- It's big game burger day,
and I'm not talking about
Ohio State versus Pitt, Brent.
- Today, we're making elk burgers.
(upbeat music)
- Today, we're working with an elk shoulder
from our friends at Fossil Farms.
- If you're looking for a sustainable farmed elk,
you're gonna be looking at Canada,
and Fossil Farms brings it on down.
Brent, (claps hands) you want to open this up,
We can get a look at this
lean,
mean
elk machine?
- (snaps fingers) (claps hands) Let's do it.
(plastic crinkles) Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
- The chuck is actually pretty ideal
for making a burger from any animal,
but especially a lean animal like an elk,
it's even more important.
As you can see,
we have a lot of connective tissue here,
which we'll need to trim.
You don't want that sinew in there,
but you also get globs of fat.
Which, when making a burger,
you need fat.
Brent, you told me to take it easy,
so I'm gonna do that.
Would you mind trimming all the sinew off of this?
- I'll do the work.
- [Ben] Okay, so while Brent is doing the trim work here,
and he's doing a great job-
- [Brent] Hey, thanks.
- [Ben] It's worth nothing that
the anatomy of any of these animals
is going to be very similar.
So this looks a lot like a chuck from a beef or a pork,
it's just different of size and scale and fat.
Overall, we're gonna be taking the same approach to this
as we would a beef shoulder.
- So anytime I have a little piece of fat,
I do want to save this for the burger blend,
because elk is still a very lean animal.
It's only 6% body fat,
where, I don't know,
take something like Ben
is probably closer to 20% body fat.
- [Ben] So we have,
for our burger blend,
we have the short ribs.
- [Brent] I mean, we have the bavette over here.
- [Ben] And a little bit of skirt right here.
- And a whole bunch of belly flab,
and we're just gonna cut right along that line
and take this part,
and use this for our burgers.
We're just gonna cut this into one-inch cubes.
(upbeat music)
- So, ideally when we're making beef burgers,
we like 70% lean to 30% fat.
Obviously, with elk, we're not gonna get that.
So where do you think we're gonna end up?
- I mean, I think we want to play into the fact that
elk is a leaner meat,
so we only want 10 to 15% fat.
- And if you wanted to add more fat,
you could go to a local butcher
and get pork fat or beef fat really, really cheap,
and pork fat won't affect the flavor too much.
Beef fat is gonna affect the flavor a little bit,
but we really want this to be an all-elk enterprise,
so we're gonna stick to what we got.
- Ben, it is time to grind our meat!
(Ben groans)
- You carried that on a subway?
- It's not the weirdest thing
I brought on the subway even this week.
How many grinds do we want to do?
- I'm not sure.
We usually do two passes with beef
so that the fat is evenly distributed,
but I think we just start with one.
- Yeah. - See what we're looking at.
- Yeah, man.
Why don't we...let's just take it easy.
- This is a new adventure.
- Let's let the elk guide us-
- Whoa!
- ...into what kind of burger it wants to be.
- All right, all right.
- This has been chilling for,
ooh, that got cold quick.
This has just been chilling for about, what,
15 minutes in the freezer? - About 15.
- We want to get this
to be as solid of a piece as possible.
It'll go through this,
so we'll have more intact muscle and fat structure.
Also, it won't smear as much,
because we want to keep the entire process of grinding
as cold as we can.
♪ Here we go ♪
♪ It's another day on the grinder ♪
This is looking pretty good.
- You have seen us use ice before
when we made a sausage,
but burger grinds,
keep your ice out of there.
(metal clangs)
Put that ice back in your margarita, bud.
What are you thinking here, Ben?
- I kinda think it's good as is.
What do you think?
- I think she is gorgeous.
- Our fat looks pretty evenly mixed,
but with only one grind,
we're still gonna get, like,
real steaky bite out of it.
- So, if we're making a big patty,
we're talking six to eight ounces,
which means it's gonna be a larger grind
in order for it to be steaky.
- Even though we have, like, a decent amount of fat
because we were using the belly and the short ribs,
you want to stick closer to rare.
You're gonna get more flavor.
It tends to dry out a lot quicker
because there isn't any fat.
- (claps hands) All right,
we're ready to make our burger patties.
We're gonna make eight-ounce burgers,
'cause Ben needs to put on a couple pounds.
From our grind here- - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- Again, you see us always mixing things, mixing things.
We're making sausage,
we're not making burgers.
Now, we're making burgers.
We're not mixing anything.
Don't mix it,
you're not making a meatball!
- Don't be a hero.
Don't be a meatball hero.
We want to keep it loose.
We want that steaky bite.
We want that steaky texture.
That's why we're gonna keep it really loose.
(upbeat music)
Wowee
zowee.
- We got our burgers formed
and they are chilling out,
and we need to get the rest of our ingredients ready.
So, we're gonna make a horseradish mayo.
Ben, (claps hands)
better get to grating that horseradish.
(mellow rock music)
- So, if you have a peeler at home,
you can use that to peel the skin off of the horseradish,
but we are gonna use a chef's knife today.
Brent, would you say horseradish is
overrated or underrated,
and how do you like it?
- I feel like it's so underrated,
I don't even want to talk about it on camera,
because it's one of my favorite secret ingredients.
- Really? - Oh, man.
I put it on everything.
- Are you joshing me right now?
- I'm not, no josh, bro.
No josh, straight up.
So the horseradish is gonna add
a nice pop of brightness to the mayo.
It's gonna help cut through
a lot of the big flavors from the elk.
We got our quarter cup of horseradish.
We're ready to make our mayo.
First we are going to
start with (cracks shell) one egg.
- [Ben] Boop!
- Two (taps utensil) teaspoons of Dijon.
- Dijon!
- (taps utensil) One quarter cup horseradish.
All right, so we're just gonna pulse
our first three ingredients
to incorporate them.
(blender rattles)
They're incorporated.
We're gonna slowly
add
our
oil.
(upbeat music)
Looks nice and thick.
We're gonna thin it out just a little bit
with a touch of pickle juice.
- This'll affect the amount of salt you want to add,
because, obviously, brine,
pretty salty.
So you'll just salt it to taste.
- You'll notice we haven't added any salt yet.
Let's give it a taste.
- Okay, definitely need to add more salt.
Let's taste it for salt.
(upbeat music)
Boo-bi-doop.
(upbeat music)
- That's great.
That really did bring out a lot of the horseradish.
I do think it could use a little bit more,
just 'cause I like mine a spicy.
- Okay.
- Also, if you don't have fresh horseradish,
you can use prepared horseradish.
It's okay.
It comes packed in water,
so your liquid is going to be
a little bit higher,
just from your emulsification,
so maybe don't use it until the end,
and you can use it just in the last bit of seasoning.
We're back in burger universe.
All right, we got a big beefy burger.
We got our acids that are gonna cut through that.
- Mm-hmm.
- What aspect are we missing?
- My guy, (claps repeatedly)
we are missing the cheese.
- It's a cheeseburger, after all!
- It's a cheeseburger.
- What do you got, Ben?
- We have a very special cheese today.
One of our favorites from Southwest Virginia,
from Meadow Creek Farm,
Grayson cheese.
So this right here is a soft cow's milk cheese.
If you ever go to, you know, the supermarket
and you get a soft cheese,
and you're like, "Wow, that is a funky, pungent smell,"
this is in that family.
This is our last way that we're gonna add
more fat to our burger.
When we're talking about big game burgers
that are gonna be kind of lean,
cheese is a great way to get some fat incorporated,
and nothing's fattier than my baby right here
from Meadow Creek.
- It's your favorite time of every episode, Ben.
Time to cut- (slams board)
- [Both] the
(Brent slams board)
cheese! (Brent slams board)
- Hooo!
(paper rustles)
- Look at that.
(upbeat music)
Okay,
we have our mayo,
we have our cheese,
we have our onions,
our pickles,
everything to go on the burger.
The, what's missing here?
- We just need our burger patty!
Let's get a cast iron pan,
get 'er nice and hot,
and get cooking.
Just to stay consistent with our 100% elk burger,
we rendered out some elk fat.
We're actually gonna fry the burger in the elk fat.
The great thing about kidney fats, as well,
is that they have a really high smoke point,
so, like, beef kidney fat,
you can deep-fry in.
Elk,
same thing,
so it's actually gonna be a really great fat
for frying a burger.
- Brent, let's drop some buns.
Whew, that is hot.
This'll only take a few seconds
to get these buns nice and brown.
(mellow rock music)
I feel like you have strong opinions
about how much you want to salt a burger.
- I don't have strong opinions.
There's just a right way and a wrong way,
and the right way's my way,
which means
a lot of freaking salt.
To say liberal would be an understatement.
You want-
- Copious?
- Copious.
- Would that be the statement?
- I think that would be a correct statement.
- Now, remember that you're just salting the outside,
but you're trying to season something
to go all the way through,
so it might seem like a lot,
but it's not.
Plus, some of this salt is going to fall off the burger.
It's not like you can stack
an inch (claps hands) worth of salt on a burger
and it'll stay there.
- Also, you'll notice that,
because we did just one grind,
this is a really loose pack.
That's gonna help us get that real big steaky texture
we're looking for.
- Burgers!
Burgers!
- Are you sure you're ready?
- Burgers! - Okay.
- Burgers!
(pan sizzles) (mellow rock music)
- Once you put 'em down,
let 'em sear.
Let 'em hang out.
You know when we're grilling steaks,
we want to turn 'em a bunch of times?
The cast iron pan,
the burger,
you want to make sure that that sear is consistent,
which means a hot pan.
Put it down,
don't touch it!
Because we're working with elk today,
we want to make sure that we're not cooking to,
all the way to, like, medium, medium well.
We want to keep it on the rare side.
This is lean meat.
We don't have a ton of fat that we're rendering.
- We need to keep it on the lower temp side,
so we're looking for 120, 125
as the internal temperature. - Perfect.
- To help your cheese melt a little bit more quickly,
you can add a little bit of water
just to the pan,
throw on a lid really quick,
like we're about to do,
and it'll help that cheese melt a little bit quicker.
(pan sizzles)
That's good,
F*** yeah.
You want to pull 'em?
- [Brent] Yeah.
- [Ben] All right.
- That's a- - This is melty-
- f****** burger! - Yeah.
F****** A.
That is gonna be beautiful.
(pan sizzles)
This one seems like a diet burger.
(Brent laughs) It's, like, embarrassing.
Okay, there we go.
We have these burgers cooked! (claps hands)
We are ready! (claps hands)
We're gonna build this burger
as quickly as we can,
'cause I'm f****** hungry.
Brent, what's first?
- All right, mayo first.
You need to hit both the bottom and the top.
- [Ben] All right, next up.
- Whoa! - Burger!
So that is a good 10 or 11 ounces,
(Brent laughs)
with all that cheese on it.
Next, we have some red onion,
pickles,
(upbeat music)
all right.
Guys,
this
is it.
We started by saying it was big game burger day,
and we were not joking.
(chuckles) I can't remember
the last time I made a burger this big.
- [Brent] I know, this is ridiculous,
and I'm very excited about it.
- But it was all about starting with the animal,
which we knew would be lean,
and then building around
the natural flavor we would be getting from that,
and how can we make that flavor even bigger
and more beautiful?
(upbeat music)
- Whoa.
I know Fieri said it first, but,
"Holy f****** Flavortown!"
- Yeah.
- Every aspect of this works well together.
The brioche bun.
- The horseradish mayo.
- The onions.
- The pickles.
- The elk.
- (chuckles) The fat that we cooked the elk in.
- (chuckles) I know!
The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.
- The cheese!
- Oh, yeah, and the cheese.
Big game burgers,
big game flavors.
This whole thing is crazy
and super delicious.
- Incredibly good.
If you have any questions
about this big game burger,
or want to tell us about
your big game burgers you make at home,
drop us in the comments.
- Thank god.
(can cracks)
- Ah, about time.
- It's time. (can cracks)
- I need this.
(upbeat music)
Oh, that's how you wash it down.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
Now it's a burger.
- Beer also pairs well with elk burgers.
- See you on the hunt.
(upbeat music)