Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Juicy Lucy Burger

Disclaimer: this recipe has nothing to do with our dog, Lucy!

Juicy Lucy burgers are native to Minneapolis - they're burgers with a molten core of cheesy goodness. Be careful, because the first bite is messy and potentially super-hot! They are fairly easy to make, as long as you tightly seal the burgers around the cheese. You can see a bit of cheese escaping from the burger above, but that's not a big deal. I like to serve burgers on slider buns - it always seems like there is too much bread in the standard buns. A great accompaniment are these five-star oven fries.

To make the burgers, form eight very thin burgers; put the cheese, folded into fourths, on top of one burger; then top with the other burger. Pinch the edges and form into patties. They should look like this when you start cooking:

Juicy Lucy Burgers

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 pounds ground beef (I used 1 1/4)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 slices American cheese
4 hamburger buns, split
DIRECTIONS:
1.Combine ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and pepper in a large bowl; mix well. Form 8, thin patties from the beef. Each patty should be slightly larger than a slice of cheese.
2.Cut each slice of American cheese into 4 equal pieces; stack the pieces. Sandwich one stack of cheese between 2 ground beef patties. Tightly pinch edges together tightly seal the cheese within the meat. Repeat with the remaining cheese and patties.
3.Preheat a cast-iron or other heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat. Cook burgers until well browned, about 4 minutes. It is common for burgers to puff up due to steam from the melting cheese. Turn burgers and prick the top of each to allow steam to escape; cook until browned on the outside and no longer pink on the inside; about 4 minutes. Serve on hamburger buns.

4 comments:

Alison... said...

Cheese makes everything wonderful, doesn't it?

There is an episode of the show 'The King of Queens' where his friend's girlfriend is in culinary school and Doug suggests a recipe to her of an 'inside out cheese burger' which of course is the same as this...

I love the idea!

Yum

Stephanie Carnes said...

Cheese, glorious cheese!

Kristen said...

Glad to hear you're not eating your dog. I will be making this one too - probably on the grill this weekend!

Stephanie Carnes said...

Jeff and I thought they'd be great on the grill - let me know how they turn out!!