Put a little Friday night in your weekday burger. While the patty itself is pretty basic (feel free to snazz it up with your favorite grill seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, etc.) the blue cheese, olive and celery sauce is, as the kids say, lit.
It may come as a surprise that I am recommending a shelf-stable bottled salad dressing, but after a bit of research (meaning I tried all of the bottles of dressing I had), I found that blue cheese dressings found in the refrigerated section mostly tasted like ranch with a handful of cheese crumbles tossed in. They were sweet and weird, while Wish-Bone Chunky Blue Cheese dressing really tasted like blue cheese. If you want to make your own dressing for this recipe, I salute you. I am far more interested in perfecting my accompanying gin to vermouth ratio.
Martini Burger
4 servings
1 cup chunky blue cheese dressing (like Wish-Bone)
? cup chopped pimento-stuffed Spanish olives
¼ cup chopped celery
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1? lb. ground chuck
Kosher salt to taste
Vegetable oil for greasing
4 English muffins, toasted
• Prepare a charcoal grill for medium-high, direct heat.
• In a small bowl, combine the blue cheese dressing, chopped olives, celery and pepper to taste. Set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, gently mix the ground chuck with salt and pepper to taste. Divide the meat evenly into 4 balls, then form patties, making a small indent in the center of each.
• Lightly brush the grill grate with oil. Oil the grill and cook the patties with the indent facing up 4 to 5 minutes. Flip and grill another 4 to 5 minutes for medium doneness.
• Place the burgers on the English muffin bottoms, then add a scoop of the blue cheese-olive mixture. Cover with the remaining English muffin tops and serve.
This article appears in April 2016.