Pork Burgers with Fried Brussels Sprouts

So, I graduated.  Officially graduated from culinary school.  I now have a degree in Culinary Arts.  Pretty freakin' awesome.

How did we celebrate?  Well, thanks to a fantastic gift card from my parents, we now are the proud owners of a meat grinder attachment to our KitchenAid (as well as a pretty awesome juicer - Andy's been on this homemade juice kick - and I gotta tell ya, I'm loving the fresh juice combos he's coming up with!).

So the first thing I did?  Went out and bought some pork sausage casings and ground up some sweet pork sausages.  Let me tell you - without an actual sausage stuffer attachment for our KitchenAid or an actual manual sausage stuffer - it's pretty time consuming to stuff some sausages.  I ended up MacGuyver-ing my way through with a pastry bag fitted with a large tip and ended up with decent results - although I'd much rather dish out the $12 for the sausage stuffer attachment for next time.

Anyway, as I got tired of manually stuffing sausages, I didn't end up going through all of the ground pork I had.  With the rest of it, I made these pretty sweet burgers.  So good.  And yeah, I definitely don't plan on buying ground meat ever again (well, let's keep it real, maybe once in a blue moon... or if Andy goes grocery shopping and ends up bringing it home).  But seriously, freshly ground meat is definitely more superior than the grocery stuff!

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground pork (I had about a 70/30 ratio of meat to fat)
salt and pepper, to taste
Mayo, optional
pepperjack cheese, optional
fried egg, optional
burger buns, or sandwich bread in my case

Fried Brussels Sprouts:

1 lb. brussels sprouts, quartered and blanched
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon oregano
oil, for frying

You of course could season your ground meat with whatever you fancy, but I like to keep it simple with just a bit of salt and pepper.  I like dressing up a burger as a whole, rather than trying to really flavor the meat.  Because well... the meat speaks for itself.  Right?  Right.

Anyway, form the meat into thin 4 ounce patties.  Think Steak N' Shake burger style. 

Heat a large saute pan under medium high heat and add a little bit of oil to coat the pan.  Place two patties in the pan and cook until starting to brown.  Flip over and place cheese (if using) on top of each patty.  Continue to cook until the patty is cooked through and the cheese is melted.  Place one patty on top of the other and transfer to a plate to rest.  At this point, you can assemble all of your burger toppings, and you can really be as creative as you want here.   But I had some extra brussels sprouts in the fridge and needed to use them up, so why not fry them, right?

Heat oil or deep fryer to 325 F.

Combine the flour, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, cayenne pepper, and oregano.  Mix well.  Dredge the brussels sprouts in the seasoned flour and dust off any excess.

Place in deep fryer and cook until golden brown and crisp, about 2-4 minutes.  Drain on paper towel-lined plate and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

To assemble this awesome burger, toast some burger buns lightly (or use sandwich bread like I did - I had everything else on hand and I was too lazy to leave the house to get some burger buns).  Get a good smear of mayo on both pieces of bread.  Top the bottom bun with the two burger patties.  Then place a good amount of the fried brussels sprouts on top of the burger and top with a fried egg - good and yolky!  Then close is on up with the top of the bun.

And there you have a pretty darn good burger.  Different, but oh so delicious.

What's your favorite burger combo?!