Dat not Pho, Dat Hamburgah

Last weekend I ate burgers for 4 meals in a row. I love burgers.  I love pho. Why not combine them?

This is my burger, there are many like it but this one is mine.

The stack:
Rice noodle bun
Bean sprouts, thai basil and saw tooth herb.
Pho infused beef patties
Hanh dam (pickled onions)
Pho-soaked onion puree
Sriracha/hoisin

Anyways, on to the recipe!



Recipe makes 4 double burgers.

2 lbs of ground beef - I used 80% lean chuck
5 cups of reserved pho broth (for pho recipe, scroll on down)
1 lb of pho noodles

Toppings
Pickled Onions
- 1/2 a medium red onion
- Rice wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp sugar

Thai Basil
Saw tooth herb
Bean sprouts
Chili peppers
Lime
Sriracha
Hoisin sauce

Reduce the broth down by 80% to intensify the flavors.  Once reduced, let cool to room temperature then chill in the fridge overnight.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, chilled broth concentrate, salt and pepper to taste (about 2 tsp of each).  You can remove the solidified fat from the broth if you'd like.

Gently combine the mixture and form into 8 evenly sized patties.  Don't be too rough here or you'll get a weird paste like texture.

Pack the patties in ziplock bags and cook sous vide at 135F for 1.5 hours.  If you have a sous vide machine, use it mr fancy pants; otherwise get a styrofoam cooler and fill it with 135 degree water and cover the top, it should hold the temp for a few hours.

Now here's the secret ingredient.  This is one of the charred, broth soaked onions from the pho cooking process. Something you'd never be able to get a restaurant, but my mom used to let me eat it every time she made pho.  Take it and blitz it with a stick blender to make an umami packed puree.

Once the patties are done, take them out of the water bath.  They'll look like slimy grey snot, but will be cooked to a perfect medium rare all the way through. To make it look more appealing, take out the blow torch and go to work.

To make the buns, cook the pho noodles per package instructions, but take them out of the water when they're still super al dente.  You'll be frying them so you don't want to over cook them.  The noodles have a lot of starch in them so you don't need a binder like egg to keep it together, but a mold helps.  Fry the pho buns until golden brown on both sides.  This is a similar technique to Pho Ap Chao, a pretty awesome dish... hmmm maybe that'll be the next post.

Assemble the burgers, get a crap load of paper towels and enjoy!  Serve with some Heineken for that authentic Viet experience.


PS:
The photography has been inspired by pornburger.me Check them out if you're ever missing some food porn in your life.