Shepherd's Pie Burger

I love burgers and I love comfort food. What could be better than a comfort food burger? I give you the Shepherd's Pie Burger from a recipe I found when I was looking for a Shepherd's Pie recipe on the web.



Diced onion, carrots & kernel corn are sauteed to soften





The burgers are made with the sauteed mixture of onions carrots & corn, plus Worcestershire sauce, salt & pepper





The patties are made, the garlic mashed potatoes are ready, the buns are buttered and the cheddar cheese slices are gathered. Time to head out to the grill.





The burgers are grilling & the buns are toasting





The burgers have just been flipped. They were a bit soft, so I was glad the grill grate was well oiled.





The burgers are topped with garlic mashed potatoes.





The burgers & potatoes were topped with cheddar cheese & are ready to come off the grill.





The Shepherd's Pie Burgers, toasted onion rolls & Yukon Gold fries are done.







This was one great burger. it was very hearty and definitely captured the essence of a Shepherd's Pie. I was asked to make it again for next weekend. I plan to make a few tweaks to it. I'm going to change the cheese and the type of onion I use, but this first edition was pretty darned good.

Jim

Nice job,I love shepards pie. I gotta try that!

I luv it, Jim! What an ingenious recipe! I dig the coloring, and the toppings are right on. Imagine that, mashed potatoes on a burger-- I'm inspired. That's comfort food to the max, alright. Excellent job cooking the burgers, by the way... I see they look nice and moist and tender. I bet you do have a mighty happy belly by now, and I can see why you got a repeat request for those.

That's quite an inventive take on Shepard's Pie. I must admit I've never tried it. Looks like I need to. Great job, as always.

Thanks so much guys.

It really was a gut buster though, everyone was stuffed after one. I am glad I made a single batch. The spirit was willing but we all would have burst trying to down a second one.

Sledneck:
Since you are a big Shepherd's Pie fan I'll ask you: What cheese goes best with it? I used sharp cheddar, but surprisingly the taste of the burger overwhelmed it a bit. The patties were soft and had a great char on them and the flavor of the grilled meat was strong. That is a good thing, I just want to try a different cheese.

beercuer:
The patties were very tasty and moist. They got an extra good char on them as they were a bit soft and sunk in and surrounded the grill grates. I think the Worcestershire sauce helped keep them moist.

beercuer & smokin'newb:
It was indeed an ingenious recipe, I can't take credit for it. I was doing a Google search for Grilled Shepherd's pie and instead found this recipe for Grilled Shepherd's Pie Burgers.Those sounded even more intriguing.

The site was called TheFoodInMyBeard.com I was going to post the direct link to the recipe here just now, but I got a malware warning when I tried it tonight. This didn't happen a week ago when I went there. The recipe can be gleaned from the pix I posted above. It used a pound of ground beef, and 1/2 cup each of the diced corn, onion & carrots. The kernel corn got chopped to make a finer dice. Everything else was to taste. I used 2 tbsp. of Worcestershire sauce.

Jim

Amazing. Very creative idea...who cares if you got the recipe idea from somewhere else...you still did your own thing with it. Man, you got me hungry for a midnight snack. Had a couple angus ballparks while watching the Gamecocks game earlier.....had to have those after beercuer's last post....see what you guys do to me?? I'm easily influenced I guess... Anyways, I'm rambling. I'll stop now. Again, Excellent, Creative, and Inspirational as always, Jim!

Thanks Dyal_SC. BTW if it is any consolation, you got me hungry in the morning with your rib post. Plus your grilled corn looked so good it, inspired me to try to add it to my meal as a starter. The market had no corn and it was a good thing actually as those burgers were VERY filling.

I may have to "blame" beercuer too for some of this too. I LOVE comfort food and some of his dog pix got me inspired to do some Chili Dogs, which lead to Brats and Beer, which led to NY System Wieners. Then he gave me the idea for Salisbury Steak. I have been thinking about different comfort foods to try on the grill ever since: Hot Dogs & Rice, Shepherd's Pie.....

Jim

Jim, I've often thought the same thing when I've used Worcester in my burgers. Magical stuff, that is. And I would be most comfortable in eating anything that you cook!

*** Ooops, edit note. Have you considered Bleu cheese. That seems to be a popular choice for burgers in these parts. And I don't know why because it's a mellow cheese actually, but a Gouda just seems to fit something called "Shepherd's Pie."

beercuer:
Great suggestion RE: the cheese but sadly two of the folks I will make this for don't like blue cheese. I just can't remember what type of cheese is commonly used, but I may be outta luck here anyway. What is going to be stronger than extra sharp cheddar?

JIm

Jim, those are some amazing looking burgers. Great job.

You mentioned that you would use a different type of onion next time. What type did you use this time? What type will you use next time and why?

jfm0830 wrote:

beercuer:
Great suggestion RE: the cheese but sadly two of the folks I will make this for don't like blue cheese. I just can't remember what type of cheese is commonly used, but I may be outta luck here anyway. What is going to be stronger than extra sharp cheddar?

JIm

Wow, Jim, you know, there are so many kinds of cheese, it is unreal. In one sense, it's kind of tought to rival an extra sharp cheddar. But that being said, the more aged the cheese is, the more it tends towards sharpness. You could perhaps consider one of the spiced cheeses, with herbs or what have you, like even a port wine aged cheese or whatever. Do you have any Trader Joe's in your area? They stock a whole lot of varieties that other grocers do not carry. Anyway, a suitable spiced cheese might suit your desires.

What a creative burger!! I might have to give that a try... unless you deliver.

Jim, you should put a link in the "One Hamburger Summer" thread...this burger definitely qualifies!

Brad

Thanks for the nice comments guys and Oops I missed some follow up items.

smokenbrew:
I used half of a medium yellow onion and they didn't seem to come to the front at all. I was going to try a sweet onion next to see if I like that any better. I really don't want to up the quantities of anything because there are a lot of diced ingredients in there and the burgers are soft. Not a bad thing as is but they'd start having issues holding together with any more diced ingredients.

QJuju:
I don't do free delivery and I don't think you'd like the delivery charge. Gotta cover my expenses. Plus I'd have to figure out a way to keep it warm for the flight. And I'm sure the TSA wouldn't let me check it with whatever gizmo I come up with to hold it. The devil is in the details.

beercuer:
I think I need to go have shepherd's pie at a couple of my favorite joints to get a handle on what I am shooting for. I would like to have the cheese contribute in the same way and proportion that it does in a full shepherd's pie. That is part of my problem here. My favorite places were in Boston and where I no longer work in Boston, it has been a couple years since I've had a shepherd's pie. Need to do a research field trip. We do have trader Joes here and my local supermarket, which is a bit of a yuppy market, has a great selection of cheeses.

Jim

Jim

jfm0830 wrote:

Sledneck:
Since you are a big Shepherd's Pie fan I'll ask you: What cheese goes best with it? I used sharp cheddar, but surprisingly the taste of the burger overwhelmed it a bit. The patties were soft and had a great char on them and the flavor of the grilled meat was strong. That is a good thing, I just want to try a different cheese.

I dont think it even needs cheese but gouda might work well with it