Turkey Burgers of Awesome

Be forewarned: this is not for the faint of heart or the vegetarian, because you have to both eat meat and handle it raw with your hands. However, if you are not a coward and you are an omnivorous antipescetarian like I am, or even if you're just a carnivore, it's well worth the grossness.

I'm going to have to rewind a little bit here. I've babysat for this one family in the area since last summer. (I had some adventures babysitting which have been logged here somewhere. I don't feel like going to find them now, but they're there.) The three kids are really cute - all redheads - and they all really like hamburgers.

I don't really know how to cook hamburgers minus a grill.

So I improvised. I opened the ground beef, shaped it into patties, put some olive oil in a frying pan, and fried the burgers until they were no longer very pink in the middle. They turned out ok, but they were kinda bland. The next time, I put salt and pepper on them, and they were only slightly improved.

This went on for the rest of the year...UNTIL THIS WEEK. I made a discovery. So here you go: how to make awesome turkey burgers (though it would probably work with beef too. We only had turkey this time around.)

-In a bowl, pour in some amount of shredded cheese. I don't use recipes, so I don't have specific amounts. Sorry.

-On top of the cheese, throw in some spices. I used Italian seasoning, garlic salt, thyme, basil, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper.

-Open your ground meat and dump it in the bowl along with the cheese and spices. Mush it all together with your hands.

-Make patties that look slightly larger than the burgers you want to end up eating, since they shrink in the pan.

-Pour a little olive oil into a frying pan and turn it to medium high heat. Once the oil crackles when sprinkled with water, it's hot enough. Put the burgers in the pan.

-Fry until they look done on one side, then flip them. When they're no longer pink in the middle, they're done.

So they're not traditional burgers, and they're not something you'd find in a restaurant, and I still don't know what the official kosher way to cook a burger is. That's just what I did, and they turned out pretty well. You should try it and report back here to say if they met your expectations or not.