Recipe: Lamb Burger with Apple and Gruyere

For Mother's Day, Papa-Bug & Brother-Bug made me these lovely lamb burgers. Simple and very tasty. It's the honey-dijon sauce that really puts them over the top. We ate them outside after a day of wonderful sunshine and yard work, with oven-baked french fries. Simple, yet gourmet and deeply satisfying.

No pictures, because we ate them up too fast!

A couple of tips.
Get good buns - if you're going all the way with a fine cheese and good meat, don't scrimp on the buns. Go to a bakery and see what they have that's real. Your standard wonderbun just won't cut it here.

Get pastured lamb. Seriously. I could (and eventually will) go on and on about the flavor differences in pastured versus feed-lot raised meat. But the place that I notice the biggest difference is in lamb. Good lamb, from animals who have been with their herd in lush fields, is amazing. It doesn't get much better. Cheap lamb tastes...cheap. And it's cruel. But if you are making hard decisions with your food dollars - and with the need for organics for many people combined with rising food costs, who isn't? - choose to get the pastured and worth-every-penny lamb.

Lamb Burgers with Apple and Gruyere

1+ pounds pastured ground Lamb (1 pound will make 4 quarter-pound burgers...do your math and figure out what you need.
2-3 tart apples - Papa-Bug used Granny Smith
Wodge of Gruyere (enough to have slices for the number of burgers you are making, but can you get too much?)
Good buns - as mentioned above
Romaine hearts
Salt, pepper & onion powder to mix into the meat
Olive oil
Creamy Honey-Dijon Sauce
1-2 tablespoons honey (gently warmed till melty)
1-2 tablespoons dijon mustard
2-4 tablespoons whole yogurt
Mix throughly, tasting and adjusting honey and mustard till you're satisfied.

Mix the meat with the salt, pepper and onion powder to taste and form into patties. Peel and slice the apples into cross-wise rings, taking the core out of each ring. Toss the apple rings with olive oil. When the grill is ready (I assume you know what you are doing here. There are lots of website dedicated to the hows of grilling if you need help...), put the apples on, grilling them till they are warm through. Add the burgers and grill as you would any burger. Add the cheese near the end of the burger's second side, and the apple on top. When the burgers are satisfactory, remove and quickly toast the buns over the grill. Spread each bun generously with the Honey-Dijon Sauce, apply burger, and romaine. Enjoy.

Bonus!

Easy Oven Fries

Preheat the oven to 425F.

For a family of 4 cut 3 average sized potatoes into your favorite fry shape - long and skinny, short and fat, wedges, whatever. Toss with salt, pepper & olive oil (or a combination of melted butter and coconut oil). Spread the fries on cookie sheet in a single layer. Pop those fries into the oven for about 15-20 minutes, turning half way though. The time they need to bake will depend on how thick or thin you cut them. Poke them with a fork to see if they are done.

These are so easy that I wonder at buying frozen fries (even though I do so at times...).

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If you are in the Willamette Valley, Oregon and need some pastured Lamb...because you read my recipe and now you are craving...the Deck Family Farm sells such an item from the farm, which you can visit or at 7 different Saturday Farmers' Markets! One in Eugene and 6 in Portland. Contact them for more details.