Nov 17 2008
Homemade herbed hamburgers, two ways to eat it
I’ve been meaning to learn to make our own hamburgers so that we do not need to eat those store-bought frozen hamburgers which are oily and full of MSG. Considering hamburgers merely consist of ground meat, how hard can it be right?
Besides, The Food Critic is really crazy about hamburgers. Every time we go to the grocery store, he simply must stop at the frozen food and pick out a packet of hamburgers. A few times when we do eat out, he’d insist on choosing an American restaurant like TGIF serving good burgers (nope, it is definitely not the same as those fast-food burgers!). So, in response to his special request for homemade hamburgers, I gave it a try.
I didn’t really go around searching for a hamburger recipe. In fact, I borrowed some tips from Jessie’s (The Hungry Mouse) meatball recipe and changed it a bit. After all, meat patties or hamburgers are simply the flatter, bigger version of meatballs. I think. Heheh.
Anyway, this is the end result…
Of course The Food Critic was ecstatic. He finally gets to eat homemade hamburgers without needing to spend a fortune at some overpriced restaurant. I made quite a lot, so he actually ate it for lunch and dinner!
So, here’s the recipe for:
Homemade Herbed Hamburgers
Ingredients
For hamburger
600gm minced port & chicken
2 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp mixed fresh herbs, finely chopped
2 tbsp light soy sauce
3 - 4 tbsp instant oats (or you could use breadcrumbs if you want)
For special sauce
3 tbsp peas
3 tbsp diced carrots
2 large onions, diced
2 tbsp garlic, diced
5 no. fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp oyster sauce (or mushroom sauce)
1 tbsp light soy sauce
4 tbsp soya milk (sugarless)
1 tbsp chicken stock
a dash of pepper
2 tbsp corn flour
5 -6 tbsp water
Instructions
6. Heat up some oil in a pan. Form meat patties with a ladle and slide it into the hot oil.
I know you must be wondering why there’s also a ’special sauce’ ingredients. Well, instead of just serving up the hamburgers as well, burgers, I thought I might as well use the leftover oil in the pan to create a special sauce as toppings for the meat patties to be served as a main dish, like this:
So, now that you’ve fried all of your burgers and there is some oil left. Don’t throw it out! Use it to make the special sauce as it would have all the added flavours of the meat. Right from the start, I used olive oil and I didn’t use much oil so ended up, I have about 3 tbsp of oil left in the wok which is just perfect for the sauce.
Now, on to the sauce:
4. Stir and mix the sauces well. The corn flour is to thicken it so that it won’t be so watery.

5. Sautee the garlic and onions in the same pan used to fry the burgers. If you look, you'd notice that there's still some bits of meat from the burgers I fried earlier.
7. Then add in the sauces and stir.
9. Then it is done, ready to be served with the meat patties / hamburgers.
But if you prefer something you can eat on the go, then you don’t need to prepare the sauce. Just serve the meat patties as the filling for a hamburger sandwich.
So, there you have it. One herbed hamburger, two different ways to serve it!

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Courtesy of Jessie, The Hungry Mouse
Courtesy of April, The Hungry Engineer



