Recipe: The Heisenburger

Like most of you, we love Breaking Bad. Quite simply, it’s the greatest television show ever made and we’re both excited and sad that it’s all coming to an end. To celebrate the finale of the most gripping piece of television ever to grace our screens, we decided that a tribute cook was the right thing to do and it was Pamela, our resident photographer, who came up with our very own Breaking Bad ‘Heisenburger’ with ‘blue-meth’ bacon**.

** Note: James vs. Burger does not condone drug use in any way, but does condone having a sense of humour.

INGREDIENTS:

For the patties:

125g of beef mince (split into roughly two golf ball-sized amounts)
Salt
Pepper
Half of an OXO cube
1 tablespoon of grated onion
1 egg yolk

For the toppings:

Bacon Jam (we bought ours from Waitrose)
Smooth Peanut Butter
2 slices of American cheese

For the ‘blue-meth’ bacon:

8 rashers of unsmoked streaky bacon
Blue food colouring (1 tsp)
Water to dilute

BUN:

You’ll need two burger buns. You can make your own or use your favourite shop-bought ones. We used the ‘Ultimate burger buns’ from M&S. You can pick up a pack of two for 99p.

We used Eat 17 Bacon Jam and bought it from Waitrose on Byres Road.

We used Duerr's Smooth Peanut Butter. — We used Duerr’s Smooth Peanut Butter.

1. PREPARE & COOK THE ‘BLUE METH’ BACON

You'll need to prepare the bacon 24-hours in advance — You’ll need to prepare the bacon 24-hours in advance

– Fill 2 small baking dishes (or any other container you have) with cold water and add a teaspoon of blue food colouring
– Place four slices of bacon in each dish.
– Cover and place in the fridge for 24 hours.
– Once ready, place bacon in the middle shelf of a pre-heated oven and cook at 180 degrees for 15-20, making sure that it doesn’t burn and turn black.

2. PREPARE THE PATTIES

– Combine the mince, salt, pepper, crumbled OXO, grated onion & egg yolk in a bowl. Use your hands to mix together and form into 2 golf ball-sized shapes.

3. PREPARE THE BUNS

– Half your burger buns and add a generous helping of bacon jam to the bottom half, some smooth peanut butter to the top half and set aside.

4. COOK THE PATTIES

Once there’s around 5 minutes of cooking time left for the bacon, it’s time to cook the patties.

– Heat up a skillet or pan with a little oil
– Sprinkle salt on the top side of the meat only. Place each ball of meat into the hot pan (salt side down). Cook for around one minute.
– While these are cooking, sprinkle salt on the top side this time and flip over. At this point you want to smash the patties down. Following the instructions above should ensure that it stays together and doesn’t fall apart. To ‘smash’ it, simply press down on the patty with a fish slice until it reaches your desired look.
– Flip and cook until done.

*** At this point, your bacon should be ready so be sure to take it out of the oven and cut each slice in half ***

3. BUILD THE BURGERS