Photographs by Paul Winch-Furness
BURGER MONDAY
Andrew's Cafe, Gray's Inn Road
28th November, 2011
Every month, in a cafe in Holborn, seventy burger aficionados convene to eat three courses cooked by a guest chef under the watchful eye of the host, food writer and curator, Daniel Young (@youngandfoodish). The brief is simple - a starter, a burger and a pudding. Daniel provides a specially selected wine with each event, alongside the amazing and ever-changing Pale Ales by The Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey.
We set about testing burger grinds with an array of beef cuts, helped by butcher Charlotte Harbottle (then at O'Sheas in Knightsbridge, and now set up in her own butchery in Newcastle), settling on a mix of beef short ribs, ox cheeks and some deep marooned-coloured rump steak of Black Angus, dry-aged for fifty days. We designed a burger bun dough made with hay stock, and hovered over a deep fryer testing all the varieties of potato we could find.
Our friends at the wonderful Lido Cafe in Brockwell Park kindly lent us their kitchens overnight to prep, and our friend David Boycott of FreeCompanyFC joined us to cut and slice potatoes.
The final menu consisted of a first course of traditional burger garnishes, reimagined as a dish on their own, a burger inspired by the farmyard and a pudding as homage to an American classic, the Oreo cookie.