Blue Cheese Burgers

  

            Man, am I  looking forward to grilling tonight! My wife, Rachel, and I are eating Blue Cheese Burgers in a little while. Ever had one?

            We have these on our menu at our restaurant, RB’s Bodacious Bistro, in Columbia. We call it the “Big Gary.”  We named it for Gary Gregor who is like my big brother. Gary played basketball at South Carolina in the mid 1960’s. He was an undersized center at a listed 6’6”. He battled centers much taller than him in the ACC. He averaged around 16 points and 13 rebounds a game. Gary was an NBA first round draft pick in 1968, chosen by the Phoenix Suns as their first pick ever (they were an expansion team that year). The Dallas Cowboys also drafted Gary to play football. Gary spent a lot of time at our house during his time at Carolina and has always been a close friend. He asked me if we were going to have a Blue Cheese Burger at the restaurant. I told him we certainly were. We surprised him at our grand opening when I showed him our menu with his name gracing the burger.

            Now, let’s get back to the burger. We use ground chuck beef, not ground beef. The chuck has more flavor. We use a blend of 80% beef and 20% fat. Remember that fat is flavor. You can use a leaner meat but your burger will probably be a little drier with less flavor. That’s not a good combination in my book.

            Rachel is hand pattying (if that is a word) the burgers right now. She puts Worcestershire, salt, pepper, and garlic in the meat. She mixes the meat in a large bowl and lets it sit to meld the flavors.

            In a few minutes, she will split a patty in half. She will put sliced onions and Blue Cheese Crumbles on top of one of the halves. Then, she will cover the half burger with the other half. Think of an Oreo cookie. She will press the edges of the burger together so that it looks like a regular burger. That allows the onions and Blue Cheese to cook inside the burger without oozing out of the sides. One important thing to remember, we put a compression in the center of the burger with our thumb. This allows the meat to cook evenly, without “balling up” like a cue ball.

            We are cooking on charcoal instead of gas tonight. There is just something about grilling with charcoal for burgers and steaks. We will get a good sear on both sides of the burgers and then we will finish grilling the burgers on a cooler side of the grill.

            When the burgers are finished on the grill, we will let them rest on a platter (covered slightly with tin foil) for about 8-10 minutes. This is very important because the juices in the meat are near the surface when you first take them off the grill. When they rest a few minutes the juices move back toward the center of the burger (or any meat you may be cooking). Have you ever eaten a burger right off the grill? The juice ends up rolling down your arms more times than not.

            While we wait for the burger to rest, we’ll put a nice dollop of Blue Cheese dressing on a bun, along with leaf lettuce and a vine ripe tomato. We diced an “already baked” potato and put it in the oven. The potato will be crunchy, kind of like big Hash Browns.  

Now we are ready. We will slide the Blue Cheese Burger on the bun and take a big bite. Now that’s some good eatin’!

            Hey Rachel, what’s for dessert?

            Ha, she said our homemade RB’s Banana Pudding! Guess it’s salad for me tomorrow.

Bill Gause

RB’s Bodacious Bistro

803-251-0303