Christmas Burger DIY Kit

CHEESE – PART 1
Divide your camembert into portions, its ¼ of a wheel each (it’s Christmas after all).

Slightly flatten the ¼ piece so it will fit the burger better.

Whisk your egg into a shallow bowl and pour your crumb mix into another bowl.

Dip your camembert portion in the egg, lightly drain off the excess, then dip and fully coat in the crumb mix, ensuring all sides have been coated. Repeat this whole process again to ensure the cheese is fully coated in the crumb.

Tip here is to try and use the same hand for the messy bit, keeping your other hand clean. Transfer cheese to the fridge to set for a few minutes.

BACON & BURGERS
Cook bacon under a hot grill until crispy, then cut each rasher in half, it’s one rasher (or two cut pieces) per burger.

Get a heavy based frying pan on a high heat (don’t add oil, the burger’s got enough fat) and you might want to open some windows — as it’s going to get smoky.

Add burgers to frying pan, press down gently to get a good sear and season liberally with salt and pepper.

Cook patties to your preference — it’s hard to gauge exact timings as cooking equipment varies — but five and a half minutes on each side should give you a cooked through burger, you can always work back from that.

Once flipped, season liberally on the cooked side and continue to cook the burgers to your liking. Once done, remove from the pan and leave somewhere warm to rest.

CHEESE – PART 2
Get a frying pan on a low heat and pour in enough vegetable oil to give you roughly a 10mm depth of oil for shallow frying.

You want the oil to hit about 140 degrees celsius, so a temperature probe is ideal for checking. Failing that you can add some spare breadcrumbs to the pan, and see if they start to lightly sizzle, that’s what you’re after. If they sink to the bottom of the pan and there’s no sizzle then the oil is too cold, so very gently increase the heat. If they sizzle very fast and start to darken in colour, even smoke, then your oil will be too hot so turn off the heat and move the frying pan to cool down before doing anything else.

Once you’re happy with the temperature take your tongs and gently lower each piece of cheese into the oil. Cook until the crumbs start to go golden in colour – about 2-3 minutes.

Then, very carefully, turn the cheese with your tongs. Best way is to turn it away from you, so you don’t splash yourself with oil. Cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Remove from the oil with your tongs and leave to drain on some kitchen roll.

Now you can toast your buns and get your burgers built…