As a writer, it’s important for me to remember to back up my work at regular intervals so that I don’t lose hours of precious writing when a file gets accidentally deleted. As a mother, it’s important for me to back up my photos and videos so I don’t lose tons of precious memories because a hard drive decided to have a violent hiccup. And as a wife, it’s important for me to back up my recipes…lest I lose a super-important one and my husband subsequently has heart failure.
We all make mistakes sometimes, but this one lost recipe – which I had on my computer but had never actually written down anywhere – is one of my husband’s absolute favorites. It was discovered as part of an old file full of super-old cookbooks, and when I realized I’d lost it we spent hours trying to track it down again. Luckily my husband did eventually manage to find it on a recipe-sharing site, and I’m sharing it here today both as a method of backing it up for myself, and also because you guys deserve to try out the best burger recipe in the world (totally unbiased opinion).
Credit for this recipe goes to Rhoda Troyer, of Glenford, Ohio, who won a “World’s Best Burger” competition with it some years back. It seems pretty basic (the recipe is mostly the sauce), but trust me when I say it’s absolutely delicious.
Sauce:
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses
2 tsp prepared mustard
1-1/2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp liquid smoke
1/8 tsp pepper
In a small saucepan, mix all ingredients. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat and let stand. Protip: if you’re a molasses lover like my husband, you can reduce the ketchup and add in more molasses. It doesn’t change the consistency of the sauce, but it gives it that bit of a stronger flavor.
Burgers:
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup quick-cook oats
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp onion salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp salt
1-1/2 lbs ground beef
Mix all ingredients together, then add in 1/4 cup of the sauce you prepared earlier and mix in well. Protip: I usually bump the oats up to a 1/2 cup instead of the 1/3, to help hold the burgers together a little better, since the sauce makes the meat a little less consistent.
The original recipes calls to form the meat mixture into six patties, but if you do so those patties will be pretty enormous. The last time I made this recipe my husband got me to make eight patties instead and they were the perfect size. Another protip: after you’ve formed the patties, through them in the fridge or freezer for a little while to get them nice and cool and keep them formed.
Finally, barbecue (or fry, or grill) to your liking, using some of the leftover sauce to baste. You’ll still have tons of sauce left over, but trust me when I say to stick it in a container in the fridge and hold onto it for a while. It goes great on pretty much anything you might want to barbecue.
Finally, slap those burgers on buns and top as you like! We usually throw on some bacon, cheese, and onions, and oh man…there are no words.
So, in conclusion: back up your stuff. And make these burgers. And let me know when you’ve made them so we can gush together about how awesome they are.
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