Decadence ... In a burger

I have had three remarkable experiences involving burgers in the past month. Each of them evoked a When Harry Met Sally type of reaction in me.  Fortunately, in each instance, I was surrounded by people who understood and had their own--how shall I put this?--enthusiastic responses to their food.

But I really didn't want to write about burgers. Honestly, it seems like every food magazine and foodie email I've seen this summer features burgers.  Don't we all know how to make burgers? 

So after my first orgasmic burger experience, at the fabulous Hubert Keller's Burger Bar in Las Vegas,  I waited. The burger: the Hubert Keller Burger, with buffalo meat, caramelized onions, baby spinach, bleu cheese, and a red wine & shallot sauce. OMG.

Then, this past Saturday, I went to a favorite Milwaukee-area restaurant, Cafe Hollander in Wauwatosa. I've had many wonderful things from their menu in the past--the Farmer's Market Omelet, the pulled pork sandwich, several great salads--but this time, my first time having dinner at the restaurant, it was the Bleu-cy Burger that caught my eye. It's a half-pound burger stuffed with cambazola cheese (a cross between camembert and Gorgonzola) and topped with bleu cheese, bacon, and their homemade Tandem Dubbel barbecue sauce.  We couldn't decide which was more decadent--my burger or my son's goat cheese Mac & cheese.  Wow.

But it was dinner Sunday night that put me over the edge and prompted me to write. Despite having our burgers at Cafe Hollander just the night before, my husband & I still had burgers on the brain and consented to our sons' request for burgers at home. Being a big fan of steak au poivre and all its peppery goodness, I decided to make burgers au poivre. 

I had made an improvised version of an au poivre sauce before--not totally authentic, but quite satisfying nevertheless. The hardest part is just finding the demiglace in the store in the first place. Making it involves hours of work including roasting veal bones, simmering them forever to make stock, and then reducing that sauce to demiglace.  I find it in small, shelf-stable containers sporadically at random specialty food stores and stock up as much as the expiration dates allow. Today I had one left, and it would be used for a very worthy cause. And this time I was going to add shallots, my current favorite ingredient.

Since the boys don't generally care for an abundance of pepper, I decided to stick with cheeseburgers for them but let them choose which cheese they wanted. My 12-year-old opted for cojack, while my 7-year-old budding gourmand chose a goat Gouda. He's a huge fan of goat cheese--go figure! I put bleu cheese on mine, and my husband went for white cheddar.

The au poivre sauce came together beautifully. It was one of those moments where I could tell before tasting it that it was going to be good. My husband, who was already starving, threatened to stand at the stove and just eat the sauce with a spoon if the burgers weren't done soon.

We slathered the grownups' burgers with the sauce and put some into small bowls for dipping our fries. These burgers ranked right up there with the Burger Bar and Cafe Hollander, and were all the better because we can make them whenever we want.

Burgers Au Poivre

The burgers:

1 lb lean ground beef (preferably grass-fed organic)

1/4 onion, minced

1 tsp malt vinegar

Salt (to taste)

2 tbsp cracked black peppercorns

Combine all ingredients except peppercorns in a bowl and mix well with your hands.  Form into patties. Coat both sides with cracked peppercorns. Grill to preferred level of doneness.

Au Poivre sauce:

1 pkg demiglace (1.5 oz)

1 cup beef stock (or broth, in a pinch)

2 tbsp butter (unsalted)

2 tbsp flour

2 shallots, minced

1-2 tbsp cracked black peppercorns

1 tsp dried thyme

1/4 cup red wine

Salt (to taste)

Place beef stock in a saucepan and heat to a slow simmer.  Add demiglace and stir until dissolved.  Set aside and keep warm.

Melt butter in another saucepan.  Add shallots and sauté on medium heat until translucent (do not brown).  Sprinkle flour over the shallot mixture and stir until well combined.  Cook the mixture--your roux--until it turns blond, stirring regularly to prevent burning.  Add thyme and stir until combined.

Pour the stock/demiglace mixture over the roux and whisk vigorously to integrate without creating lumps.  Allow the sauce to simmer slowly, stirring occasionally, for about 5-10 minutes.  Taste and add salt if needed, taking care not to over salt because the sauce will become more concentrated in flavor as it cooks.

Stir peppercorns and wine into the mixture and simmer another 5 minutes until fully integrated.  Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.  Pour over pepper-encrusted burgers or steaks.

Mise en place

“Mise en place” is a cooking term defined at the beginning of every Culinary Institute boot camp I’ve attended and occasionally thrown out during cooking shows on TV. Literally, it translates from French to English as “setting up.” I’ve heard others describe it as “everything in its place,” which is how I usually think of it. According to Chef Remolina, as well as several other chefs at the CIA, it refers to having all of your ingredients at the ready, including chopped and measured as appropriate. Chef also stressed that this includes being mentally prepared—having reviewed the recipes and understanding what needs to happen when before you actually dive into preparation. In practice, the recipe doesn’t necessarily turn out as planned every time, but if you’re prepared you’re better able to adapt and make things work in the end.



After I attended my first boot camp at the CIA with a good friend, she gave me a lovely silver bracelet with “mise en place” engraved on it. It’s much more than a reminder for my love of food and the wonderful experience I had at that first boot camp. Instead, it has become a bit of a life mantra for me. People who know me well will tell you that I’m not the most organized person on the planet. I can even hear them chuckling as they read that last sentence, knowing it’s the understatement of the year. But it’s certainly aspirational for me, a reminder to think things through, prepare myself physically and mentally for what’s ahead of me.



A professional kitchen is a place of organized chaos, with a tilt toward the “chaos” part of that phrase when it’s boot campers in the kitchen. So is my life. Yours too? Yeah, I hoped I wasn’t the only one. It helps to have the occasional reminder to put things in their place, think things through, and be prepared as you can for whatever happens. I’m not there yet, but I keep looking at my wrist to remind myself to step back, think it through, and keep trying.