Love, Animal Style (Photo Essay)

Ok, so those of y'all that listened to the podcast, episode one, heard (through a flurry of weird edits and us punching our mic stands), Nate and I discussing two interesting burger hacks, the deli-lid trick, and the mustard sear trick.  You also heard me lamenting the fact that I'm so special-order-averse that when I went to In-N-Out Burger for the first time, I couldn't bring myself to order off the 'secret menu,' so annoyed am I at the very concept of secret menus.  

The reason this is important is that the mustard-sear is part of the most famous In-N-Out burger secret menu selection, the Animal Style burger.  It's defined as 'double double (as in, double meat, double cheese), mustard seared patties, extra spread (aka Thousand Island), grilled onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato.'  

I thought it would be fun to correct the hole in my burger game, and make my own Animal-Style-Style burgers.  The biggest departure I planned on taking was losing the lettuce and tomato.  Listen to the podcast if you wanna know why.  I also planned on using Nate's deli-lid patty portioning trick.  

For the record, my really, really informal Thousand Island recipe is as follows.  Mix ketchup and mustard until it's the color of Thousand Island.  Add, to taste, chopped cornichons, whole grain mustard, brunoise red onion, hot sauce, and black pepper.  Never thought much of sweet relish.

I look photos of every step of the way.  Afterward, I'll comment on the results.

The Results

The Lid Trick: Worked really well for the first few burgers.  Then, the lids started to get sticky with beef fat.  Maybe some pan-spray would help?  I think this might work better if you're at a restaurant, where you invariably have an extra 200 lids, because those BASTARDS WON'T SELL JUST THE CONTAINERS WITHOUT THE LIDS, THE THIEVES.  In the home, where my supply is limited, I wouldn't want to do this in volume.  Also, it makes a nice pub-size burger, but not a real, flat, smash burger.  I'm still struggling with how to get patties that flat without a griddle and a giant spatula, a la Steak 'N' Shake.

The Mustard Sear: Tasted great, but didn't really play out like it did in my mind.  It made a really nice flavor on the meat, but I was envisioning this burnished layer of caramelized mustard, like you can get on a lamb rack.  However, the underside of a burger is a greasy sauna of steam and rendered beef fat, so that was wishful thinking.  Cool flavor, but it's not gonna light the world on fire.

The Animal-Style-Style Burger:  Not too shabby.  Really, really gigantic.  Like, too much toppings, which, if you'd listened to the podcast, you'd know isn't necessarily our thing.  But damn delicious.  Would've been easier to eat if I'd been able to achieve true smash-patties.  It was a lot of burger.  

Well, that's it for now.  I'm so goddamn hungry.

-JS