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French Hamburgers is one of my favorite recipes from Julia Child’s “The Art of French Cooking.” No kidding.

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Bifteck Haché: it’s got caché

Don’t overlook French Hamburgers. They’re delicious.

Compared to many of French Cooking’s other recipes, this one’s easy. But if it’s uncomplicated, but it’s also surprisingly tasty. I’ve tried plenty of the options – stock, wine, vermouth, etc. – and they’re all delicious. In the intro to the recipe, Julia recommends grinding your own meat. I know a lot of single guys who swear by that, but I use store-bought 80/20 ground chuck instead of the lean beef specified in the ingredients list. Because of that, I don’t add the extra butter, suet, beef marrow, or – for God’s sake – fresh pork fat.^[1]

Discussing this recipe, Julia says that the leanest beef makes the best burgers. If this seems to fly in the face of what most modern burger experts tell you, you have to look at the context. Her intention is to combine that meat with a significant amount of fat.

What You’ll Need:

¾ cup finely minced yellow onions ♦ 5-6 Tbs butter ♦ 1½ lbs. of lean ground chuck, plus 2 Tbs fat: softened butter, ground beef suet, beef marrow, or fresh pork fat, OR 80/20 ground chuck ♦ 1-1½ tsp salt ♦ 1/8 tsp pepper ♦ 1/8 tsp thyme ♦ 1 egg ♦ ½ cup flour spread on a plate ♦ 1 Tbs oil, or enough to film the bottom of the skillet ♦ 1 or 2 heavy skillets just large enough to hold the patties easily in one layer ♦ A warm serving platter ♦ ½ cup beef stock, canned beef bouillon, dry white wine, dry white vermouth, red wine, or ¼-cup water

How To Do It:

1. Sauté the onions in 2 Tbs butter, low and slow, to a very pale gold, about 10 minutes. Don’t brown. Meanwhile, place beef, (fat,) salt, pepper, thyme, and egg in mixing bowl. Cool the onions. 2. Add onion to beef and mix thoroughly. Divide into 6 equal portions. (Can be made ahead to this point.) 3. Coat burgers in flour. Fry in oil and 1 Tbs butter, over moderately high heat, for 3 minutes per side (for medium). Tent. 4. Pour off fat. Deglaze. Reduce. Off heat. Stir in 2 to 3 Tbs butter.

Notes:

These hamburgers are pretty good leftover, so long as you’re fine with a well-done burger, since that’s what reheating is going to produce. Store the burgers and sauce separately. Reheat them in the microwave, 2 minutes on 50% power for a single burger. Top with a generously heaping tsp of refrigerated sauce and continue to nuke at 50% until it melts.

I like to serve these burgers bunless, with a couple of side dishes and wine or beer.

French Hamburgers make me think of…

German Hamburgers

Italian Burgers

Five Guys

Credit for images on this page: German Hamburgers: No Time to Cook, Italian Burgers: Curtis Stone. All others: Make It Like a Man! Hover over images and/or green text for pop-up info. Click for joy.

This content was not solicited – not by the Cheese and Burger Society, nor the National Cattlemen’s Association, and certainly not by the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, even though I firmly believe, as she did, that “a party without cake is just a meeting.” This post was not written in exchange for anything.