Burger in the Oven

I'll admit it. I am an Adam Roberts fan. You could say that he is one of the top 5 influences of this humble experiment of mine. So naturally when I googled "How to broil a burger in the oven," I was very happy to see this 2011 post of his come up first. It gave me all of the inspiration that I needed to make a delicious burger out of the 1/3 lb of lean ground beef that I took out of the freezer this morning while I was making coffee.

Some of you may still be stuck on one part of that last sentence.

Yes, this burger was made with 95% lean ground beef.

Do not fear for my (remaining) sanity, my friends. I will admit, up front, that I stuffed this burger with 1/2 tablespoon of cold butter before I put it into the oven. So yes, you can keep reading. I'm not blowin' smoke here.

I'm not going to go into a tedious step-by-step for this recipe. All I did was mix the meat with a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, stuff a chunk of butter in the middle of the patty, and roast the burger on a rack at 475 degrees for 14 minutes, plus another 30 seconds to melt the sharp cheddar I placed on top.

Next time, I may cut the cooking time down by a minute or possibly two, but if you're looking for a solid medium (cooked all the way through with the interior meat retaining just a hint of beefy color,) 14 minutes is perfect.

Cube Steak Sandwich

My mother was a financial genius.  Anyone able to feed a family of 8 (six kids and two adults... well okay... six kids, one adult and one Dad.) as well as she did on the budget that she had is nothing short of a miracle worker.  So, needless to say, every single "budget friendly" trick I know, I learned from watching her.

Our primary source of iron was ground beef.  From her famous spaghetti sauce chock full of meatballs to her beef stroganoff to burgers that dad cooked perfectly on the grill, we rarely strayed from this staple of American cuisine.  However, both my parents were steak fanatics.  They absolutely loved a nice rare hunk of unadulterated beefy goodness on their plate.  Unfortunately, big juicy ribeyes (and of course, filet mignon for Mom) were not budget friendly enough to make this more than an incredibly rare treat.  So, to break up the ground beef monotony, mom would occasionally pick up cube steaks from the grocery store and pan fry them for us.  To us kids, it was awesome.  The portions were generous and we could drown those tough, beefy cuts in A1 sauce and devour them with our mashed potatoes.

So, when I "grew up" and started living on my own (you know, almost 10 years after graduating from college) I had an epiphany. I was walking through the grocery store, checking out the price per pound of various proteins and lo and behold, there was a small package of three cube steaks for about $4/lb.  After subsisting on ramen and $1.99/lb packages of chicken thighs, I thought I would treat myself.