Reimagining the burgerReimagining the burger

In this special report, we highlight some of the unsung heroes in culinary innovation. Read more about creative approaches to five signature menu items here.

What do you get when you combine a sausage maker and a burger joint? You get patties made of chicken ground with blue cheese, onion and hot sauce, and pork patties ground with apples, brown sugar, bacon and spices, along with a bunch of other combinations.

“We have 12 to 15 different burger options that each start with a different patty and not just a beef burger with a bunch of stuff on top,” said Bobby Marcotte, chef of Tuckaway Tavern & Butchery in Raymond, N.H., and Hop & Grind in Durham, N.H., about 20 miles away on the campus of the University of New Hampshire. 

“We started messing around with infusing meats through our sausage making at Tuckaway, creating different flavors of sausage, and it got us to thinking, why not do this with burgers?”

He started experimenting with different proteins and flavor combinations — like chicken with spinach, garlic and barrel-aged feta — determining the right ratios of everything, mixing them and grinding them.

 “And then we take it through the next step with pasteurization,” he said.

Once the patties are formed, he puts them into a piece of equipment that he says is a cross between a combi oven and a steamer. “It’s almost like a smoke box,” he said.

He keeps that box at 165 degrees Fahrenheit and puts the pork patties in there for between three and three and a half hours and the chicken patties for closer to four hours. Then they cool it, “but we don’t freeze it because that causes some of the flavors to break down,” said Marcotte (left).

When the burgers are ordered, he marks them on his grill, tops them, puts them on toasted buns and serves them to Hop & Grind’s customers.

The result is burgers that can be prepared quickly and are infused with flavor throughout.

“The flavor goes from top to bottom, where the typical burger kind of falls flat in the middle,” Marcotte said.

The chicken with blue cheese, onions and hot sauce is on the menu as the Hot Chick (pictured at the top) — a Buffalo-style burger dressed in hot sauce, blue cheese, cilantro, carrot-celery slaw and cool ranch dressing.

The pork with apples, brown sugar, bacon and spices is the Uncle Ham, meant to evoke memories of pork chops and apple sauce. It’s topped with apple chutney, smoked gouda, cider glaze, fried sage and a house specialty of dry-aged bacon.

Marcotte makes that from dry-aged pork belly that he purchases.

“It adds kind of a gamy, funky flavor, but it’s not overpowering,” he said. “It almost takes on a sweetness from the dry aging,” he said. “The smoke mellows it all out. It’s really, really nice.”

The chicken with aged feta is the patty for the Greece Lightning, which is topped with spinach, garlic, feta, tomato, cucumber and an herbed garlic yogurt.

Other fan favorites include the Parma Sutra — a patty of chicken, tomato, provolone basil and garlic topped with tomato sauce, basil, provolone and fried mozzarella sticks — and the Hog Marley, which is a patty of pork, pulled pork, bacon, barbecue sauce and cheddar topped with pulled pork, dry-aged bacon, cheddar, barbecue-mustard sauce and scallions.

Marcotte makes regular hamburgers, too, pre-formed and heated to 145 degrees.

He also has three plant-based burgers. Two vegetarian ones are the Beet Box and the Fun Guy.

The former is a griddled patty of grated beets, quinoa, chickpea and orange zest topped with apple chutney, cider glaze, smoked gouda, fried sage and honey butter. The latter is portobello and shiitake mushrooms formed into patties with brown rice and grilled chickpeas, griddled and then topped with roasted shiitakes and portobellos, smoked gouda, spinach-onion salad and black garlic truffle aïoli.

The third plant-based option is fried falafel topped with spinach, tomato, cucumber, barrel-aged feta and herbed garlic yogurt, but it’s not vegetarian because Marcotte fries with beef tallow.

Hop & Grind opened in November of 2017, and a new location is slated to open later this year at the Northshore Mall in Peabody, Mass.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]

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