Cheese Burger with Turkey Bacon & Sauteed Mushrooms

I generally love burgers, including the ones from McDonald's and Burger King (sorry).
I hardly meet any burgers that I don't like (you know this is NOT the truth, I've bitched about quite a number of burger joints before via twitter).
Why am I contradicting myself in my blog?
Who knows? It's the weather. It's Wednesday. I'm hungry. I'm confused!

OK. Back to burgers. Love them, love them much.
However, I don't love doing burgers at home, no matter how delicious, how much I can customize the burgers to fit my wildest imagination...I just try not to do burgers at home.

Why?
You know how I love one-pot, minimum-effort-maximum-flavors dishes?
Burgers are just so not it.
In Cantonese...they're MA Q FAN!
The patties, the buns, the fillings, the sauces...OMG.
The troubles!

However, when we put our heart into it, we can make it happen, right? (What is this? A motivational talk? I'll pass :D)
Anyway, I was in a rare madness of wanting to do burgers at home, so I did.

The burger patties
I used a simple recipe adapted from here

- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
- a couple dashes of worchestershire sauce
- 4 strips of turkey bacon, chopped

Crack the egg in a mixing bowl, add salt and pepper, add beef and turkey bacon, mix well, add a couple dashes of worchestershire sauce, the bread crumbs and mix well. Form the mix into thick patties (1.5 -2 cm thick), flatten the middle part a little.

Preheat oven to 200C and preheat a grill/frying pan and lightly grease it. I preheated mine on medium heat for about 4-5 minutes, place patties on the pan until you get nice brownage, just a couple of minutes on each side. Dump patties into the oven (preferably with the pan) until you reach the desired level of doneness. I ovened mine for about 10 minutes and it ended up with a really nice crisp outside and juicy inside.

The buns
I used store bought English muffins for the buns, buttered both sides and toast them lightly right before assembly.

The fillings

- 2 cups of sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- dry mixed herbs (oregano, rosemary, thyme, sage)
- a touch of white wine
- olive oil, butter, salt, black pepper

Saute garlic in a bit of olive oil and butter, add mushrooms, add white wine and cook for a couple of minutes, add herbs, season with salt and black pepper, set aside.

The assembly

Butter toasted English muffin, sauteed mushrooms, grated mozzarella and parmesan, burger patty, and the other half of the butter toasted English muffin.

Now, do the right thing...

Grab this with both hands and enjoy.
It surely gets messy, so eating this without a plate on a white fabric sofa?
Be prepared to buy a new sofa.

Serve them with chips if you wish, but I don't make chips at home.
Serve them with salad if you wish, but I don't make salads at home...I hardly even order them in restaurants.
I am not a purist and I don't get offended if you'd like to enjoy this with ketchup, chilli sauce, soy sauce, mayo, jam, ice cream, toothpaste (OK, it went too far, toothpaste would just be too minty)...whatever curls your toes, goes.