Sliders, Your Own Way

What is it about miniature foods that makes them that much more enticing?

I'm not going to bother answering that here, as I'm sure we can all come up with a few reasons. I will say this, though: if you tend not to prepare meat for yourself very often, or, hey, maybe you don't even eat meat that often anyway, I think some truly homemade sliders are a good place to start.

What I mean by truly homemade is that you start with good meat. I find myself pretty grossed out by a fair portion of the meat that finds its way into burgers, however it would be outright wrong for me to say I don't like fast food burgers. When I'm out of state, I salivate when I think of an In-N-Out Burger. And, much as I hate to admit this, my I'm-starving-and-I'm-hating-today comfort food tends to be a Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's Jr.

But I think I may have actually found a replacement. For me, the "best burgers ever" are about the patty. Here's what I'm suggesting:

INGREDIENTS & CONTRAPTIONS

Yeah, you're going to need a meat grinder for this one. You can get a manual one for around $40. If you are near the San Jose flea market, they have some on the cheap, too!

• Your choice of meat. [This is the best part. You can pick what you like! I like lean, grass-fed cuts that don't have a lot of ligaments or other 'stuff' in them.]
  
• Any sort of herbs, spices, etc. you want to incorporate. Ideas: onion, garlic, lemon juice, pepper, salt, cilantro, oregano, basil, dried tomatoes, etc.
  

PREPARATION

1 Cut your meat into pieces that your grinder can work with, often times 1.5" strips or so. Trim off any portions of meat you don't want to eat.

2 Grind it through once, collecting it in a bowl.

3 Mix in any spices you'd like. Depending on the texture you want, and how well distributed you want the flavor, you can do this entirely by hand, or you can start using your hands, and then finish by running the mixture through the grinder a second time.

4 When you're done, use a simple kitchen scale to weigh your meat. Since grinding meat is a bigger task, you can grind a bunch up and then pack bags of whatever amount you normally eat for freezing. I like to do mostly one pound bags, labeled with the weight, the date I ground it, and what I added in.

SERVING

This is the easy part. You probably know exactly what you like on your burger. Here's some ways you can change it up, though, if you're feeling like your go-to combination is getting old:

• Make a slider bar: Cook up patties that are just under 2 inches across. Cut buns into fourths, make your own, or use some bread instead. Put out all the fixin's and let everyone go to town.
• Do a cheese change-up: Seriously. If you already know you don't hate cheese, I can pretty much guarantee you there's more cheeses out there your pallet will like. Do some research at the special cheese bar in a grocery store. Lately, I'm loving melting the amazingly creamy Point Reyes Blue Cheese on mine, but I'm also partial to Gruyere.
• Add the forgotten veggies: And there are many: kale, chard, asparagus, kohlrabi, leek, carrots, etc. Often they should be cooked first, but still. There are hundreds of varieties of tomatoes to choose from, at least try a different kind now and then!

FAVORITE COMBOS

Green onions, Sriracha (or your favorite hot sauce) patty + meunster cheese + kale

Chipotle spiced patty + sauteed sweet peppers

Soy sauce'd patty + blue cheese + wasabi mayonnaise + bitter greens

Garlic, celery salt spiced patty + pesto sauce + sundried tomatoes + mozzarella or ramano cheese


Now if only I could find a good mini-bun recipe...