Burgatory Interview: Marc Maron Talks Dirty Green Chile Cheeseburgers

Can you feel it?  The epicenter of the burger world seems to be shifting lately.  NY and LA, the old guard as it were, are making way for the new – as in New Mexico.  Late last year, the New Mexico Board of Tourism launched an interactive map to help visitors find the finest purveyors of the state’s indigenous Green Chile Cheeseburger; and the reigning intercontinental heavyweight champs of the burger blog world, A Hamburger Today, recently launched a series featuring burgers from The Land of Enchantment.

Ever since George Motz introduced the world to The Bobcat Bite in Hamburger America (youtube video) I’ve been craving an authentic Green Chile Cheeseburger.  Sure, I’ve tried canned chiles to create my own at-home version, but something is missing.  Unfortunately, several factors are working against me as family/job responsibilities coupled with the fact that I live in Philadelphia make a quick visit to New Mexico an impossibility.   I needed to get closer to the burger so I figured I’d go the vicarious route and talk to a native.

New Mexico’s most famous living resident might very well be Marc Maron (I’m just going to assume we’ve all forgotten about Bill Richardson, right?).  Host of one of the most popular podcast’s in the Apple iTunes Store, WTF,  Maron seemed like the perfect guy to ask what makes a Green Chile Cheeseburger so special.  A few days ago we finally connected and talked about burgers and being a foodie, and along the way he was kind enough to recommend a few of his favorite burger joints.

Burgatory:  So what can you tell me about green chiles?

Maron: Green chiles, well that is what New Mexico is known for.  You can get it in a can, Ortega’s or whatever, but it’s not the same as fresh roasted, Northern New Mexico green chile…at chile time…you can get it along side the road, they harvest it then roll it around in these giant roasters so the peels fall off then bag it.  My stepmom Rosie, she’ll freeze a ton of it…it’s a very specific flavor and it really only happens there.  It’s pretty great…

Burgatory:  Are they spicy?

Maron: It can go any way…you can get it really spicy or you can get mild but there’s still that underlying flavor that is pretty unique.

Burgatory:  When you think green chile cheeseburgers, which place comes to mind?

Maron: I grew up eating at the Frontier Restaurant and I go there every time I am back.  They make a great green chile stew and they also make a pretty great green chile cheeseburger.  It’s not your chichi, two inches thick, Kobe beef ‘bit of business’, it’s a flat patty like you get at a diner, maybe a 1/2 inch thick, all of them are consistent, they’re all made fresh but it’s not a gourmet burger, but they put a wad of green chiles on the top and then they use shredded cheddar cheese.  So it definitely has a unique flavor to it, nothing tastes like Frontier.  But if you’re going there expecting some sort of rare to medium-rare, drippy, bloody burger so you can be a snob about it, that isn’t going to happen.  If you want a dirty, green chile cheeseburger, that’s the place to go.

Burgatory:  So is Frontier your favorite burger joint?  I know you split your time between the east coast and the west coast…

Maron: Well there are different kinds of burgers…you’ve got your fast food type of burger, or diner type of burger or you’ve got your fancy burger.

I try not to get too involved with it, but I definitely love In-N-Out Burger out here (in California).  Again not a great burger in terms of grade of beef or thickness or that kind of stuff, but for a dirty fast food burger – the best.

In New York… Jackson Hole out in Queens was good and Paul’s on 2nd Avenue always had a great burger…the blue cheese burger at Paul’s is just awesome.

Burgatory: Do you consider yourself a “foodie”?

Maron: I like to cook and generally I’m not out there pushing the envelope with cooking, I just have a knack for it and I’d rather cook than eat out.  I find cooking very meditative and it captures my focus and I do it to step down all of my anxieties.  We have very little control over most things in life but if you get going with cooking at least you have control for a half-hour.  I come from an eating disorder laden family and I think it’s my way of acting out against my chronically skinny mother.

Burgatory: I know you’re a fan of the Food Network and you even did your own web series “The Angry Chef,” (youtube video: Jonny Cakes – NSFW) was that your idea of what a Food Network show starring Marc Maron would look like?

Maron: Yeah, I would have liked to have done it there.  I didn’t really pursue it much because I’m not much of a cook and they kind of take themselves pretty seriously over there…

Burgatory: They don’t usually cook with a lit cigar in their mouth either?

Maron: Yeah, the lit cigar thing would probably bother them and maybe some of the language would bother them…I think the angle of the Angry Chef (youtube video: Minestrone – NSFW) was to cook your hostility and anger out of you…that while you are cooking you talk about what’s bothering you and get it out during the cooking.  You can get pretty aggressive during cooking, which they sometimes do on the shows but they don’t really take a therapeutic angle, they take a cooking angle.

Burgatory: And there’s not a lot of talk about ex-wives?

Maron: Well I am sure that there are plenty of those guys that have plenty of that to talk about,  but they don’t have the guts to be honest, all they can do is honestly cook and I even question that sometimes…you don’t ever see those guys prepping food, do you?   No.  Do they ever throw a bone or a thank you to the 6 or 7 culinary students that want to be chefs in the back diligently cutting Emeril’s onions?  No.

Burgatory: Are there any parallels between cooking and comedy?

Maron: I used to talk about how I missed being a grill cook back in college because there is a sense of reward that is fairly quick with some cooking.  When you flip an egg successfully, you know you did it, so there can be a relatively immediate gratification element that I think it shares with comedy if you are doing it right.

I can’t thank Marc enough for taking the time to talk.  A lot of the conversation we had isn’t represented above and at some point I will probably put up the entire raw audio, but it is a tough listen because of the quality of the sound via Google Voice.  Marc tours the country often and he has a slick website with all sorts of worthwhile info and merch.  His coolest relationship might very well be with justcoffee.coop, a Madison, WI based coffee roaster that offers a WTF Blend coffee which is ridiculously good.

Filed under: Burger, Comedy, Expert Opinions, Green Chile Cheeseburger, In-N-Out, Jackson Hole, Marc Sanders, interview

Philadelphia, PA: Sketch’s Truffle Butter Burger

413 East Girard Avenue

Philadelphia, PA 19125-3305

(215) 634-3466

Truffle Butter?  In Fishtown?  Oh how the neighborhood has changed.

Ok, the neighborhood hasn’t changed that much, but Sketch has raised the bar when it comes to decadent ingredients with their Truffle Butter Burger.  Served on a Le Bus bun (spread with said butter), atop a bed of caramelized onions (with more truffle butter) and slathered with a dollop more truffle butter for good measure, this burger pretty much glistened with flavor.  The patty itself is 8 oz. of 80/20 ground beef cooked ideally just shy of medium ensuring that it was super-moist even beyond the butter’s assistance.  All told, this was a superb burger from a place we’ve been meaning to hit for some time since missing FWTS’s Burger Club meeting back in September.

Sketch calls itself a Vegan-Friendly Burger & Shake Shack and although we didn’t have anything Vegan, we did order up some of their homemade mac & cheese for our daughter.  With 4 cheeses and a secret spice or two, the mac was a hit and would stand up well on any menu.  We also ordered one of the daily specials, a dish called Hong Kong Style Pulled Pork, which was a mix of supremely tender pork and Hoisin sauce served in an Asian bun (yeast rolls).  Served three to an order and looking like mini tacos, these were completely unexpected and would probably warrant a burger-less return trip.  The Belgian-style frites are served with a choice of dipping sauces and we chose the traditional Aioli.  Crispy on the outside and mashed potato smooth on the inside, they rank high among fries in the city.

Sketch itself is a pretty funky spot on Girard not too far from Johnny Brenda’s and Kung Fu Necktie, which will certainly come in handy the next time I can sneak out to a show.  The place is beyond child friendly, with crayons and paper on the table and ample wall space to hang your burger-related artwork as you are waiting for your food to arrive.  Boylan’s Cane Sugar Cola in the self-serve fridge was a pleasant surprise and next time we’ll be certain to check out the shakes, including a Vegan shake option, and there certainly will be a next time.  The Burger Club knocked it for being pricey and it was ($8.50 for the truffle burger), but it is only fair to add that the value was pretty high, too.  Each dish was clearly created from scratch with tons of creativity and attention to detail.  Yes, $30 for a Sunday family lunch is above our norm, but we left feeling as if we had gotten our money’s worth.

For the DIY set, here is a recipe for truffle butter which shouldn’t be too difficult to make at home.

For more information on Fishtown visit fishtown.com.

Filed under: Big Burgers, Burger, Butter Burgers, Family, Fishtown, Fries With That Shake, Hamburger, Kid Friendly, Marc Sanders, Philly Burgers

Burger Potpourri For $500: Random stuff I’ve been meaning to post about

A.J. at Montana Eats is on a mission to eat every cheeseburger in Helena, Montana.  5 spots down and many more to go, all wrapped up and scored so you’ll know where to go in case your travels ever take you to Big Sky Country.  Take some time to look around the site, too.  Besides burgers these folks are cooking up some amazing dishes and taking some of the nicest pics I’ve seen on any food blog.

Sixth Guy is a new blog following one man as he endeavors to visit every Five Guys Burgers & Fries in existence.  With Five Guys history and word from the frontier states of a local variant “fry sauce,” I’m interested to follow his trek and eager to meet up with him when he visits the Philadelphia area.

Aussie Darren Atkins just launched a NY-centric burger site called “DManburger” which features a Burger TV section of hamburger related YouTube videos.

Spiedie’s Bistro in Phoenixville is now closed…I wrote about them a few months back and am sad to see they didn’t make it.

Filed under: Fast Food Chains, Five Guys, Marc Sanders, Montana, Phoenixville

West Chester, PA: Buddy’s Burgers, Breasts & Fries Pepper Jack Cheese Burger

11 West Gay Street

West Chester, PA‎

(484) 631-1006‎

A few months back my brother-in-law began raving about a new burger joint that had opened out his way in West Chester.  I have a lot of faith in his recommendations for other things so I was definitely looking forward to checking out Buddy’s Burgers, Breasts and Fries (double entendre intended?) as soon as we could and on a recent Saturday I finally got my chance as our families met up for lunch.

I won’t be the first (or last) person to compare them to Five Guys, but I’ll say a comparison to them is only fair in menu configuration (little buddy = 1 patty, buddy = 2 patties) and in the offering of a myriad of toppings.  Anything further would be a slap in the face to Buddy’s as everything they do is superior to the ever growing chain – from the burgers to the fries.

Their toppings menu is slightly more extensive than at Five Guys and opened up the opportunity for me to concoct a slightly Mexican themed burger to satisfy my spicy tooth.  Pepper Jack cheese, avocados, jalapenos and caramelized onions worked perfectly on the more than generous griddle cooked single patty that I ordered.  Served up on an over-sized sesame seed specked bun, the meat-to-toppings-to-bun ratio was perfect without going overboard (I can’t imagine having the second patty would add too much besides bulk – on me).

The fresh cut fries are perfect, too.  A small is more than enough for two people but you probably won’t want to share them.  Huge flecks of salt set up camp on most of the fries giving you that great crunch when your teeth meet up with them.

One of the interesting features of Buddy’s is that it is actually two restaurants in one, though both have separate entrances.  The adjoining restaurant?  The Salad Stop.  You could see the tumbleweeds rolling down through the dining room while at the same time Buddy’s was bustling.  It is an interesting combo that forces a pretty serious gut check as a look to the left towards the salads reveals perhaps how we should be eating, while a look to the right towards the burgers reveals how we really want to eat.  My inner Michael Pollan was conflicted for about 2 seconds.

West Chester is off the beaten path for Philly folks, but Buddy’s is worth the drive out one weekend.  Two doors down is an Iron Hill outpost and a bunch of other top-notch watering holes line Gay Street.  Baldwin’s Book Barn isn’t too far away and provides hours of entertainment searching for a rare book or quiet nook to read, and perhaps providing enough time to build up your hunger again to head back for another burger or a quick stop at West Chester’s legendary hot dog stand Jimmy John’s.

Filed under: Big Burgers, Burger, Burgers In The Burbs, Cheeseburger, Family, Fries, Hamburger, Marc Sanders

Pottstown, PA: The Hilltop Drive-In’s California Cheeseburger

2910 East High Street

Pottstown, PA‎

(610) 326-2342

Cast in the eerie shadows of the twin towers of the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant lies the Philadelphia Premium Outlet Mall, a mecca for consumers that in just a few days will cast its siren song southward to lure Black Friday shoppers and welcome their efforts to spur the economy through ritualistic spending at Nike, Adidas, Jockey, Le Creuset and the thankfully curable Perfumania (not to mention food offerings such as the painfully punny Chinese stand called Asian Chao).

What was even just a few months ago a barren field now teems with activity, forever in the present with today’s hottest fashions and modern trends.  At the exit ramp off of Route 422 drivers are offered barely the chance to turn away from the mall, almost by centripetal force their cars are willed to turn left and ease into the acres of available free parking. But for those who can fight the potent inertia of drastically reduced prices on factory seconds and previous year’s stock (or perhaps more realistically forestall their entry into the maelstrom for a few moments) there is a reward for steering your car to the right at the end of the ramp – The Hilltop Drive-In.

In stark contrast to the not so accurately named outlet mall (anyone from these parts will know they are nowhere near Philadelphia, Google Maps pegs it at just over 29 miles from City Hall to the Wilson’s Leather Outlet), the Hilltop sits as a pink-hued reminder of a bygone era and the simple pleasures of a pre-fast food chain dominated burger landscape.

Make no mistake, this is not the best burger you will ever eat, but the overall experience makes it well worth the effort and miles.  Add equal parts classic architecture, hand-spun milkshakes and malts, black and white photographs and retro signage and you’ve got yourself the ideal destination for a lazy Sunday drive to the far reaches of the suburban Philly telephone area code.

On this my second trip to the joint I ordered the California Cheeseburger, so-named for the appearance of (gasp!) vegetables which, at a time in our country, must have been viewed as exotic and otherworldly, just like the Golden State.  Two perfectly acceptable fast food size and style beef patties were joined on the white, squishy burger bun by a piece of American cheese, sliced raw onions, tomato, shredded lettuce and mayo.  (I substituted the kaiser roll which this sandwich is usually served on for a regular burger bun due to my long held belief that a kaiser roll has no business being near a burger.)

I had forgotten the pure pleasure of eating a burger with heaps of mayo on it. Despite the results of A Hamburger Today’s “Favorite Condiment” poll back in August, far too few of the burgers we eat have mayonnaise on them.  Why not?  Adding more fat to a burger seems like a no-brainer, and at the Hilltop, which uses some brand that bridges the chasm between Hellman’s egginess and the sweetness of its arch enemy Miracle Whip, the gooey-ness continuum that is created with the inevitable mingling of the white American cheese and mayo is pure perfection.  That moment of self-questioning “was that the cheese or the mayo?” works well in the burger as grease delivery vehicle equation.

The Hilltop’s roots reach back to the 1950’s when it was a Carvel outpost and the shakes and malts served today are legit.  I had a chocolate malt on my first trip and it was perfect, deeply chocolaty with flecks of slightly bitter malt powder.  Soft-serve cones and sundaes are available as well and I can imagine in the summer time they do a fare bit of business cooling off the locals with these treats.

One of the great surprises of The Hilltop is that they serve Good’s Potato Chips from nearby Adamstown, PA.  An old-school producer of no-frills, fried in lard chips, Good’s have become a strictly rationed treat in our house (Philly area folks can get them closer to home at The Head Nut in Ardmore) and as served here are the perfect accompaniment to your burger.  They also offer pretty good french fries, McDonald’s style thin cuts fried up crisp and tasty, but when presented with the chip option they slip into second place.

Special mention must be given of their crab bisque soup.  With our proximity to Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay, decent crab doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to come across, but it certainly wasn’t expected in this kind of setting and truly stole the show on our first visit.

Huge thanks to ModBetty of Retro Roadmap for bringing The Hilltop to my attention via her great post and pictures (special notice should be given of the early ’50’s black and white image she shares of the Hilltop as a Carvel -complete with a rogues gallery of patrons straight out of central casting).  Her site is packed with other great info and she is the rare Keystone state resident with actual duckpin bowling experience.

Filed under: Burger, Burger Geek, Burgers In The Burbs, Burgers from a bygone era, Cheeseburger, Hamburger, Marc Sanders, Real Retro

Home Cookin’: Blue Cheese Burger w/ Grass-Fed Beef/Bacon Mix

Quick dinner from a few weeks back when a 1/2 day at work gave me the opportunity to hit up two different farmers markets for ingredients.  A Le Bus Whole Wheat Burger bun was the perfect foundation for our burger mix of natural, (primarily) grass-fed beef and chopped bacon ends (oddly shaped, wildly fatty slabs of deliciousness from the Lancaster County Farmers Market in Wayne, PA).  Add blue cheese, a fire-engine red tomato and some extra whole bacon ends on top and the urge to go out to a restaurant and spend $15 for a fancy burger is officially curbed.  When possible serve your burgers on plates with pictures of surgeons on them – its a karma thing and it fights off the bad cholesterol.

Not too much to offer by way of recipe on this one, more along the lines of advice…we find the beef available at farm stands tends towards the lean side, so chopping up bacon and adding it to the mix prior to forming your patties keeps the burgers moist (in addition to adding flavor).  We tested a new (and cheap) cast iron skillet from Ikea and were happy with the results.

Additional Resources:

Beef from Hillacres Pride

Bacon Ends from S. Clyde Weaver

Tomato from Good Harvest Farms

Filed under: Bacon, Burger, Burger Recipe, Cheeseburger, Family, Grass-Fed, Healthy, Marc Sanders, Meat On Meat, Meat in Meat, Recipe, Recipes

Foobooz Burger Cruise Details + Discount Offer

If you follow the Philly foodie scene you are no doubt well aware of Foobooz.  Site proprietor Art Etchells does an incredible job of tracking all of the openings, closings, hot deals and need to know info in and around the Philly restaurant scene.  He was drafted by the folks at First Person Arts to host a “Burger Cruise” on November 3rd and if you are a burger fan you have the rare opportunity to hit up 4 great spots for burgers, beers and conversation.

The restaurants are Good Dog, Barclay Prime, Pub & Kitchen and Noble.  I asked the folks at First Person Arts what you can expect for the price of admission and here is what they said:

…this will be more like a tasting tour—a little bit of this, a little bit of that.  Maybe a slider or two from each place, with a sampling of a few different beers.

If this sounds good to you, buy tickets sooner than later as the trip
is limited to 35 participants. 

In advance: $45 (First Person Arts members) / $50 (general public)
 $50/$55 after 10/25

Buy tickets here

Burgatory readers can take advantage of a discount!!
Get the member price even if you aren't a member by simply
adding "Burgatory" to your last name when you register.   

So if your name is John Smith, type John Smith Burgatory. 
If your name happens to be Meredith Baxter Birney write
your name as Meredith Baxter Birney Burgatory.

Disclosure: I receive no compensation if you buy your ticket
via the above link or by using the discount code.  I do not get
a free ticket to the event for posting this either.

Proceeds support First Person Arts programming.

Filed under: Burger, Burgers & Beer, Philly Burgers

Home Cookin’: The Chinese Takeout Burger Topped With Sriracha Ketchup

As the days get shorter and the air a bit crisper up here in PA, the odds of foregoing preparing a home cooked dinner and ordering Chinese takeout instead have increased.  This quick recipe came about the day after a recent takeout night and we resurrected it this evening for dinner with some friends.  It is a dead simple recipe which produces a quirky take on familiar fare and, when combined with Sriracha Ketchup, makes for a darn good burger.

The taste?  Take everything you love about bacon on a burger and then sugar that up about 200%. By itself, honey boneless spareribs may be the most addictive item on any Chinese menu (and easily account for 2/3 of my repenting on Yom Kippur)  and as served here (chopped up and mingled with high quality beef) it follows along the lines of the trend led by so many “name chefs” adding different cuts of meats into their burgers (not just on them).  The spicy ketchup cuts down the sweetness a bit and provides a tease of heat to take this burger to the next level.

Recipe:

Rough #’s here, but any combination of these ingredients will produce more than passable results.

1 lb. ground beef (we used “all-natural” Hillacres Pride beef purchased at our local farmer’s market)

1/4 lb honey boneless spareribs  from Pak Yue (which is a fun name to say but always sounds confrontational when they answer the phone)

2 tablespoons of Oyster Sauce

Dice the pork into very small slivers then combine all ingredients in a bowl, mix lightly but well and then form patties (we made slider sized burgers).  As mentioned earlier on this blog, and ripped from the pages of John Torode’s book “Beef and other bovine matters,” when using the oyster sauce you can omit salt from the recipe.  The oyster sauce provides you with the tang you are looking for and keeps the burgers incredibly moist.

Siracha-Ketchup

3 parts ketchup

1 part Sriracha

As shown cooked on the gas grille and served on Martin’s Whole Wheat Potato Rolls.

Filed under: Burger, Burger Geek, Burger Recipe, Chinese Takeout, Family, Grass-Fed, Hamburger, Healthy, Marc Sanders, Martin's Potato Rolls, Meat in Meat, Organic, Recipe, Recipes, Sliders, Weird Burgers

Ithaca, NY: Louie’s Lunch’s Bo Burger

500 Thurston Ave

Ithaca, NY 14850-2434

(607) 257-4649

You’d probably be excused for confusing Louie’s Lunch with Louis’ Lunch, the venerable Connecticut restaurant which claims to be the birthplace of the hamburger. Both have Ivy League links (Louis’ Lunch is in New Haven, home of Yale, while Louie’s Lunch sits on the north campus of Cornell in Ithaca, NY), both are mobile (Louis’s moved four times before settling into its current location and Louie’s has four wheels and thus can move at any moment – though there are a bunch of wires to unhook from the light pole and something that looks curiously like coax cable) and oh yeah, both serve darn nice, lo-fi burgers.

With lineage dating back to 1918, the current Louie’s Lunch truck sets up shop seven days a week to satiate the late night cravings of our country’s future doctors, lawyers, jock-rockers (Huey Lewis) and surgeon generals (oh yeah I’m talking about you C. Everett Koop).  Until 3 am (except Sunday nights when they retire at the modest hour of midnight) students in various states of stress and/or inebriation can hit up this mobile c-store for cold drinks, hot coffee, energy shots, candy bars and of course – burgers.

Back in college at the much less educationally challenging (though no less hilly) Mansfield University, I discovered the Bo Burger, a griddled hamburger topped with cheese and a fried egg. To this day, no single dish has screamed “college” to me as much as this combination which I used to enjoy at the local truck stop affectionately known as Greasy Eddie’s, and so when I saw the Bo Burger listing on the starboard side menu of the truck I jumped at the chance to reminisce about my own college years.

Louie’s version featured about 1/4 lb of griddled beef, resting on some white American cheese and topped with a nicely cooked egg.  Health departments be damned for their insistence that eggs cannot be runny, but kudos to the flat-top chef who brought this oeuf in just on the cooked through side, avoiding that rubbery, overcooked state.  The Bo Burgers of my youth were served on squishy white buns, but this being Ithaca (home of Moosewood and macrobiotic jerky) my Bo was served on a whole grain bun flecked with oats…a bit odd, but good; almost allowing me to dream for a second that this burger was kissed by Mother Earth herself and thus filled with only healthful vitamins and minerals (reality check – it is in actuality a glorious greasebomb of a burger!).

Served with a smile by an actual Cornell student, I give this burger high marks for both quality and history.  For years I have been fascinated by the idea of making decent burgers in a food truck and as mentioned on this site before, my own bucket list includes opening a mobile burger shop called “Burgatory” (ideally parked on City Ave in Philadelphia half-way between the Catholic Seminary and the Hebrew Yeshiva).  Louie’s provides further proof that good burgers can come from just about anywhere and thousands of Cornell grads no doubt have fond memories of placing their own late-night orders at Louie’s window.

The Louie’s folks have done a great job of cataloging their own history on their web site.  For more details on the various iterations of the lunch truck and pictures of through the years, click here.

This is the first of a four part series ingeniously titled “Burgers I Ate While In The Finger Lakes Region A Few Weeks Ago.”  Future installments will include entries from a winery, a creamery and the epicenter of the gourmet vegetarian movement.  Stay tuned.

Filed under: Bo Burger, Burger Geek, Burgers I Ate While In The Finger Lakes Region A Few Weeks Ago, Cornell, Hamburger, Hamburger Vacation 2009, Ithaca, Marc Sanders, Mobile Food Truck, Real Retro, Upstate New York

Home Cookin’: The Mar-A-Lago Turkey Burger

To put it lightly, I am not a fan of Oprah and as such I had an immediate prejudice against this recipe when my lovely wife mentioned she was going to prepare some for me to grill for dinner the other night.  Not sure of the complete back story on this…apparently Oprah ate this burger at Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, begged for the recipe for herself and then shared it with her TV audience.

Recipe here via Oprah.com (ugh!)

The best part of this burger might be the use of the mango chutney.  Clearly not a common burger ingredient, it keeps the burger juicy (which is often an issue when cooking a turkey burger and relying on your mom’s advice about cooking turkey until it is done aka completely dried out) without imparting too much fruity flavor.  The apples and scallions are nice touches, too.

Additional notes: Finally got the BBQ up to a high enough temp to land some grill marks on the burgers – a geeky thing that fills me with pride…Potato rolls are the bacon of the baked goods industry, they just make everything taste better…Pull back on the salt a bit, you aren’t going to draw out any beefy flavor by loading up the sodium so you might use this as an opportunity to back off…Bought the corn at Root’s Market the other day, which is a completely chaotic Amish/Farmer’s market nowhere near where you or I live (which is a shame)…For those that know me personally, the addition of a mini-van to our driveway and now my reviewing a recipe promoted by Oprah means that yes, I have officially given up. The old Marc was a lot of fun – remember the good times and pour one out for me.

Filed under: Burger, Burger Recipe, Chutney, Family, Hamburger, Marc Sanders, Martin's Potato Rolls, Oprah, Recipe, Recipes, Root's Market, Trump, Turkey Burger, Wait a second did he just say Oprah?