Hamburger

OK, no more stale joke.

Originally, this page contained only the statement

Oh, you're kidding, right? You didn't seriously expect a recipe for a hamburger, did you?

The joke is now long stale. Unfortunately, I am not exactly the right person to find hamburger recipes from; in contrast to the other things you find on my dinner page, when I have a hamburger, it's pretty stark and simplistic (1/4 lb. ground beef (cooked well, please), bun, plenty of mustard, maybe some lettuce). An expert on unusual hamburger condiments or recipes I'm not. (And yes, I've had people in other countries ask what condiments are popular on hamburgers. For the record: ketchup, mustard (yellow, brown, dijon), pickle relish, pickles (in the US, specifically pickled cucumbers), chopped onions, chopped or sliced tomatoes, occasionally bacon, and rarely mayonnaise. Plus whatever industrial sludge it is that MacDonalds puts on their hamburgers. But some people put just about anything edible on their hamburgers.)

However, I do have one recipe which is somewhat off the beaten track, taken from one of my Chinese cookbooks (not surprisingly). I rarely prepare it (in fact, too rarely, it is quite good). So, in penance for leaving a stale joke in place about a year too long, I present:

Chang Family Burger (Ngo Yoke Bang)

Taken from An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking, Chang and Kutscher, ISBN 0-517-506610.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground chuck
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 scallion, chopped
• 2 slices ginger (about the size of a quarter), chopped
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar

Preparation

Mix all ingredients; make 8 to 10 hamburger patties.

Cooking

Grease frying pan with peanut oil; cook as hamburgers.

(Garnish, presumably, with beak.) Sorry, that's another of those stale jokes butting in.

Tips:

The cookbook suggests adding 10 dried shrimp, shredded very fine, to the mix; and also suggests substituting 1 tablespoon oyster sauce for the soy sauce. A similarly named recipe (Ma Tie Ngo Yoke Bang) on the facing page is "steamed ground chuck with water chestnuts":

• 1 cup water chestnuts, chopped
• 1 scallion, chopped
• 4 slices ginger (about the size of a quarter), chopped
• 1 lb. ground chuck
• 1 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 TBS cornstarch

Mix all ingredients in dish and steam over boiling water 30 to 35 minutes. Now that I'll have to go try.