LUCKY PEACH LAMB BURGERS

Lucky Peach Lamb Burgers image

Peter Meehan developed this dish for Lucky Peach's cookbook, "101 Easy Asian Recipes." I make it on a flat-top griddle set over a grill, but the method works equally well on your kitchen stove. The burgers are a take on a dish served in Xi'an, the capital city of Shaanxi province in northwestern China, at the easternmost terminus of the Silk Road. Cumin and chile, along with some Sichuan peppercorns if you can find them, bring a bright funkiness to ground lamb, which crisps up beautifully on top of a bed of sautéed red onion and jalapeño pepper. Put the patties into potato buns, and serve under a spray of cilantro leaves. It's a meal you could cook twice a month for the better part of a year.

Provided by Sam Sifton

Categories burgers

Time 20m

Yield 4 burgers

Number Of Ingredients 10

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Ingredients

1 pound ground lamb
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns, toasted and crushed (optional)
1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon neutral oil, like canola
1 small red onion, halved, peeled and thinly sliced
1 jalapeño, halved, seeded and thinly sliced
Potato buns, for serving
Cilantro leaves, for serving

Steps:

Create a flat-top cooking surface on a gas grill by using a couple of large cast-iron skillets, or a thick metal sheet like a Baking Steel, or soapstone cooking tiles. Light the grill, and set the burners to medium. Lower top of grill, and allow it heat.
Gently combine the lamb, cumin, Sichuan peppercorns, chile flakes and salt in a large bowl, then form into four equal-size balls.
Raise the lid of your grill, add the oil to the cooking surface and use a spatula to coat it, then place the onions and jalapeños on the surface, and fry them until lightly browned but still crunchy, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
Separate the vegetables into four piles with a good amount of space between them. (If using two pans, each pan should contain two piles.) Top each pile with one of the balls of meat. Use the spatula to smash the balls into flat patties, approximately 1/2 inch thick. Cook until the bottom of each patty is well browned and the meat is opaque about halfway to the top, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Flip each patty, and cook through, approximately 3 minutes for medium.
Place patties on buns, and top each one with cilantro leaves.

Nutrition Facts : @context http, Calories 365, UnsaturatedFat 16 grams, Carbohydrate 3 grams, Fat 30 grams, Fiber 1 gram, Protein 19 grams, SaturatedFat 12 grams, Sodium 325 milligrams, Sugar 1 gram, TransFat 0 grams