Umami Burger - Dorie Greenspan's Everyday Dorie

Umami Burgers from Every Day Dorie

When I saw that the Cook the book fridays for today was the Umami Burger from Dorie Greenspan's Every Day Dorie, I knew I had to make it. We subbed out our original Friday night cooking plan of bulgogi with rice cakes in favour of Dorie's Umami burgers. This recipe has the name umami in it, how could I not make it? A quick look in the fridge indicated that we had a pack of mushrooms (clearly waiting to be used for this exact purpose) and some spinach. No gochujang sauce, but we had a bottle of spicy chili crisps. Frozen ground beef was found in the freezer, so we just had to defrost the meat and we were set! 

Brioche Buns in the Oven

Seeing that we were having burgers for dinner, the hubby decided to make his own brioche buns. He started the baking process last night (Thursday) so he could bake them up after work for dinner.

The beginnings of the mushroom mix for Umami Burgers

The recipe is fairly simple with the bulk of the umami flavour coming from the 10-12 chopped mushrooms. We had brown crimini mushrooms so that is what I used for our Umami burgers. 

Cooked down mushroom mix with sauce added

After the chopped mushrooms and red onion (vidalia) has cooked down (about 6 minutes), a sauce is added. Simply mix oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and in my case spicy chili crisp sauce. Go easy on the oyster sauce, as the sauce tends to be fairly salty for my taste. I also did not add more salt to the cooked mushrooms and onions as it felt adequately salted already.  When the mushroom mix is cooked, place in a bowl and let it cool. 

Forming the Umami Burger Patties

After our acupuncture appointment we came home and finished assembling the rest of dinner. Dorie does suggest that if you want additional mushroom flavour, you can mix the mushroom mix with the beef and let it sit in the fridge for a day. For us, we just mixed the beef and mushroom mix together and allowed it to marinate for around 10 minutes. 

Cooking 4 Umami Burger Patties on a Cast Iron Pan

We did not make our burger patties as big as the ones in the cookbook; mainly because we wanted to match our patties to the brioche buns that Dan had made. We were surprised that there was no binder needed to keep the patties together. In the end that was not needed as long as we followed Dorie's directions. Dorie suggests cooking the patties (on each side) for 4 minutes without moving them. Doing so provides a nice char and after 4 minutes you will be able to flip them. We cooked ours on medium to high heat on a cast iron pan. 

Fresh Brioche Buns

The brioche buns that Dan made fit perfectly with the burgers. They were soft and fluffy and perfect for our Umami Burgers. We topped our burgers with a slice of smoked Balderson cheddar and spinach. So good! Later on I did add some mayo and grainy mustard to see how different flavours 

Again a great savoury recipe from Dorie. We also really loved her Easy Salmon Burgers that we made a few years ago too! 

I would highly recommend that make these Umami Burgers. They are found on page 140 of Every Day Dorie by Dorie Greenspan or here.