I don’t recall how this meal became a late summer tradition for me and those I care for and cook. But it has. Maybe it’s because the heirloom tomatoes – and the green beans, are in season? No, that can’t be it. Perfectly ripe heirlooms, drizzled with Milanese-infused olive oil, lovingly caressed with truffle salt then hit with dry basil flakes goes with about anything in August. And green beans in season? They are great with roasted salmon and a baked potato with all the good stuff piled on top. So, who needs a lamb burger to serve perfectly fresh summer beans?
I made lamb burgers recently for a group of friends that visit annually to run the local marathon, or half-marathon. I think I made this for them the first time they gathered in my new house three years ago. But the tradition goes back further than that. Perhaps it is because as we go deeper into summer, we still want fresh, hot, cheese-laden burgers coming off the grill, but want them to be a little different? Besides, we love lamb. Isn’t it curious, with lamb, that you either love it or hate it?
Since our friends are social runners and do not aspire to threaten any running records when they run marathons, our marathon weekend always includes a wine tasting on the Saturday before the marathon at one of our local wineries. This time we went to Merriam Vineyards, which is just south of Beverly Healdsburg – or just Healdsburg if you are a traditionalist. But that’s another story.
Oh boy. Did we get the white glove treatment! We must have tasted a dozen wines. And the cool thing about Merriam Vineyards is they intentionally make wines from the affordable range of “$30ish” per bottle to a mid-range offering and a top shelf collection of wines priced from $65 to $100 for their best Cabernet Sauvignon.
Merriam achieves an affordable-to-exquisite range of wine offerings by how they source the fruit and how they make it. For example, and while I am not a big fan of Chardonnay nor do I buy it, we did a neat side-by-side tasting of the winery’s low-end Chardonnay that was fermented in stainless steel (2022 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay) for $30, and concurrently the 2022 Eastside Estate Chardonnay barreled in 30% new French Oak ($46), and both were delicious. The stainless version would pair nicely with cheese, crackers and fruit on a warm afternoon, while the Estate Chardonnay, with its oak, had the depth to complement that roasted salmon, baked potato and green bean meal mentioned earlier in this post.
After tasting a series of red wines, for the lamb burger dinner that night I took home a 2020 Right Bank Red Blend ($84) that is comprised of 60% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Franc and 5% Malbec. Its tasting notes say the wine “opens with dark, alluring aromatics reminiscent of black plum, cranberry and brambly boysenberry pie with accents of cardamom, clove, cedar and a hint of vanilla.” There’s more, including “lush, juicy layers of tantalizing dark berry fruit and a lovely core of Russian River Valley energy.” And finishes with “the palate is rich and luxurious, full-bodied with velvety tannins and flavors of dark cherry, pie crust, cocoa nibs and fig compote gliding to a bright, elegant finish.”
The word choices and elegant prose take me back to my freshman year in college and the spring Art History class taught by Vernon Minor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The class was part of the Humanities 101 series that all of us incoming freshman were subjected to. You know, Homer and Greek Mythology, Beethoven and Mozart, and Mr. Minor’s class. Which I loved dearly!
As a language aficionado, I had never heard the power or potential of words! It was as if I was learning an entire new language. And it did make the art we studied come alive.
I loved going to his afternoon lectures, delivered to a large and boorish group of pimply-faced, punk-ass kids (I was NOT one of them, as a 24-year-old, married owner of a 4-plex). I don’t remember the lecture hall name but it was huge, cavernous, a little dark, and a perfect venue for Mr. Minor to point out the various details, artistic thinking of the artists and even technical aspects of painting in some works of art. For example, he must have used the word, chiaroscuro, so frequently that here I am about 40 years later using the word in a sentence, and in my entire life – other than the three months or so in Mr. Minor’s atmosphere, have I ever uttered the word, chiaroscuro. Perhaps that’s because I don’t spend any time describing works of art. Chiaroscuro, by the way, is a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modeling three-dimensional objects and figures. Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Goya and Georges de La Tour are among the more famous artists that deployed this technique, and without doubt, Mr. Minor was talking about one of their works when he called out the chiaroscuro in their respective paintings.
Back to Merriam and knowing what was on my menu for that night, I also took home a bottle (or 2?) of Merriam’s 2020 Lower Pond Vineyard Malbec ($54), which was excellent and moderately priced for such a premium wine. Malbec, to me, is a nuanced wine and always leaves me with a ‘wow’ response after the first taste. The second is usually a gulp.
The Red Blend and Malbec did indeed pair well with the lamb burgers, sliced tomatoes, a Caesar salad with house-made dressing, and the green beans.
About the Burgers (makes 7 generous sandwiches)
- 1.75 lbs. ground lamb
- 0.75 lbs. ground chuck
- 0.25 lbs. ground pork
- 1 white onion
- Harissa seasoning
- Turmeric seasoning
- (dried) Parsley flakes
- Salt and Pepper
- Italian breadcrumbs
First, grate the onion until you can’t hold on to what’s left of the onion, then chop the remainder of it into small pieces, and sauté that in a generous amount of good olive oil. Add the spices and seasonings, and don’t spare the amounts. Other than the meat itself, this gives the burgers their unique flavors and taste.
Second, while the onions are reducing, mix the meats well. I find that breaking up the meats that the butcher bags for me before I mix in the seasoned onion makes it easier to shape the burgers once that task starts.
Third, integrate the onion mixture with the meats and shape the patties. This is when the Italian breadcrumbs are handy. I add them as I mix the meats in order to bind them into patties (the olive oil and onion mixture makes it wet). I put them on a platter for that night (there were 5 of us) and refrigerated them until dinner while I put the two remaining burgers in plastic and froze them for another time.
The burgers were served on brioche buns with slices of melted Havarti cheese and dressed with mayo, mustard for some, ketchup, pickles and grilled onions.
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