American Entree
SMOKED BURGERS
INGREDIENTS
1½ pounds ground beef
2 teaspoons seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, etc.)
4 hamburger buns
optional toppings (cheese, lettuce, sliced onions, ketchup, etc.)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
smoker
electric thermometer
wood chips (hickory or mesquite)
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes for rare to 2 hours for well done. This time includes preheating the smoker. Times vary with smokers.
PREPARATION
Preheat smoker to 230 degrees. Add wood chips to smoker. While smoker heats, add ground beef and seasonings to mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Form beef into 4 patties. Patties should be about 1″ thick. Make an small indentation in middle of patties. (This helps keep the juices in the patties.)
Place burgers directly on smoker racks. Cook until internal temperature of burgers reaches your desired level of doneness. (Rare = 120 degrees, medium = 140 degrees, well done = 160 degrees.) There is so need to flip patties. Toast buns. Assemble bottom buns, smoked patties, toppings, and top buns.
TIDBITS
1) There are many ways to determine direction. The most obvious one is the compass. It however, don’t work well if you’re near one of the Earth’s magnetic poles. They also become completely useless when you forget to bring one. Then you and your friend, Bart, find yourself completely lost at the northern magnetic pole. Bart finally realizes he had a compass with him all the time. But now his compass doesn’t work because, well you’re at a magnetic pole.
2) Bart pipes up, “Say, moss grows on the north side of trees. That’s how we’ll find our direction.” Not quite, moss mostly grows on the north side. And there are no trees at the North Magnetic Pole. You resolve there and then to never again hike the Everglades with Bart.
3) If only you had had lettuce, onion, tomato, and a smoked hamburger patty. The veggies will always point to the southwest and the patty to the northeast. Now you know.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.


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