Juicy Homemade Hamburgers

For our Is It Summer Yet?! Barbecue hubby bought a smoker – we watch a lot of ‘Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives’ on the Food Network channel, and he said it would be cool to start making our own smoked barbecue goodies :)

The easiest place to start, we thought, was hamburgers and ribs! Hubby also bought a hamburger press – normally we just make and shape them by hand, but the press really helped to compact the meat and it was another good buy!

You need just one ingredient – minced beef mince. No salt, no pepper, no nothing :P The reason you don’t need any seasoning is because of the smoker – which you use aromatic wood chips in – gives all the flavour you need! I’m not joking – these burgers came out the juiciest, tastiest burgers we’ve ever eaten! My dad was so impressed that he said he would buy a smoker and hamburger press to do them himself at home! And believe me, if my dad says that, I know that they were good!!

So into a bowl with the mince, which you just want to tenderise a bit by mixing together with your hands, and then, hubby (who made these burgers) formed the mince into a ball. I think he just did it for blog photos :P

Now of course, if you don’t have a hamburger press, then you can just shape them with your hand, but to make in a press, put a wax disc into the bottom of it. Place in some mince – our press makes quarter pound burgers – then place another wax disc on top.

Put the press down onto your work surface and push down.

And voila! One homemade burger patty!

Stack o’ burgers!

Place onto the grill and close the smoker lid. We turned our burgers once. My dad commented too that he thought, because they were such thick burgers that they would take a long time to cook, but they didn’t!

You can see our rack of ribs which we marinated with a shop-bought bottle of Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce, and we also threw on some lamb steaks too.

Serve how you like! I had mine all traditional in a bun, with melted cheese, onions, pickles, ketchup and mustard. My brother-in-law had his with some of my Black Bean Sweetcorn and Avocado Salsa for a South-Western style burger. Happy days!

Enjoy!

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