How to Grill French-Style Burgers
Three Ways to Enhance Ground Beef or Lamb with French Ingredients
What makes a burger French? Besides the McDonalds on Rue de Rivoli.
Hamburgers may be considered by many to be all-American food. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from a little French twist. A little blue cheese here, a little Dijon and Cognac there, and what about lamb with the classic Provençal flavors of garlic and rosemary.
All three of these recipes follow the same preparation and cooking method. The difference is in the ingredients. Try all three and you may never go back to ordinary hamburgers again.
Bleu Cheeseburger
What could be more French than blue cheese? Roquefort is a classic topping for a great steak, so why not on in your burger? Rather than the usual cheese slice melted on top, this recipe recommends mixing the blue cheese crumbles into the ground beef mixture. This makes the cooking less messy and you won’t be dropping any of those precious cheese bits into the fire.
Any full-flavored blue cheese (or even other cheeses) can be used in this recipe.
- 1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
- 1/4 lb blue cheese, crumbled
- 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped (optional)
- 1/2 tsp salt (depending on how salty the blue cheese is)
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Follow the “preparation method” below.
Dijon Burgers with Cognac
- 1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
- 1 1/2 Tbsp Cognac (or other brandy)
- 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard (check out which Dijon rated best among taste-testers)
- 1 Tbsp fresh chives, finely snipped
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Follow the “preparation method” below.
Lamburgers a la Provençe
- 1 1/2 lbs. ground lamb
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped very fine
- 2 Tbsp capers, drained and chopped very fine (optional)
- 1/4 cup of flat leaf parsley, chopped
- 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Follow the “preparation method” below.
Preparation method
- In a large bowl, break up the ground meat. Add the other ingredients and mix them together with your hands. If the beef is too lean, you may have to add a little olive oil or an egg to get the mixture to hang together.
- Divide the mixture into four equal portions and mold each one into a ball.
- Between a folded sheet of waxed paper, press down to form a patty. Repeat, to form the three other patties.HINT for flat burger patties: Grilling burgers tends to swell them up in the middle, making them a little awkward on the bun. The outside cooks more quickly and the ligatures in the meat contract, sort of like tightening a belt. You can avoid swollen patties by making a depression in the middle of the patty when you’re forming it, maybe an inch or two across. That gives the meat a place to swell to.
- Refrigerate the patties until you are ready to cook. The burger patties can be made several hours ahead to give you more time with your meal-mates.
Cooking method
- Pre-heat your grill for about fifteen minutes. Even if you’re cooking with gas, you want the metal grill to be very hot.
- When you’re ready to cook, give the grill a good wipe with vegetable oil. Use a wad of paper towels held with your barbecue tongs so you don’t burn the hair off your fingers. That’s not an appetizing smell.
- Place the patties on the grill, depression side up, and cook them until the one side is well seared, about 2 1/2 minutes. Resist the temptation to move them around at this stage or you run the risk of them falling apart.
- Flip the patties. A spatula at least as wide as the patties makes this easier.
- Cook the second side to the desired degree of doneness: another 2 1/2 minutes for medium-rare, 3 minutes for medium, 4 minutes for well-done.
- Serve immediately with buns and your favorite toppings.
Hungry for more French?
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