Aaron's "Carefully Hand Crafted Italian Burger"

by AaronB
(Detroit, MI)

Watching Chef Mohr's series has motivated me to be a bit more "Open Minded" about my cooking, and to try out different combinations of flavors.

I had some mozzarella cheese that I needed to use up, I had some hamburger meat...so I made a creation.


~First of all, I made a roasted Tomato, shallot, and basil salsa.

Simply rubbed some peeled shallots, and some tomatoes with some oil, and salt+Pepper, wrapped them in foil, and put them on the grill for 40 minutes.

When done, take off the grill, let cool, till you can handle it, then roughly chopped up the Toms/Shallots, and added some fresh basil (quite a bit of it. Can't get enough of the stuff)
Also mixed in some basil infused olive oil.
Let that chill in the fridge.~~

~~Take your mozzarella and cut into maybe half inch thick slices.~~

~~Take your hamburger meat (Don't care what kind. Your choice), and season it how you'd like. I personally just did salt, pepper, some crushed garlic, a shake or two of dried orgeano, and an egg (the egg helps hold it all together).

Take handfuls of your burger and shape it around the individual slices of cheese. The burgers will come out pretty thick...and that's OK. Try to make sure that cheese is entirely wrapped up though.

Toss the burgers on the grill, and cook till done, flipping them once. As the burgers cook, and even after taking them off the grill, the cheese will continue to melt inside of them.~~


~~That's it! Just pop one of those burgers on a bun of your choice (I used a plain kaizer roll, but use whatever you'd like!). Top with the salsa mixture! ~~


~~If you really wanted to crank it another level, then you could toast the inside of the hamburger buns on the grill for just a minute with some olive oil, and then rub a piece of raw garlic against it!~~


Hope you enjoy it. My friends came up with the title for the burger...I just called it "Delicious"