Burgers: 50 Recipes Celebrating an American Classic [Hardcover]

Rebecca Bent (Author), Tom Steele (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2004

Burgers presents the blue jeans of American cuisine in all their glory, from simple and comforting to sophisticated and elegant. With fifty delicious, highly original recipes, beautiful photographs, and authoritative information on ingredients and techniques, this book will give you a different burger for every night of the week–in fact, for every night of the month. Rebecca Bent has scoured the country looking for the best that burgers have to offer, and here are not only her own superb creations, but also those from such renowned chefs as:

• Bobby Flay: Mesa Grill Burger with Double Cheddar Cheese
• Roy Yamaguchi: Japanese-Hawaiian-influenced Mama Burger with Chopped Mushrooms
• Jonathan Waxman: Bacon Burger with Onion Rings
• Suzanne Goin of Los Angeles’s Lucques: Grilled Lamb Burger with Cumin Yogurt
• David Waltuck of New York’s Chanterelle: Venison Burger au Poivre
• Norman Van Aken: Tuna Burger with Mojo

There are beef burgers and cheeseburgers, naturally, but also lamb, game, turkey, seafood, and vegetarian burgers. Plus there are recipes for the perfect sides and condiments: homemade ketchup and french fries, of course, but also the likes of Dean Fearing’s (of Dallas’s Mansion on Turtle Creek) Tobacco Onion Rings, Geoffrey Zakarian’s (of New York City’s Town) Gingered Cole Slaw, plus such classics as potato salad, homemade mayo, and mac and cheese.

Burgers addresses everything you need to know to make perfectly simple traditional burgers and their accompaniments, while also providing dozens of showstopping variations. So pull on a pair of jeans, and cook some burgers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This snappy little book about seasonal grilling and entertaining might fit well in a book display-its design is crisp and its photos excellent-but it disappoints in the kitchen, primarily because the authors pay too much attention to celebrity chefs and too little to the actual technique of cooking burgers. Two pages are devoted to grilling instructions and "basic rules," but there is nothing about the art of forming a hamburger patty so that it doesn’t crack on the sides and leak juices (a common home-grilling mistake). Several of the recipes are poorly edited: Dean Fearing’s Burger Buns requires much more flour than the amount that is listed in the recipe’s ingredients, and Bent’s instructions lead readers to preheat the oven for least an hour before the buns will be ready to bake. The recipe introductions provide little additional help to novice cooks; instead, most focus on singing the praises of Manhattan and national chefs. Bent, a financial marketing director turned cooking-school student, has mastered the tone of the peppy press release, but lines like "Bobby Flay brought a new kind of natural charm and estimable culinary talent to grilling" don’t really tell readers much about the food that follows. Many of the book’s 50 recipes do taste great: the Corner Bistro Burger with My Fried Parsley, for example, is simple and delicious. But others appear to mix flavors willy-nilly. The Stuffed Chevre and Caramelized Onion Burger, for one, requires 11 ingredients yet tastes oddly like breakfast sausage. This book wins points for packaging, but readers who really want the burger lowdown would be better off with Desaulniers’s The Burger Meisters or one of Cook’s Illustrated’s many guides to meats and grilling.
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Review

It's a super-for-summer-gift-giving collection of recipes that go from the utterly simple to the superbly sophisticated. -- BookPage

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (May 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400051657
• ISBN-13: 978-1400051656
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 7.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun book -- great pictures, May 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Burgers: 50 Recipes Celebrating an American Classic (Hardcover)

Heard about this book in last week's New York Sun. I've made three recipe in preparation for my memorial day party. All of them have been delicious.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Father's Day Gift, May 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Burgers: 50 Recipes Celebrating an American Classic (Hardcover)

Overall comment is it is really a nice book. The recipes are fairly simple and generally have common ingredients. A lot of cook books ask for some weird stuff that you have to drive across town just to get. I like how the author gave variations to some recipes. I also really like each comment beforehand. It gave a more personal touch on each recipe and something perhaps the reader could identify with. I have been to Turtle Creek Mansion in Dallas so that was nice to see plus the recipe from Hawaii.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your average burger!!, May 11, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Burgers: 50 Recipes Celebrating an American Classic (Hardcover)

Not only do you get new beef burger recipes, but also step by step instructions to creating lamb, chicken, buffalo, turkey, seafood and tofu burgers (to name a few). There is a handy list of burger do's and don'ts. I love the burger and side dish recipes contributed by celebrity chefs with famous restaurants. Finally, the stuffed blue cheese burger with apple and bacon rocks!!!!