You don’t beat Josh Ozersky, the New Yorker who wrote the book on The Hamburger, at his own game. So when Richard Turner invited Fred Smith and I to compete against Josh in a NYLon Burger-Off at the Meatopia UK Meat Festival in September we agreed the only way to go was British.
 

British Beef

One advantage of British grass-fed beef over American grain-fed is the distinctive flavour of each cut. Rather than blend two or more cuts into our patties and blur some of what makes each different Fred and I had a thought: If you could have a single malt Scotch, a single origin coffee or a single varietal Champagne why not a single cut burger?

Fred set up a blind tasting at Byron, where he is Head of Food. We tried four patties each made from a different cut of the finest dry-aged Scottish beef from the London meat merchants Turner & George. The revelation was just how different the flavour of each patty was. The single cut patties preserved the individual character of their respective cuts. Each was a singular sensation.

British Cheese & British Sauce

Fred created a homemade 100% British burger cheese that would melt like American plastic burger cheese but taste like classic Welsh rarebit, the umami-rich cheese sauce traditionally poured over toast. The burger sauce was effectively in his cheese.

British Bun

From Flourish Craft Bakery we found a lovely English muffin with wonderful “squeeze” yet enough oomph to stand up to the beefy juices and cheesy ooze.

British Win

At the NYLon burger-off #TheSingleCut killed in two ways: It killed Josh, whose forceful first bite of our British burger spurt fatty juices into the crowd and drew a chorus of gasps, and it killed those tortured carnivores who followed the action but didn’t get so much as a nibble. Not wanting this to be remembered as one big tease we vowed to bring back the #SingleCut for a single night before the end of the year.

That night is BurgerMonday the 2nd of December.

photos by Paul Winch-Furness

 
You can measure the success of a BurgerMonday pop-up by the intensity of its bittersweet afterglow. The guest chefs seduce, thrill and satisfy you in the evening with the burgers they’ve created for the occasion. But then, as with most one-night stands, they leave you feeling confused and abandoned in the morning. You recall the excitement of the prior night, hug your pillow and wonder: Will I ever see that burger again?

Richard Turner may be the first BurgerMonday chef to respond to that question with a qualified yes. He has no plans to repeat his 16 May pop-up performance or serve its sensationally drippy, two-cheese, one-off Gray’s Inn burger at Hawksmoor. But the patty itself, a gorgeous 180g mosaic of short rib (31%) shoulder (31%), fillet chain (31%) and marrow (7%) specked with fragments of fat left intact through a single, coarse grind, can be ordered from East London Steak Co, where Turner is the director.

The Gray’s Inn burger patty is, however, only available for a month. Those who expect even more of a commitment from Turner and East London Steak will have to flood them with tweets and vote on Facebook for the Gray’s Inn as the very best in their Burger Monthly series. The burger patty with the most votes will be extended beyond its one-month run.

The other alternative is to gradually lose interest in those two hunks, namely Turner and his Gray’s Inn burger, and turn your affections towards the next BurgerMonday one-night stand.