1lb minced beef
2oz fine breadcrumbs
1 medium onion finely chopped
1 crushed garlic clove
1tsp chili powder
1tsp hot paprika
1tsp dried parsley
1 tsp ground black pepper
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly.
Divide the mixture into 4 and form meatballs.
Flatten the meatballs into a patty-shape on a baking tray.
Cook in oven for 20 minutes turning at least once (or until cooked through completely to avoid food-poisoning).
Serve on a bun with your choice of condiments.

Goes well with green salad and/or french fries and serves 2 for dinner or 4 for lunch.

Wende A. Feller, August 17

I adore you! At the moment you posted this, I was wondering what to do
about a pound of defrosted ground turkey that wouldn't take forever. (Is
it too late to join the club?)
                     
I ended up making this with 1.25 pounds of ground turkey, a cup of
cornbread crumbs from Sunday's cornbread, half a large onion not chopped
too fine, curry powder instead of paprika, oregano instead of parsley,
1/2 tsp of cumin just for the heck of it, less black pepper... and
frying them instead of baking them, as I needed the oven for tater tots.
They came out so good that I had one for breakfast today. Turkey is
massively improved by the jolt of spices.
                     
Wende



fdrc, August 18

Made these last night (though I forgot to turn them during cooking, it
didn't seem to hurt them a bit!).  I think perhaps the onion I used was
a bit larger than this recipe called for; there seemed to be a bit too
much onion to get it all to stick in the patties.  Also, I never would
have thought of cooking hamburgers in the oven; it definitely worked
well & sealed in a lot more of the juices than pan frying would have. 

Very good and very easy!  Thanks for the recipe, Jean!

Fiona
(who, like Wende, had a pound of ground meat defrosted and was
uninspired about her options until she read this recipe.)



JulieD3964, August 25

Last night we cooked up the chili beef burgers.  After mixing in all of
the spices, we determined that the meat wasn't absorbing any of them.
We had a ton of spices and breadcrumbs in the bottom of the mixing bowl
and couldn't get them to mix properly.  We ended up adding in some Kraft
Hickory Barbecue sauce from the fridge (about 3 tablespoons) and a
tablespoon of A-1 sauce.  Also, we just used regular paprika since we
didn't have any hot paprika and I only used about 1/4 of a medium onion
since neither of us cares for onion.  I think in the future, I'd use
dried minced onion instead but we were fresh out. 

The major thing we noticed from baking the burgers instead of pan frying
as we normally do was the amount of grease in the bottom of the baking
dish - when we pulled the dish out, the grease was bubbling and popping
all over the place.  We used lean meat but I guess not lean enough -
especially with the added liquid. 

As for the taste, these were very good but I didn't like the texture of
the onions and I couldn't seem to dab mine enough with a paper towel to
degrease them.  We ate them plain with side salads.

Julie



Jean Peters, August 25

fdrc wrote:
> JulieD wrote:
> > The major thing we noticed from baking the burgers instead of pan
> > frying as we normally do was the amount of grease in the bottom of
> > the baking dish - when we pulled the dish out, the grease was
> > bubbling and popping all over the place. We used lean meat but I
> > guess not lean enough - especially with the added liquid.
> 
> Really?  I was so impressed by how much *less* fat there was in the
> baking dish versus pan frying.  I also used lean ground beef (just 10%
> fat) but didn't cut down the onion or use barbecue sauce.  It's
> possible that the amount of onion called for in the recipe absorbs
> some of the grease.

I don't use lean beef for this, just the regular minced beef.  I usually
add that amount of onion because it's one of the few veggies that Mark
will eat.  The breadcrumbs also absorb some of the grease, but I try to
keep the amount of breadcrumbs down for that reason.  You can add more
or less successfully if you want, their main purpose is as a binding
agent.  

I don't know what went wrong for Julie.  As far as mixing the
breadcrumbs and spices in, I sometimes have to actually squish it up
with my hands before it's properly mixed.  It feels gross, but it works.
Also the oven has to be *very* hot before you put in the burgers to seal
them properly. Of course you can fry or grill them if you prefer.  I
just find the oven more convenient as our grill (broiler) is integrated
with the oven and I found that if I only used the grill the burgers
ended up overcoooked on the outside and not done properly on the inside.
(I can't remember the last time that I used a frying pan!)

I should probably have mentioned that this is an adaptation af the
burgers that my mother used to make when we were kids.  She made them
without the additional spices, but as I've mentioned before, we like our
food kind of hot and spicy :-).

Jean



Vicky Larmour, August 25

I made these tonight - just finished eating them in fact :-) I used lean
beef mince (95% lean), and lots of onion and garlic. I wasn't sure
whether to add more or less spices than Jean had suggested so I ended up
following the recipe exactly (a first for me!). It came out absolutely
yummy! 

Jean Peters wrote:
> As far as mixing the breadcrumbs and spices in, I sometimes have to
> actually squish it up with my hands before it's properly mixed.  It
> feels gross, but it works. 

I did this, although I wore (as I always do for cooking) disposable thin
plastic food preparation gloves because I have allergies on my hands
that flare up if they get meat or vegetable juices in contact with them.
It doesn't feel gross that way either!

> Of course you can fry or grill them if you prefer.  I just find the
> oven more convenient as our grill (broiler) is integrated with the
> oven and I found that if I only used the grill the burgers ended up
> overcoooked on the outside and not done properly on the inside.  

I thought baking them in the oven worked particularly well.  Normally if
I home-make burgers, I fry them, but they inevitably fall apart in the
frying pan. It seems as though less "manipulation" of the burgers is
needed if you bake them, so that helps them stay together and seal
properly. 

Anyway... a resounding success, so thanks to Jean!

Vicky



Michelle, Spetember 7

I am a little behind with my recipes, but I wanted to say that I tried
Jean's Beef Burgers recipe: It was delicious!!

I used more meat that required (I had a 2lb package, and I used 3/4 in
case I didn't have time to do anything with the rest of the meat) but
didn't add more spices. I found that there were plenty of onions even
though I had more meat.

I made the patties way too big and it was a bit difficult to eat because
of this, but it was really good. The night after, we chopped up the
leftover patties and cooked it with some noodles and some soya sauce. I
still have some leftover, but just enough for 1 person, so I might do
something for supper with it (DH is taking a course tuesday nights
starting today, so I'll be alone).

Thanks for the recipe! I just copied it in my "favorite recipes book"!

Michelle



jess h., September 9

We made the beef burgers last night.  We used 85% lean beef (we use
leaner for other things, but like some fat in burgers) and followed the
recipe pretty much exactly, except that we didn't have any hot paprika,
and we were in a hurry and used garlic powder instead of a crushed
garlic clove.  Oh, I also added some oregano.

It was yummy... kind of like a combination of burgers and meatloaf.
I put ketchup on mine, and DH used A1 sauce.  We also made tater tots
to go with them.

If I made them again, I would add more chili powder (or get hot paprika),
and maybe use chopped up mushrooms instead of breadcrumbs.  I also
thought about adding a little Worchestershire sauce, but we were all
out.

Thanks for the idea, Jean!

Jessica



RNR, September 16

Well, made these tonight.  We didn't have any parsley in the house,
and we never have dried, so I left it out.  They were great, I
overcooked one for Rich, since he likes meat very well done, but mine
was nice.  Alexander even liked them!  I cut them up with some
potatoes and tomato pieces and he ate it right up.

Thanks Jean!

Regards,
Ranee



al289, November 29

This is just a short report, since the recipe went smoothly and we had
similar - positive - results as others. We made Jean's burgers on Friday
night, and we really enjoyed them.
Our substitutions and deletions:
used powdered garlic instead of fresh
used dried onion flakes instead of fresh
used dried parsley instead of fresh
used a little over a 1/4 cup light homemade rye breadcrumbs (from
leftover breadmaker bread)

did not use any paprika of any kind, nor chili peppers or any other
'hot' spice; did use regular ground black pepper, though. 

We used a little more than a pound of beef, and so formed five burgers.
We grilled them in our little grill basket/"burger cage" on the BBQ.
They took about 20 minutes and worked out just fine. 

We served them with herbed barbequed potatoes (potatoes sliced with
skins on, brushed with olive oil and spices, wrapped in tin foil and put
on the BBQ), and *homemade* buns for the burgers! (DH was the bunmaster
and also helped with the stubborn BBQ. We used both a broiler pan and
the burger cage int eh midst of determining whether the BBQ *would*
light or not, and we both got wet and cold in the November rain doing
so! I would have prefered snow, personally, so we could have just
bundled up.) 

Antyway, I highly recommend grilling these on a BBQ - good flavour, fat
drips off, easy as pie, and you can cook your side dishes at the same
time. (I often do roasted carrots with lemon juice and rosemary, at the
same time -- just takes 5-10 minutes, depending on desired doneness.) 

cheers, Barbara