Andy Husbands - Wicked good burgers: fearless recipes and uncompromising techniques for the ultimate patty

FEARLESS RECIPES AND UNCOMPROMISING TECHNIQUES FOR THE ULTIMATE PATTY

ANDY HUSBANDS, CHRIS HART

AND ANDREA PYENSON

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEN GOODMAN

2013 Fair Winds Press

Text 2013 Andy Husbands, Chris Hart, and Andrea Pyenson

Photography 2013 Fair Winds Press

First published in the USA in 2013 by

Fair Winds Press, a member of

Quayside Publishing Group

100 Cummings Center

Suite 406-L

Beverly, MA 01915-6101

www.fairwindspress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5

Digital edition published in 2013

eISBN: 978-1-61058-752-5

Digital Edition: 978-1-61058-752-5

Hardcover Edition: 978-1-59233-558-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Cover design by Carol Holtz

Book design by Carol Holtz

Book layout by meganjonesdesign.com

Photography by Ken Goodman Photography

D EDICATED TO OUR FAMILIES

FOREWORD

When I first heard that Andy Husbands and Chris Hart, the diabolically clever minds behind the championship barbecue team IQUE, were at work on a hamburger book, my first emotion was a queasy dread. But then I brightened up. Husbands and Hart are the most innovative cooks in the barbecue world; their ability to transcend the cast-iron prison of conventional smoke cooking represents the most liberating thing to happen to barbecue since the invention of coal. But, while the techniques and technology of cooking it have changed (for the worse), the basic flavors and recipes are the same (or worse.) That was what was so amazing about IQUE: As a paradox, this can hardly be overstated. Its as if North Korea were to finance Christos latest project or a Civil War re-enactment society producing a white paper outlining a post-national paradigm for counter-insurgency operations. Unless youve had to judge it, you cant believe how stultified and conventional the world of competition barbecue is; and it would be equally hard to express how singularly elegant IQUEs work is, by any standard.

But where barbecue is in desperate need of innovation, the burger is besieged by itat least, from the point of view of an arch-conservative, such as myself. The orthodox cheeseburger, I once rhapsodized in Time, with its pillowy, enriched white bun, Pythagorean square of tangerine-colored American cheese and blissfully unadulterated (and unspiced) beef is an invention that cannot really be improved upon. Like sashimi or peaches and cream, its a gastronomic end point. My skepticism was primed by a long entrenched dogmatism. Did we really need a book of grotesque toppings, freakish cheeses, and unnatural protein swaps? My idea of a perfect hamburger cookbook would be one page long. But then I read Wicked Good Burgers.

Johnson famously defined wonder as the effect of novelty upon ignorance. I tried out several of these burgers, expecting to despise them. A tortilla-wrapped chile burger? Really? How could that not be bad? And yet I found the same clarity and force in their burger innovations as I had in their barbecue ones. I was also reassured in seeing that this book wasnt just a compendium of zany recipes, as these hamburger books so frequently are. Those books, in trying to deface our great national dish, evince all the desperation of a divorced dad hitting the singles bars in a newly bought hip outfit. But Wicked Good Burgers begins with a rock-solid fundament: how to mix and blend burger meatwhich is far and away the most important element of burger cookery and without which no hamburger book should be taken seriously.

But beyond that, anybody who has ever eaten at Andys restaurant, Tremont 647, or IQUEs barbecue, knows that these guys have a deep mastery of meat; they dont lay on flavors randomly. Every one of the burgers in this bookincluding my own humble contributionis deeply felt and much-practiced. I may disagree with some of Andy and Chriss predilections, such as fancy (brioche?!) buns and cheddar cheese, both of which I find grossly out of place in any self-respecting burger or cheeseburger, but in their hands it somehow comes out right. Again and again, in trying these recipes, I have found the limits of my own bigotry and the widening expanse of my admiration for these guys. So, yes, I was wrong and they were right. I hope to eat a hamburger with them soon to tell them as much.

JOSH OZERSKY

N EW Y ORK C ITY , 2012

WERE BIG BURGER FANS, as were sure you are. Before we started cooking whole hogs on 5,000-pound mobile barbecue pits, before we started winning the biggest, baddest barbecue contests in the world, we cooked burgerslots of burgers. First for ourselves, then for just about everybody we knew. And we got pretty good at it.

We still love to cook burgers, whether its for a crowd, at the restaurants, or just for the family. In this book, we give you the information and skills youll need to make what we believe is the perfect burger at home. We got there by dissecting the steps necessary to making a simple, juicy, delicious patty with a nicely seared crust. The kind that will make your friends stop in their tracks and ask, How did you do that? Its not terribly complicated, but it takes some time and attention. We also provide options to dress the burgers up a bitor sometimes, more than a bit. Because, while we love the perfect simplicity of a well-prepared burger, we also love ramping it up and taking it a few steps beyond.