For that Bear and Badger Burger, have you considered lamb meat? One of the tastiest burgers I had was with lamb meat, chorizo and jalapenos. Was prepared perfectly as well, still a little red on the inside... Getting hungry just thinking about that.
My secret (no longer) ingredient when making burgers is mushroom ketchup.
and I use half and half beef and pork mince, some dijon mustard and very finely chopped onions with bread crumbs and an egg as binding. That's my base, I choose the other flavourings depending on my mood.
Lamb makes a great burger but I, for one, was going for the perfect 'classic' hamburger.
@goober
The half pork half beef sounds interesting, would add that essential fat and make the bacon redundant.
Im not a fan of onion in the patty though, i feel the full hit comes from an onion garnish.
Yeah the pork does provide the fat required, you can change the quantity to 3/4 beef 1/4 pork and it is still great. I definitely would recommend the mushroom ketchup though. It's not as powerful as Worcester(sp?) sauce put with more depth of flavour.
Two times rare breed baby back ribs soaking in beer in the fridge, and I'm about to go to Brockly Markey. Gonna be a good day. Hopefully I can get some good burger mince and buns for our burger challenge.
Intrigued by shroom ketchup use in a burger.
Edit: I wouldn't mix anything into the mince personally, as getting the loose yet chunky texture of the meat right is paramount for my burger experience, and part of the medieval joy of it is chomping into the deeply meaty, pink core. Don't wanna taste anything except that beef.
I hear what your saying nick. The mushroom ketchup is very thin and could lead to the burger being more of a sloppy Joe, that's why I use the bread crumbs. They soak up the excess moisture but also the flavour with it so you don't notice them.
Right - mrs reg has requested easy Asian tonight. Preferably spicy. Need to be able to get ingredients from Tesco and I'd like it to be a bit cheffy. Thinking Thai but can anyone send any ideas / recipes?