Ingredients:
- 2 pounds LEAN ground beef (grass fed, organic)
- 5 oz. blue cheese crumbles (1 container)
- 6 tbsps. Fresh Harvest Tuscan Herb olive oil
- 6 tbsps. Fresh Harvest Neapolitan Herb or Mission Fig or our Fresh Harvest house balsamic from Modena, plus more for drizzling.
- 1 tsp. salt (your choice)
- 1 tsp. pepper or chili pepper (your choice)
- As it suits you: buns/pickles/onion/lettuce, etc
Mix the lean ground beef with the Tuscan olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper by your clean hands. Add the blue cheese crumbles and incorporate into the mixture gently(by hand). Two pounds will make 8-quarter pounders. Divide the meat mixture into two equal sections, which is 1 lb each. Then divide those two 1 lb sections into 4 equal sections, which will be ¼ pounders. Using your favorite method (mine is my hand) pat and roll the ¼ pounders into burgers. As you form the burgers push larger blue cheese crumbles inside the meat. There will be visible blue cheese crumbles showing, which is ok, but try to get the larger pieces of blue cheese inside. Put raw burgers on a plate, cover and let them rest.
Direct and indirect cooking are the secret of this recipe.
Fire up the grill! Create two sections on your grill. Direct and indirect heat. This means the hot coals might go all over the bed of your grill for a bit to heat up and clean the grates, but once the grates are ‘heat cleaned’ and brushed – push back the coals to only halfof your grilling area. One side is direct heat. The other side is indirect heat. Cook the burgers on the hot side of the grill onlyuntil seared well, turning once. You want to sear both sides, but not cook them fully else the blue cheese will melt. Once they are seared nicely with grill marks, move the burgers over to the indirect heat side of your grill and drizzle with our balsamic. Open your vents so that the heated air is moving around the indirect heat side and close the lid of your grill. You’re basically baking the burgers, which is gentler cooking for the blue cheese.
Cook until done to your preference. Serve with toasted buns (our butter olive oil works well to toast buns), pickles, sliced red onion, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. Yum. Enjoy!
