By Ken Paulk

DEAR GOOD FOLKS OF BENICIA AND OTHER PARTS,

The days are shorter and the nights are colder, but luckily we’ve had a few good autumn days and may have a couple more ahead before we head into winter. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I wanted to invite a few folks over for dogs and burgers.

Now, Dad loved hamburgers. He would cook ’em, fry ’em, even broil ’em. But he shared with me later in life a secret recipe that I promise you will like if you try it. Money back, guaranteed. Wait a minute, I have no money nor have I waged any — but go ahead and try it. Trust me.

Dad loved a couple things when it came to burgers: cheeses and bacon. I would say about once a month he’d invite the relatives and a few neighbors over for his smoked hamburgers. Yep, I said smoked hamburgers. As an ordinary cook from a ranch, he always loved to come up with many variations. I think it was an ongoing contest he had between Mom, the Café Lady and Dad, the Maker-upper. Competition in my family ceased to take a nap. I don’t care if you were playing dominos, pitching washers, throwing horseshoes or cooking, it was all a game and very competitive.

It came to pass that when we had family reunions, families would divide up and bring their best dishes. Politics in the family, you bet — and it started with and ended around the kitchen table and eats.

So, back to Dad’s Smoked Burgers. He would bring home fresh ground chuck that by today’s standards would be an 80/20 or 90/10 meat-to-fat ratio. Dad always wanted fat to hold the burger together, as he showed me once when he ground up a couple of sirloins to make hamburger meat. There was not enough fat to hold them together, so he added oats, which turned it into meatloaf, with a few finely chopped tomatoes and green New Mexico chilies.

Dad would take about 5 pounds of fresh hamburger, mix it in a bowl with seasoning, pepper and minced garlic. Bacon, being a staple of any Texas kitchen, was fried up but taken off just before it became crisp. He’d finely chop up about 12 slices of bacon, which wasn’t easy as they weren’t crisp and crunchy. I’d say these bits were about 1/8-inch square. It took more time to cut up the bacon than it did to cook the burgers.

With the smoker fired up and the hard mesquite burning almost down, he’d lay watered-down chips of hard wood over the coals on a screen about 4 inches over the heat. This created just the right amount of smoke. On a cutting board, Dad spread out the hamburger meat, about 1 inch thick. Five pounds of hamburger will spread over about 15 inches by 15 inches square. Using a fine mesh screen, he’d lay the meat on the smoker side, shut the lid and let the smoke permeate the meat for about five minutes. Wet chips cause a lot of smoke without a lot of heat.

After five minutes or so, Dad picked up the screen, took it back to the work station and dumped it all into a large bowl. Then he’d add in more spices and the special cheese of choice that he had earlier selected and grated. Back in the ’60s we didn’t have a lot of selections to choose from. Cheddar and maybe white jack were the only choices I remember. Can you image the face on a local butcher if I’d have walked in and said, “Can you give me a half pound of smoked Gouda?” Most likely that would be taken as fighting words.

With the large bowl in hand, Dad would start to mix in the grated cheese and bacon chips, which would resemble large snowballs. They would later be turned into perfect half-pound patties. Dad had huge hands and could make a perfectly shaped pattie. He’d always make them consistent to insure proper cooking. Before the federal government got involved with cooking, you could order up a hamburger any way you wanted it cooked. Our family liked them from burnt to medium and all the way down to Red River Raw. Today you’d be closed down and accused of making folks sick if a burger hits the plate under 165 degrees. I guess if you want a rare burger nowadays you’ll have to sign a waiver or just cook it yourself.

After the burgers start to cook, you’ll need to turn them often. With cheese melting and bacon bits turning loose of their last morsels of juice, flame-up will occur. Keep your squirt bottle of watered-down sauce handy and use it to douse the flames. For those who dare, lay down some white onions to grill and a couple of toasted green chilies to top it off.

5 pounds 90/10 ground chuck
1 pound of bacon
1 pound of grated cheese of choice: cheddar, blue, whatever.
2 pinches salt
3 pinches pepper
2 punches garlic powder
2 white, thick-sliced onions
8 de-veined and sliced green chilies

Take these burgers off, lay them on a paper bag and let them ooze for a while. With toasted bun in hand, get some more cheese, green chilies and sautéed onions, doctor it up and get ready for a little bit of heaven right here on Earth. Couple this with some homemade potato salad and possibly corn on the cob, and you’ll have a spread not matched for miles to come.

Gotta git for now, but before I go I want to share a little advice about life when it comes to good food and eating:

“They made tomorrow so you wouldn’t have to eat everything today.”

Adios!

Ken Paulk is a native Texan who has adopted Benicia as his second hometown. His column, “Lone Star Grilling,” appears every Wednesday in The Benicia Herald.