgers made of the crummiest, grayest, unidentifiably sad meat imaginable. 

I have eaten hamburgers in cars, restaurants, backyards, ballparks, and the woods; on trains and boats; at the movies and the entrance to Machu Picchu; in Denver, Atlanta, Asheville, Seattle, Portland, Nashville, New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Detroit, London, Paris, Beirut, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Montevideo, Mexico City, Lyon, Tokyo; and everywhere in between. 

I have cooked close to a billion hamburgers, mostly in restaurants, many at home, on grills, in microwaves, in alleys, in a couple of museums, on rooftops, in art galleries, in parking lots, and in fields next to said hamburger’s still-grazing brethren. 
I have looked a cow in its eyes before putting a bullet between them. I have seen cows birthed and watched them die. 

What is presented in the following pages is the result of a lot of burger cooking and burger eating. With this book, I originally set out with very specific intentions, to write about the ONE way to make ONE burger using ONE very specific type of beef only. That was dumb. I am dumb. What I found, as Paolo and I dove deeper, is that there are many ways to make a better burger, in the choices you make both in your purchases and preparations. 

Before and during the process of writing of this book, I tried as many types of beef as possible. I also explored as many variations of burger cooking as possible. I have talked burgers and beef with meat salespeople, burger eaters, fancy chefs, line cooks, and beef ranchers of many stripes. We very likely missed some points of view and more than a few closely guarded burger secrets. Maybe your dad cooks burgers over an old, abandoned well full of smoldering tires and lit fireworks. Maybe your grandmother swears by a burger ratio of 80 percent beef, 5 percent French onion soup mix, and 15 percent lean hawk meat. I fully respect your hamburger traditions. 

The beef that I find to be best, in my home of Northern California, may not be available to you. Depending on where you live and cook, use the best of what is available, the ingredients you like the most. If you have access to lovingly raised animals that you can see from your driveway, you are very lucky. If you have the ability to dry-age beef and bake bread, you are very lucky. If you can’t go shake hands with the steer you eat and don’t have desire or space to slowly dry-age your meat, don’t worry, because we have useful burger information for every level of interest and devotion. 

There is no “perfect,” but there is bad. Bad should be avoided if possible. (Trust me on this one.) 

I have watched hamburgers be eaten by the very young and very old, by cowboys and vegans, by beautiful women and equally beautiful boys, mostly resulting in smiles and elation, occasionally total revulsion. 
Which hamburger was the best? Almost all of them. 

You have eaten hamburgers, too. At least one. You may have even enjoyed it. What did it taste like? 

This book is for you. 

Table of Contents

Foreword 6

Preamble 10

1 Cows and Beef and Burgers 23

2 The Kronnerburger 57

Pain de Mie Bun (aka Official Kronnerburger Bun) 62

Dill Pickles 64

Charred Onion 65

Cheddar Mayonnaise 65

Roasted Bone Marrow 66

Tomato 66

Lettuce 66

Kronnerburger: A Burger to Believe In 71

3 Other Burgers 73

Patty Melt 74

Otherburger (Served Not Rare) 77

Earth Burger 82

Breakfast Burger 87

Crab Burger 88

Fried Crab Burger 90

Slow Club Burger 94

Bar Tartine Burger 99

Pickle-Brined Fried Chicken 100

Pork Burger 102

Lamb Burger 104

Shrimp Burger 106

Hand-Cut Burger 108

Rawburger (Served Raw) 111

4 Burger Sides 113

Onion Rings 114

French Fries 118

Steak Fries 124

Potato Chips 125

Sweet Potato Tots 126

French Fry Pavé 127

Gluten Freedom Fries with Freedom Gravy (aka Poutine) 128

Vegan Chili-Cheese Fries 130

Tartare 132

Crab Dip 133

Pimento Cheese 135

Mushroom Dip 136

Chicken Wings Salad 137

A Cool Recipe for Hot Chicken 140

Grilled Chicken Wings 143

Grilled Vegetables 144

Padróns 146

5 Salads 149

Wedge Salad 150

Grilled Cabbage with Grapefruit 153

Tomato and Oyster Salad 154

A Perfectly Simple Chicory Salad 157

Vegan Chopped Salad 158

Okra and Mushroom Salad 164

Radish and Stone Fruit Caesar Salad 167

Tuna Salad 168

Louie Salad (aka Sea Salad) 170

Perfect Eggs 173

Avocado and Crispy Rice 174

Winter Vegetable Salad 176

Kale Salads Are Over 179

Smoky Potato Salad 180

Bean Salad 183

Cauliflower and Fava Salad 184

6 Drinks 187

Alcoholic Drinks

KB Carbonated Margarita 190

Dandy 190

KB Martini 191

Sunshine Sour 191

Falling and Laughing 192

Wanderlust 192

Black Sun 193

Cloud 29 193

Non-Alcoholic Drinks

Lemonade 198

Cucumber Cilantro Cooler 198

Orange Cream Soda 198

Ginger Turmeric Soda 199

Strawberry Mint Lime Soda 199

7 Desserts 201

Honey Pie 202

Devil's Food Cake 205

Doughnut Muffins 208

Passion Fruit Bars 210

Fruit Salad 210

Bacon-Fat Blondies 212

Vegan Coconut Sorbet 213

8 Condiments and Burge Pantry 215

Basic Mayo 216

Calabrian Chile Mayonnaise 216

Vegan "Cheddar" Mayonnaise 217

Quick Mushroom Dip 218

Tofu Mayo 218

Aioli 219

Ranch Dressing 219

Tartar Sauce 220

Yuba Bacon 220

American Cheese 221

Chile Oil 221

Quick Pickled Chiles 223

Bread and Butter Pickles 223

Lacto-Fermented Pickles 224

Chad's Sourdough Leaven 225

Brioche Bun 226

Vegan Bun 227

Gluten-Free Bun 229

Biscuits 230

Pullman Loaf Levain 231

Acknowledgments 234

Index 236

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