Buttery Cheese-Filled Gourmet Hamburgers

These hamburgers match up to their title: Cheese-filled patties are smashed into a hot buttered grill to cook. Caramelized onions are mixed into the ground beef before cooking. A special hamburger sauce is smeared on both hamburger buns, and the meat is seasoned with a mixture of steak seasoning and seasoned salt.

What else to add? You choose.

Enjoy making these!

(makes 8 burgers)

2 lbs. ground beef

1 egg

1 onion, minced

Cheddar cheese

2 large tomatoes

8 leaves of Romaine lettuce

2 large Pickles

8 pairs Hamburger buns

For sauce:

½ cup mayonnaise

⅛ cup mustard

1 tablespoon sweet relish

1 teaspoon lemon juice

For Seasoning:

3 teaspoons Montreal Steak Seasoning

1 teaspoon Seasoned Salt

Additional Things:

Ketchup

Mustard

Butter for Griddle

NOTE: For higher quality beef (and for health reasons) get grass fed beef. Chances are you'll be able to taste a difference between good quality and poor quality meat.

If you prefer to remove the egg from the meat, it will not hold together as well, but it's still and option.

Mince the onion into tiny little chunks, as shown. Over a nonstick pan (or otherwise) on medium heat some vegetable oil. Once oil is hot, dump the onions in a fry, stirring occasionally, until they a browned well, as shown, about 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Making sure to drain excess juices from the beef's container, dump the 2lbs of meat in a large bowl, and break it up with your hands. Break an egg into the bowl, and mix it in completely with your hands.

Next, add the recently 'caramelized' onions, and stir well into the meat.

Break the meat up evenly into 16 small balls, and situate the first 8 on wax paper. Flatten each 8 of the balls into a thin, medium-large patties. On half of the patties, place a chunk of cheese, not to thick, and be sure that the cheese is at least half an inch from the edges of the patty.

Now fold the empty half of the patties over the cheese-filled ones, and press firmly around the edges and everywhere until perfectly sealed. Take these finished patties using the wax paper, and place them onto a cookie sheet. Do the cheese-process with the remaining 8 patties, using a fresh layer of waxed paper. Once done, place these finished patties next to the other ones on the same cookie sheet, as shown. The cookie sheet is for easy transportation to grill.

Place the sweet relish, lemon juice, mayonnaise, and mustard in a small bowl, and stir well.

Stir the Montreal steak seasoning and seasoned salt in a smaller bowl.

NOTE:

The sauce and the seasoning are very similar to a copycat of Smashburger's burgers that I found.

you should now cut up the tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, and whatever else you want on you hamburgers. Preheat the grill on medium-high heat, and put a cast iron flat griddle on top of it. Or, alternatively, a flat griddle on your stove top.

Bring you seasoning mixture, and your patties out to your preheated grill (or on your stove top, if you prefer). Melt the butter on the flat griddle. Place four of the patties on the butter. Cover with the wax paper they were on, and smash with a burger-smasher, or with a plate, or whatever else that works. Remove wax paper.

Sprinkle a generous share of the seasoning on each patty. Close the grill, and let it cook for about three minutes.

Open the grill after three minutes, and check to see if the burgers are done on the other side. It should be cooked around the edges, at least. If so, flip the burgers, and sprinkle again on the other side with the seasoning. Close grill, and let it grill for another 3 minutes. When burgers are done, transfer to a plate, and cover with aluminium foil, to keep hot while you grill the other batch of patties.

Do the same thing with the next four patties that you did with the first four. Transfer to plate, and cover with foil until ready to piece together the burgers.

1. Place the bottom bun on the plate.

2. spread a generous helping of the sauce on this bun.

3. Place a lettuce leaf on it.

4. Put on one of the patties, and then tomatoes

5. Add pickles.

6. Spread sauce on the bottom of the top bun, and smash it down on the rest of the burger.

Enjoy this buttery, juicy, cheeeeese-stuffed, gourmet hamburger!