Hi everyone! I'm back, and I brought turkey burgers. Matt bought a bunch of ground turkey because we are trying to be on the heart healthy band wagon and reduce our consumption of red meat. I once read that you shouldn't eat anything with 4 legs more than once a week...so there it is.
So, a lot of people have been asking me how to make turkey burgers taste good--they are either too dry, they fall apart, or they are flavorless. Here's the problem with ground turkey: it is extremely low in fat--about 93 percent lean, 7 percent fat. Compare that to your average ground beef patty which is 80/20 lean to fat, and you can see the difference. Now, fat is what makes the burgers taste good, what makes them juicy, and what makes them worth eating. You don't have that with turkey, so you need to do one of several things: put some fat back in, or add a binding agent. I'll explain what that means as we go along.
I am going to show you what I did tonight, and then lay out some other options you can do.
First, I'm going to start with the roasted tomatoes because you basically just put them in the oven and then forget about them for a few hours!
Cut the ends off your tomatoes. Bigger ones are better, but I only had roma on hand.
preheat your oven to 275.
1/2 them.
drizzle olive oil on the pan.
Put them on the pan and swish them around.
add salt and pepper. Put them in the oven for about two hours!
Time for the burgers! They were awesome--Matt ate two. You need:
1. one pkg ground turkey (I didn't see how many pounds it was)
2. one tablespoon mustard
3. shallot or onion powder
4. garlic or garlic powder
5. 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
6. 1/2 cup bread crumbs
7. salt and pepper
8. 1 tablespoon olive oil
Mince up your shallot and garlic, or dump in some onion powder and garlic powder.
Dump in the bread crumbs. I don't know the science behind this, but what I assume happens is the bread crumbs absorb moisture and help the turkey stick together.
Drizzle on some mustard. I have no idea how much I used. Sorry.
Then add in the worcestershire sauce!
Now, mix it all up with your hands.
THEN, add the olive oil, salt, and pepper.
You want to add in the oil because the turkey is super lean and it needs fat to taste good and cook properly. Olive oil is good for you any way, and if you don't believe me, read a book.
Now mix it up again, and form it into patties. THE THINNER THE BETTER! Not super thin, but we aren't making giant steak house burgers here. One pound of turkey should give you about four patties.
Put them in a pan with some pam, olive oil, butter, whatever you want, and let them cook for about 7 minutes on each side--medium/high heat. You want the outside to sear pretty quickly.
While those are cooking, pull the tomatoes out of the oven. The slow cooking process transforms them into this awesome savory, sweet, tangy, crispy delicious snack.
Burgers are getting there! The trick is to not over cook them--they really don't take that long, but you want to make sure there is no pink left.
Oh yeah.
I put some egg whites on top, but you can also add avacado slice, lettuce, tomato, or a fried egg! I've also seen people do carmelized onions with spicy mayo.
NOW:
Here are the options you have for making turkey burgers delicious. Pick whichever one you have the ingredients for, or suits your tastes.
1. add an egg per pound of ground turkey and mix it up. (helps bind the turkey together and adds fat content)
2. add mustard--its an emulsifier and will help bind the turkey. If you do this, I would add some olive oil as well.
3. add a panade. This is when you cut bread up into really small pieces, soak it in milk, then mix it together. This adds fat content and moisture.
4. add bread crumbs + a fat such as milk or sour cream.
Basically, you need to combat the dryness and low fat content issues, and that is how you make a delicious burger.
