Lamb Burgers
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 10 min
Total Cook Time: about 15 min
We’ve often made traditional hamburgers and somewhat less traditional, but still fairly common, turkey burgers at home. Recently I was watching a repeat episode of, you guessed it, Diners Drive-ins and Dives and watched with piqued curiosity as one of the chefs prepared a lamb burger. This burger was so tasty, Guy Fieri remarked that it was one of the best burgers he’d ever had. I’m guessing that Mr. Fieri has eaten his fair-share of burgers, so I took notice when I heard him say that. I’d never thought of using ground lamb to make burgers, let alone look for it in the supermarket. And last week, there they were in the meat section…an oasis of ground lamb, all in almost perfect 1lb packages, begging for a home cook’s adaption of what did indeed look like a very tasty burger.
Ingredients – for the burgers:
1 lb ground lamb meat
1 tsp whole cumin seed
1 tsp whole coriander seed
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 tsp oregano
Condiments – I made use of what I had on hand
1 small onion – sliced
a few fresh spinach leaves
1/4 cup ricotta cheese
paprika – to taste
cayenne pepper – to taste
Set a small saute pan or sauce pan over medium-high heat and let it come up to temperature. Add the coriander, cumin, and black peppercorns to the pan and toast until the spices begin to brown a bit and start to release their aroma, about 2-3 min. Transfer the spices to a spice grinder and grind until a fine powder is formed. Place the lamb into a mixing bowl and add the freshly ground spices and oregano and combine. Form into patties (I split the mixture into 3 patties). I cooked the patties, along with the onion slices, on a grill pan set over medium heat (but you can broil them or grill them). I cooked them for about 5 min per side until they were medium rare (as confirmed by a digital probe thermometer).
While the patties were cooking, I combined the ricotta cheese, paprika (about 2 tsp) and cayenne pepper (also about 1 tsp) in a small bowl. For service, I toasted up some buns, set a burger down on the bottom half of the bun, topped it with the grilled onion and fresh spinach, then I smeared some of the ricotta mixture on the top half of the bun. I will admit, they were some damn good burgers. Who needs ground beef when you can use ground lamb instead?
Note: you may notice that this recipe doesn’t call for salt…I almost always use salt when I make burgers. I thought about adding it in when I mixed the lamb and spices together but then I thought I could get away without it because the lamb would have good flavor on its own, as would the freshly ground spices. I was right about that…neither the wife or I missed the salt.
Another note: the ricotta mixture was a good topping (especially since the ricotta was just taking up space in our fridge), but I think some kind of yogurty mixture or some tzatziki sauce would’ve been an even better topping.
