Boiled hamburgers.

[Morbius]

Yeah, it sounds crazy. But stay with me. I watched a video about this place in Wisconsin:

I was intrigued by this, so I decided to give it a shot, making some little changes:

To begin with, I sliced a large white onion and separated the rings. I put 2/3 in my 12" skillet and 1/3 in my 10" skillet ( I was making six burgers and I didn't think they would all fit in the big pan). I nuked 5 1/2 cups water and added mostly beef soup base to that, with a little bit of Better Than Bullion Roasted Garlic soup base. I poured 2/3 of the broth in the big skillet and the rest in the smaller skillet, covered them and brought them to boil.

I figure burgers boiled in plain water would taste kind of washed out. Hence the soup bases.

Meanwhile I separated 1 1/2 pounds 80/20 ground chuck into six large balls and squished them down into patties. I didn't really squish them enough; more on that later.

After the broth had come to boil I added four burgers to the big skillet, and two to the small one. I covered them and set my timer for 15 minutes, turning the burner down to medium low. Then I flipped them over, went 12 minutes on the second side, and then I turned both burners off. I flipped the burgers back to the first side, topped them with cheese, and covered the pans again, letting them sit for a minute. At this point my burgers were done. I put them on buns which I had specifically purchased with this in mind, a 12 oz. package of 8 buns instead of a 16 oz. package (so, slightly smaller buns).

They had bloomed up into almost meatball shape, so when I do it again I will make the patties flatter. But I will do it again because they tasted amazing. They were moist and tender and the flavor was terrific. I saved the onions and broth and made rice with it a couple of days later (because after it had chilled it was a cinch to break off and toss away the fat). My wife asked me to make burgers this way "from now on." I rejected this because I almost never make anything exactly the same way twice. I told her I'd do it again but I am not sure about anything "from now on." That just isn't me. It has occurred to me to try this next time with onions and green peppers in the broth, and maybe garlic too. Also, I am thinking maybe just ten minutes per side is enough.

My daughter said she prefers burgers fried in the traditional way, which is another reason I have not abandoned frying burgers. I suspect she might like them better if I add jalapeno peppers to the onions. But as it happens, boiling burgers yields a very interesting and tasty result.

[Trueblue Texan]

1. When I ran my concession business...

...to get ready for the rush we cooked burgers on the grill ahead of time, then dropped them into a vat of hot beef bouillon. When it was time to make a burger, we'd slap the precooked one on the grill for about 30 seconds to cook off any excess drippings. They made nice juicy, flavorful burgers. That's a good plan if you're cooking for a lot of people.