RECIPE :: Black & Blue Burger, Scottish Style

I’ve always been a fan of fusion cuisine, and I though this Scottish twist on an American classic would be interesting.

Generally, when I think of a black and blue burger I think of cajun spiced ‘blackened’ beef with blue cheese and all the fixin’s. As regular readers will know I can’t really handle my spicy food. Also I’ve had pretty bad experiences of American food with some of the main restaurants in Edinburgh being pathetic examples of the genre (TGI Fridays, Hard Rock Cafe, the Ill Fated Old Orleans).  Of course there are great restaurants too, but more on them later.

James and I decided we wanted burgers for dinner, but wanted to do it a bit differently. So we decided to make black and blue burgers; Scottish style. We kept a Southern element by making some sweet potato fries.

For this recipe you can put the blackening spices back on the shelf next to your shrunken heads. The black in this recipe comes from black pudding; sadly I’ve seen this blood sausage turn up on ‘most disgusting food’ lists next to things like century eggs and lutefisk, which absolutely baffles me because I’ve grown up with black pudding and love it almost as much as haggis.

We started off by taking half a roll of black pudding; about 100g, and mixing it with a package of beef mince.

Black Pudding; this is a Halls one

Mince and Black Pudding... not the prettiest

Mix it together. Don’t be shy, get your hands in there. Mix it all into a bit meaty lump and separate it into four patties (can anyone think of a grosser word than ‘patties’? Bleurgh!)

Squidge

Once this is done, take a sweet potato. Cut it in half, and then cut the halfs into chip sized slices.

Slice your sweet tatties

Soften the chips up a bit by boiling them first; if you stick them straight in the oven you might be waiting a while (maybe an hour) for them to cook.

CHUPS

Once they  start to yield to your fork, usually about 10 mins, drain them and chuck them in an oven dish. Stick them in there for another ten minutes, with plenty of olive oil and some rosemary and garlic if you’re feeling fancy.

Into the oven dish

This is also the perfect time to stick your burger in there. You could fry it but grilling is far healthier.

Patties!

You can make sure it’s done by poking a knife in and checking that the juices are running clear. Some people like rare burgers, but to me that’s just fundamentally wrong. Steak, yes. Burgers; no. You’ll find that the burgers are a bit squishier than usual due to the addition of the black pudding.

Now to assemble your burger. Pop the meat onto a ciabatta bun. You can warm it up for a few minutes in the oven, but personally I like my buns soft. Heating them makes them go a bit too crispy for moi.

Stick a slice of blue cheese on. Since this is a Scottish burger, I used Strathdon blue cheese; a nice soft yummy blue which is a bit like Butler’s or Costello.

I also added a couple of rings of onion, and a slice of tomato.

Scottish Black & Blue burger

Stick the fries on the plate too, and enjoy!

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