hamburger, fries, Burger-Fi, Denver, sunset

From their website:

We were started in a gourmet kitchen. By gourmet chefs. They didn’t know fast food, so we’re less burger joint, more five-star restaurant. Meaning, there are no shortcuts. Or microwaves, freezers, or heat lamps for that matter. 

We cut. We chop. We mix, instead.

Well look at you.

A 5-star restaurant would have white tablecloths, substantial hefty serviceware, comfortable seating and there would not be two gigantic ice soda drink dispensers dominating the visual field. And food would be served on plates not in paper baskets. But let's not have any of that interfere with this idealization.

Our beef is purveyed from the best, most natural ranches on earth. Where cattle roam free. Eat grass. Breathe mountain air. And, are treated humanely. This doesn’t come easy. Certainly not cheap. Truth is, there are simpler ways to put a burger on a bun. But, they’re not better. 

If you say so then it is so.

No hormones, no antibiotics, not now, not ever. 

We appreciate all that. We do. What about steroids? What about branding? What about tagging their ears? Castrating bulls into steers? What about genetically modified corn and feed? How are pathogens managed? Do they put a ring in their nose to lead them around to their massage sessions and their beer drinking sessions like the insanely coddled Kobi Wagyu?  Still, the ring. Do you jab a ring through their nose?

Fries are hand cut.

It is a very good hamburger. 

I bought a malted milkshake and Chicago style hot dog to bring home.

Ha! These photos were just now "favorited" on Flicker before I finished this post. They notify by email when somebody does. 

scrambled egg with asparagus tomato and cheese, hamburger

It's one egg.

Scrambled egg prepared as sauce. The mass of egg dries as you go, and you go just a little too far, take it off, and add sour cream to the mass and that stops cooking and reverses the slight overdone dryness you allowed. It's a trick. Then asparagus seared in butter on one side is added along with raw tomato. This time a single slice of processed cheese solidifies the whole thing. It's very good tasting and I suppose probably good for you as well. That will be $11.00, please. 

Hamburger and buns

Hamburger from prime rib, red bell pepper, asparagus

BBQ sauce is catsup that is already adjusted with cayenne powder adjusted further with brown sugar and rice vinegar. It is very good.

The hamburger is one of two formed from 1LB slab cut from a prime rib already roasted to medium rare. It's not the best idea. It cannot hold together as well as raw meat will. Raw meat will coalesce in an hour or so in the refrigerator, but this tends to crumble. Chopped in the Cuisineart in pulses half-roasted, half raw and pre-mixed with cold butter the resulting thoroughly cooked burger is very tasty. I will do this again with 100% raw meat. After this pre-ground hamburger meat will be just slumming it. There is no reason to mess around anymore.

Hamburger, rye, oregano, sage buns

The mad bread-making skillz set in my possession are a gift given me from my younger self. Thank you, Younger Self, it is one of my favorite things from you. I never have buns this good in the outside world except rarely, like at Bittersweet restaurant, they are one of few exceptions that prove the rule. Others have very good bread, but not so good as this. The bun was difficult to cut because it was so light and so fresh and it toasted on both sides very lightly to a tender crunch. Delightful, right out of the oven like that, then right out of the toaster. You don't see that. The meat is is just meat, eh, but the bread is really something.

Here is what makes this bread so excellent: 1 tablespoon buttermilk powder included with the flour. The dough was exceedingly wet. I ran out of flour and didn't want to open another package, so I stirred the dough as much as kneaded it, then coated the dough with oil to form the buns with oiled hands leaving the dough wet with water throughout and wet with oil surface. I thought the acid in the buttermilk would interfere with the yeast but it didn't. The wet dough allowed for a thin skin. The buttermilk makes the skin incredibly attractively light and crispy when toasted. They are impressive dinner rolls. 

The lettuce is old and so is the tomato but that does not matter. This is one of my favorite hamburgers because of its rye/oregano bun and because of its simplicity. All impulses were denied; cheese, mustard, avocado, onion, garlic, chile, pickles, none of that.

Hamburger, mozzarella, red bean bun

You must design your own herb garden or else buy one prearranged, and where's the fun in that? I have two vaguely vertical elements, chives, that do not grow so thickly. Basil grows very well, so does tarragon. Those two are bushy and are already trimmed twice. The sage is trimmed once. The chives have more seeds added to their little sponge cups to help them fill out and to stagger them. The two slow cups are mint and parsley. Once they get going those two things really take off. This is the early stages. The lamp is still in the lowest position.

The buns are made heavy with cooked bean polenta, well seasoned and good by itself. It would make a good dip. I only want a few tablespoons.

Hamburger with green chile and Asiago, bunless

Where the green chile chili is red.

Long hamburger with jalapeño

Hamburger, jalapeño, penne

I was surprised how quickly and effortlessly this went. 

Thinking of Mum tonight who flat did not like to cook. She hid her repulsion quite well and performed her maternal duty loyally but the whole thing began falling apart near the end through the use of boxed convenience foods wherever possible such as potato flakes, quick rices, boxed Roni-this-and-that dinners and the full range of Hamburger Helpers all still involving cooking and all still needing additional ingredients so not a complete abandonment, and once examined hardly a help at all. She fooled herself imagining she was getting out of unpleasant cook-tasks. These items are marketed for new cooks and people with scant imagination or interest. All of those partial-cooking type conveniences are as easily pulled off by purchasing items separately and combining them yourself. The whole grocery store aisle can be ignored with no forfeit whatsoever. The only thing those products actually help with is deciding the spices for you and providing powders that produce a sauce.

The seasons don't fear the spices, nor do the wind the sun or the rain.

This meal was completed faster than any of those things with items keep on hand and the advantage is ingredients are fresh. This is among the laziest meals possible, one step beyond cereal and milk. 

Oliver's prime hamburger, sprung potato

Sprung as in spring, but if I said spring then you'd think Spring so I saved you a fake out.

This is slice, slice, slice, turn the potato and slice between slices, and then I realized I have a machine that does this in one continuous spiral but it pulls out a potato plug from the center and when it comes to eating it turns out one long continuous potato spiral is not all that fun to eat. 

I thought it would be.

But it is not.

You do not mess with excellent hamburger. Colorado beef. Dry aged. 

Another one of those excellent things that comes by way of deprivation, by accident, by people being lazy or stupid or all of those things. Think of the most banal thing possible and that is how excellent things are discovered and how mankind advances. Then forgotten. This is why Tony's butchers with their Colorado prime beef and Wagyu and such cannot beat Oliver's.

Joe said, "It isn't rocket science."

?

"Those guys up in Montana didn't have freezers. They had to store all that meat someplace. They hung it up in the barn, and boom, aged beef."

Why Montana by way of example is not clear but his point supports my own so no argument here. 

Really not messed with. No sauce, no chile, no garlic, so not-messed-with that it is seared on one side only, the other side protected by sweet onion. The onion is fried on that side but the meat is not. 

Not even salt. Never salt on any steak while frying. This is contrary to what you might officially learn. Dry rubs on roasts with salt are okay, but not on steaks nor hamburgers. The reason is because salt pulls out moisture, salt on the surface pulls moisture to the surface where it is seared off. So don't do that. 

Then let it rest. A while. An uncomfortable while. I get it, you're hungry, but the steak or hamburger must rest. 

Why?

The meat fibers are denatured and wrung tight like a mop by high heat. Allowing the meat to relax means allowing the individual meat-fibers to relax and like a mop that relaxes it will then absorb back the juice it squeezed out and did not fry off because you wisely avoided adding salt to the surface until serving. 

Hamburger, lettuce, tomato

Hamburger, homemade buns