The Foie Gras Burger
Surely the world can’t be too bad a place when a man can form the sentence ‘I’d had a little too much foie gras’, and last week I found myself in precisely that happy state. My landlord had left us a housewarming present of a bottle of champagne and a can of foie gras and over three nights we’d worked our way through most of it. On the fourth evening I found it in the refrigerator like a cholesterol hockey puck iced with a glistening crust of clarified butter. Silent, malevolent and faintly recriminatory.
I’d heard of a Manhattan restaurant that made hamburgers with a foie gras filling and felt that this would be the perfect way to use up the last of it. A resolutely proletarian punctuation to run of gourmandise. A google search on “foie gras burger manhattan” immediately returned a series of breathless reviews of DB Bistro Moderne. Chef Daniel Boulud, according to the reports, serves a burger comprising 10oz of ground sirloin wrapped around a core of braised short ribs, foie gras and black truffles. In a brioche bun with chips, this will set you back $59 or $99 if supersized with extra truffles.
To be absolutely correct, the reviews were not universally glowing. Most of the New York based publications seemed to find the idea of dead-eyed Wall Street succubi ploughing into these meat mountains ironic and amusing. By the time the story had hit everyone else’s papers, however, it was being spun as another example of obscenely conspicuous American consumerism.
It seemed a shame really. Though I can’t imagine myself ever attending the DB nor ever making that kind of crass gesture in a menu decision, the idea of a burger flavoured with foie gras was still profoundly appealing.
My mind turned to Tournedos Rossini which, combining foie gras, beef fillet and brioche, seemed to be a good place to start. I decided to hit the recipe books.
Here’s the recipe paraphrased from Larousse Gastronomique.
“Saute one slice of foie gras and two slices of truffle in butter. Fry a slice of brioche trimmed to the size of your fillet steak in the butter in which the foie gras was packed. Fry the filets mignons in butter and place each steak on a crouton. Arrange the foie gras and truffles on top. Deglaze the pan with Madeira and pour the sauce over the meat.”
A short pause, I think.
Aaaah.
Thank you.
That was enough research and classical precedent to kick off with. The ingredients were definitely going to work. It was time to visit the butcher.
I’d love people to think I patronised a simple, rubicund local fellow who was able to meet all my carnal needs with a cheery wink and a rustic chuckle. Sadly this is London. Meat comes in Styrofoam and is entirely bloodless unless you know exactly where to go. My chap is located in Marylebone High Street and, though he knows me by name, has rosy cheeks and a place in the country, he’s as much of a yokel as George Soros. This man makes so much money as the only pusher of decent meat to the desperate addicts of the metropolis, that he’s waxed exceeding rich. There is rumoured to be a slightly wealthier and more skilled meat cutter in Marylebone - but he just does faces.
I felt this would be a test of our relationship so I straightened my spine, pushed open the door and strode manfully in. Oh yes, it took some steeling. Aren’t you afraid of your butcher? You should be. When he selects from his cold room he is deciding if you deserve a dinner party worthy of the Sun King or a pack of jackals. He can tell at a glance if your filet mignon is going to yield to the touch of the family silver or have to be chiselled out of your molars by a competent dental hygienist. Are your senses so attuned? Then fear him.
"How’s the Sirloin today?"
"I’ve got a nice piece out the back that’s been hanging for thirty-two days."
"Can you do me a really lovely 1lb slice. And don’t trim it."
He slapped the meat onto the block in a combination of highly trained butcherly competence and insolent challenge. If there was a better slice of cow than this anywhere in the civilised world, he’d fall on his filleting knife.
"Great. Can you put it through the mincer?"
At first the look was one of utter incredulity. I felt like I’d asked him to feed his firstborn into the machine. Then his eyes softened to a twinkle…
"Ah. Tartare! You had me going there for a bit."
I would never advise any man to lie to his butcher. His accountant possibly, his therapist definitely but his butcher – never. There’s too much at stake in the relationship; your reputation as a cook, host and general man of the world. So you can imagine how compromised I felt as I mumbled …
"Yes. That’s right. Steak Tartare."
There ensued a tooth-itchingly embarrassing conversation in which he gave me his personal recipe in tremendous detail. I made diligent notes and, looking back at them now, I realise I should probably share them. It looks that good. On this occasion, however, I took the parcel and fled.
Marylebone is also home to, one of the few branches of Patisserie Paul outside of Paris so I headed straight there in search of brioche.
"Sorry," said the girl behind the counter, looking nothing of the sort. "We don’t stock brioche. There’s no call for it here."
I’m not sure if I hate the French more for inventing brioche but keeping it to themselves or the English for failing to aspire beyond ‘French Stick’ the ubiquitous faux-baguette beloved of the chattering classes but secretly a cock-shaped Wonderloaf.
It was time to clear the decks and set to work. The foie gras, which had languished in the fridge for a few days was perfectly chilled. As it had been canned there was a distinct layer of clarified butter on one side of the remaining slice that was simple to separate and put aside. The foie gras was cut into 3mm dice with a wet knife and returned to the fridge.
I’d chosen to do 8 oz burgers so the ground sirloin was lightly seasoned weighed out and separated into two, four-ounce portions. The plan was for the burgers to cook on the outside, nicely browned and caramelised with full Maillard reaction but for the inside to remain medium rare with the foie gras just beginning to render. The sirloin was shaped into flat thin rounds, the foie gras dice strewn on the surface and another round placed on the top. The whole was squeezed sealed around the edge like an old fashioned pie then rolled between the hands to square the edges back into the traditional fat drum shape.
(I’m a bit obsessive about fats so I usually have beef dripping in the fridge. The fats are filed alphabetically. Bacon, beef, chicken, duck, goose, pork etc. Yak is obviously tough to get in the UK but, in extremis the beef can be cut half with rancid butter and a reasonable facsimile can be achieved.) At any rate the scorch point of rendered beef fat is high enough that the burgers can be neatly sealed with just the tiniest smear.
The original recipe for Chateaubriand involves placing a tender piece of fillet between two cheaper but more flavoursome rump steaks. As the outer steaks sear, their juices are driven inwards to supercharge the fillet. I hoped that, as the outside of my burgers sealed they’d drive warm juices inwards to melt and blend with the foie gras.
They did.
I cooked the assembled burger exactly as I would a steak of the same thickness. In this case, on a very hot pan, two minutes on the first side then, after the flip, until ‘jewels’ of meat juice appearing on the upper crust. If you’ve judged your thickness correctly this glorious portent should occur after precisely the same time on the second side.
The whole was put aside for the essential minutes of silence which both out of work actors and lumps of grilled beef refer to as ‘resting’. If the pan temperature and cooking time are right the meat should lose no juice at all during the rest. In this case I must have got something right because the plate remained gratifyingly unensanguinated.
In the absence of brioche, I needed something special in the bread department. My local deli is Portuguese and, along with a selection of unpronounceable smoked meats they produce a leavened flat loaf with a high potato content. I’ve asked the name a dozen times but still have to point to it on the shelf. Suffice it to say, whatever it’s called, it is dense in texture and utterly lovely. I cut top and bottom crusts off leaving a large, inch thick slice out of which I punched two discs with my largest cookie cutter. These were fried on both sides in the reserved packing butter from the foie gras tin and immediately assembled around the rested burger.
I have a rule when trying a new recipe, that the first iteration should be as simple as possible. This was. Pure, best meat. Pepper and salt seasoning. Simple, unflavoured bread and foie gras carefully applied throughout.
I will be adding nothing in later attempts. No ironic sourdough versions of the bun, no special sauce with fresh horseradish grated into handmade aioli, no clever salad nor witty sun-dried tomato relish. I’ll make it just as simple next time because I genuinely can’t think of a way to better it. In fact the only change I’m going to make is that next time my butcher asks me if I want my sirloin minced for a tartare I’ll reply in a loud, clear voice…
"No. It’s for a burger."