The perfect burger (just use Kobe beef)

The hamburger has been getting a lot of attention lately. This common folk food is popping up in a lot of nice restaurants, and the gastro-pub craze has resulted in endless variations of this tried and true classic. A few days ago, the NYTimes had an article on "the prefect burger," for which it interviewed several well known chefs for their opinion on the perfect burger. I've made burgers several times at bbqs, and usually they are pretty low key events. Usually, I'll just season them with salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. I have one previous blog entry about burgers, and I thought that one was pretty good until I tried this version. This hands down the best burger I've ever had. The secret? Kobe beef. When Abby and I went to Savenor's today, they had just ground up some Kobe ribeye. For burgers, you can't do better than that.

I topped the burgers with Grafton cheddar
and carmelized onions. I tossed the onions with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and olive oil, and slowly cooked them on a cast iron griddle. When they were done, I tossed in a little balsamic vinegar from Modena.
While the onions were cooking, I formed the Kobe beef into two half pound patties and seasoned with a generous amount of kosher salt and coarse ground pepper. When the onions were done, I turned the heat up to high and gave the griddle a couple minutes to heat up. I seared the burgers for 3 minutes on the first side and two minutes on the second side. After the second side was finished, I topped the burgers with cheese and finished in the oven at 375F for another 3 minutes. The burgers came a perfect medium rare (a little more to the rare side). While the burgers were resting, I toasted the buns on the griddle and tossed a little olive oil in with a handful of arugula. Once the burgers were done cooking and had a couple minutes to rest, they were ready to go. Just add ketchup, whole grain mustard, the onions and arugula and you have one great burger.