Bob’s Burgers: Home for the Challah-Days Burger

Home for the Challah-Days Burger

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

Every once in a while I forget that this book was not edited very well, and then I come across a recipe like this one and it comes crashing back.

The first issue came with the first step of the recipe: grate the potato and carrot, pat dry, mix together with egg and chopped onion, and form into burger-sized patties.  All was going well until I attempted to form burger-sized patties and nothing would stick together.  There’s also a lack of information about the thickness of these potato patties.

In the next step, we cook these potato pancakes (latkes).  By frying them in an inch of oil.  How hot should that oil be, you ask?  I don’t know, because the recipe doesn’t say.  So, to be safe, I set the stove to medium-heat thinking that way it won’t burn.  Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes, it didn’t really cook much either.  I kept increasing the heat until I was tired of waiting.

I don’t know if it was an issue with the stove temperature, the thickness of the latkes, the fact that they wouldn’t stick together, or a combination thereof, but the latkes were pretty much a partially under-cooked, collapsing failure.

While the latkes “fry” (or in my case, sit there soaking up oil), the burgers are prepared.  The meat is mixed with applesauce and cinnamon (yuck), formed into patties, seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked through.

The last step before assembly is to slice the challah bread, although if you were able to find challah buns you can skip this step.

During assembly is where the final error in the recipe was.  The assembly is bottom bun, burger, latke, applesauce, sour cream, and top bun.  HOWEVER, since the applesauce was already used up earlier in the recipe (mixed into the beef) I opted to not add more here.

Taste: 7/10

It was okay, but not great.  I didn’t like the applesauce and cinnamon mixed into the beef.  I’m not a huge fan of challah bread either, so maybe that played a part.

Difficulty: Average / Difficult

I feel like this should be an average-level recipe, but the poor instructions make it quite challenging to get right.

Cost: Average

You will need potatoes, carrot, yellow onion, egg, canola oil, applesauce, cinnamon, ground beef, challah buns or bread, and sour cream.