I keep reading about different kinds of burgers on Just Bento, and turkey burgers came up at some point, so i had it on the brain already... and I've had a bag of 6 burger buns taking up ungodly amounts of space in my fridge for over 2 weeks now. Turkey's low in fat, so what the hell, we'll try it.
A quick google turned up this pair of articles about turkey burgers on Off The Broiler, a blog new to me but pleasantly nerdy and practical. I stole much of his method, and mixed up a batch of 6 burgers using:
1 lb dark ground turkey
.5 lb white ground turkey
big fat squirt yellow mustard
2 shallots, minced
1 tsp korean miso (with bean chunks, but that seemed to work out ok)
big fat squirt Louisiana hot sauce
I cooked them in a cast iron skillet over medium heat, and they gave off lots of juice, which caramelized into a lovely looking stuff that I couldn't bear to waste, and i found that smearing them around over that browned sauce gave them a very nice color and flavor by sopping up all that proto-fond. One note: flat burgers cook fine, no need to put a little center-dent as you do with beef burgers -- that'll just get you a donut-shaped turkey burger. Heh heh heh.
These tasted pretty good, but still were bland enough to be overpowered by the strong homemade relish I put on. But they were tender and juicy, no dried out low-fat pucks, and quite savory and satisfying. I think the method works, the miso is a tenderizing juice-preserver, and the way is open to flavor experimentation every which way. Yum.
Posted by foodnerd at July 15, 2008 10:13 AM