Three Meat Burgers

jfm0830 · January 29

These burgers used a recipe called Three Meat Burgers and were from Raichlen's Burgers by Steven Raichlen and they hail from the Balkans where they are called cevapcici. They are sausage shaped ground meat patties. They use lamb plus any combination of beef, veal & pork. This version of the recipe called for beef, lamb & pork plus some seasonings, fresh parsley, beef broth & baking soda. The baking soda supposedly helps keep the mixture light. In fact the mixture is refrigerated for two hours before grilling over high heat. The burgers are served on a crusty roll with diced tomatoes, onions & red bell peppers as condiments. Now originally I was going to make a BBQ pork burger that is sort of like a pulled pork sandwich burger from this same book, but when I spotted this three meat burger I knew it was right up my wife's alley. Well I did good, she declared it to be the best burger she ever remembers having. It didn't do that much for me, but the meat was extremely tasty & highly seasoned. For me: give me a smokey bacon cheeseburger, but as I said I did do this for my wife and I chose well. Onto the pix...

It snowed about 2" from the time I began prepping the burgers until after dark when I cooked them. As we all know a little snow doesn't phase the Egg one bit. I did learn something about my new grill gazebo though: The bad news is that with a little wind, the snow does land on the grills to some extent. The good news is that in the aisle where I stand I get to stay dry.

The ingredients for the patties are gathered. Equal parts ground lamb, beef & pork, onion, flat-leafed parsley, beef stock, salt & pepper, baking soda (for lightness it is claimed), ground coriander & an addition by me: ground cumin.

I used my Kitchen scale to weigh out equal portions of the meat.

Here all of the ingredients for the patties are measured out and are ready to mix. Believe it or not those are equal amounts of the lamb (left), beef (center) and pork (right). This is why I used a Kitchen scale.

Everything but the beef stock is in a mixing bowl & get mixed together before adding the beef stock.

The beef stock has been added and the meat mixture is quite soupy. With a bit of difficulty the meat was mixed into 8 sausage shaped patties about 2 1/2" long x a little over 1" in diameter. They went into the refrigerator for 2 hours to firm up.

It is now after dark. The snow has continued to come down and the Egg has been heated up. The Egg was preheated to 550 degrees with the CI half moon raised griddle grate so I could toast the buns. I did those first because as you can see I could only do one bun at a time and I didn't want to keep raising the lid to check on the buns while the meat was cooking. Also I was able to keep close tabs on the buns which didn't take long to cook at 550. This way I might burn the first buns (I didn't), but I wouldn't burn 4 at once.

The buns & griddle grate are off & the meat is on. I'd sprayed the griddle grate with PAM for grilling so I didn't have any problems with these soft patties sticking. The smell from the grilling patties was amazing.

The meat cooked for about 2 1/2 minutes a side x 4 and I pulled them when they were around 160 as measured by my instant read thermometer.

The patties have rested for 2 minutes and it is time to eat. The condiments were diced tomato, onion & bell pepper s.

To make the burgers you used two patties per bun and topped this with the tomatoes, bell pepper & onions. To be honest these patties were tasty enough you didn't need the condiments.

I hit a home run with these burgers for my wife. She just got up a little while ago and the first thing she said was: "Those were the best burgers last night!" I often wonder what she saw in me, but she does enjoy good food...

Jim

SmokeyPitt · January 29

Outstanding! Thanks for another informative post of a tasty recipe. Sounds like you pleased the boss, so nothing more important than that!

Chubbs · January 29

Great story. This is becoming a daily habit if mine. Waking up and reading your story (read: cook) from the night before while enjoying my coffee. As always, great story, looks great, and fantastic pics.

SmokinDAWG82 · January 29

Looks great Jim, why don't you hang a tarp on one side of your shed to block the wind and snow?

Dyal_SC · January 29

Man oh man, that looks phenomenal! That would make me a happy wife too. ;)

jfm0830 · January 29

Thanks guys! My CFO (Chief Female Officer) has been quite supportive of my Egging efforts. When I first got my Egg she thought it was just another grill. Everything coming off the Egg was the best version of whatever I was making. So she quickly figured out I hadn't suddenly upped my game and it was the new grill. She started inviting more folks over for meals and I didn't complain. It gave me an excuse to use the Egg and she bought the food. Win Win.

When I was putting together money at Christmas time to buy the 2nd Egg I was a little short. I could get the Egg, but not the furniture base I wanted. I was going to wait till February when I'd have the money, but she said if that is really what I wanted she would pay what I was short. So long story short: it does pay to keep your CFO happy and make a steady supply of things she likes.

RAC · January 29

Great story and awesome cook! Thanks for you time and effort.

Solson005 · January 29

Looks tasty! I will be bookmarking this and make it sooner than later! =D>

bodski · January 29

As usual, great post Jim. My mouth's watering now. Better head out to lunch.

Stoater · January 29

Looks like you need 3 walls around your grill Jim, I just finished an overhang for my egg and the first blizzard that rolled through opened my eyes. very nice cook. I love lamb.

thetrim · January 30

Awesome cook. Love it

jfm0830 · January 30

Thanks again guys, I appreciate comments.

Stoater said:

Looks like you need 3 walls around your grill Jim, I just finished an overhang for my egg and the first blizzard that rolled through opened my eyes. very nice cook. I love lamb.

@Stoater I've had lots of suggestions for how to do sides and what to use, but to be honest I really like the openness of it. What also worries me is I used to have a 10 x 10 EZ-Up shelter that used to hold the smoke in. On days where it was humid, I could see the clouds of smoke hovering in the air. One of my primary goals with the permanent shelter was I didn't want to die of black lung while enjoying grilling. I'm going to have to get in some more bad weather grilling time and see what happens. In a way as long as I stay dry, I'm not too worried about the Eggs. I am possibly thinking of doing some temporary sides, perhaps made of latticework and they would be in two pieces so I could move them around. The idea being I hang the sides only if needed on the side where the primary wind direction is. But then I'm stuck storing them and I don't have a tool shed or garage. I'll have time to think about it cause my next goal is the get some permanent lighting in there.

hapster said:
...Do you think this basic premise would work for a meatloaf?

@hapster I wouldn't see why not. Most of the meatloaves I have done have been a blend of beef, veal, and pork. While I haven't tried it myself, it certainly would be a flavorful meatloaf based on these burgers. I hope we're talking about a smoked meatloaf here, because there's nothing better than a smoked meatloaf. You'd have to make sure to add ingredients to help hold everything together, like eggs and breadcrumbs. Even before the beef broth was added in at the end, this was a very soft meat mixture. Me, I'd want to avoid using a loaf pan to get the maximum smoke flavor into the meatloaf, and you'd need to do something to help hold it together so it didn't sag into a thick pancake.

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