Bacon and Gruyère Burger with Guacamole

Recipe: Bacon and Gruyère Burger with Guacamole
Page: 112
Date Cooked: November 27, 2010

"A burger is a miraculous meal in any guise."  Jonathan Waxman starts off the Bacon and Gruyère Burger with Guacamole with this line. I find it difficult to disagree with this statement. And considering that an average American eats 100 burgers a year, I doubt many people could disagree. Considering an overall fondness for burgers, this one looked like a winner. Bacon - good. Gruyère - Good. Guacamole - Good. How could you go wrong with all these delicious ingredients on a burger?

Ingredients: Ground chuck (80/20 lean-to-fat ratio), salt, pepper, bacon, avocados, sweet onion, olive oil tomato, gruyère, kaiser rolls

Jonathan Waxman gives you the option of preparing a medium grill fire to cook the burgers or cooking them in a cast-iron skillet. Considering it was a 30 degree Pennsylvania night - the cast-iron skillet seemed to make the most sense. The beef was mixed with salt and pepper and shaped into 4 burgers. Considering the recipe called for 2.5 pounds of meat, these were pretty large burgers.

Beef shaped into 4 burgers.

While the bacon cooked in the cast-iron skillet, it was on to making the guacamole. The guacamole included avocados, onion, and olive oil.

Left: Bacon cooking in skillet
Right: Finished guacamole

Once the bacon was cooked, the burger were added to the skillet and cooked, dare I say, perfectly. They were then topped with cheese and removed.

Right: Burgers being cooked
Left: Finished burgers topped with gruyère 

The rolls were lightly toasted. The burger was placed on each bun, topped with guacamole, bacon, and tomato. And ready for consumption:

Bacon and Gruyère Burger with Guacamole

The verdict: Too much meat. I know for many this may seem impossible, but really it was just too much meat. You couldn't appreciate the flavors of the cheese and the guacamole because of it. I ate it all as did my dinner guests and I can say I liked it. But it wasn't that perfect burger I was hoping it would be.

However, the next day, the left-over burger patty was sliced in half and made into 2 burger. This time around it was delicious. I was able to get a bite of every component and appreciate all the flavors.

Leftover burger with half the amount of beef

So all in all, I think the burger has definite potential, if you scale back the amount of beef. 2.5 pounds for 4 burgers is A LOT of beef. But the flavor combination is without a doubt successful.

Enjoy!