I am an All-American burger lover to the core. When it comes to burgers, I love to stack my burger with just about everything. I cut up some onion and mix the onion in with the meat, this gives the burger great flavor. I also use a nip of liquid smoke to give it that hickory flavor. Now the fun part, the toppings. I usually use two pieces of cheese, with a pretty nice fat patty. I stack my burger with tomatoes, lettuce, onions, pickles, and grill my buns. How do stack your monster burger?
I don't like the liquid smoke part myself. Everything else is fair game, though! I love having all sorts of different toppings...or sometimes, just a simple burger will do instead.
Bacon and/or grilled onions are preferred. Sometimes I add sauteed mushrooms or avocado. However, any burger I eat must be well-done with any cheese except American or the processed stuff.
Its a pleasure to even think about my favorite burger: I have a favorite bar: Bellaire Bar located in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan in a town called, 'Bellaire' but any Bar Burger will do. You ask for a side of sour cream and then a side of jalapeno peppers. I think the reason why the burger tastes so good stacked this way from a bar is because bars tend to have cheaper burgers and good beer on tap. So I order a good draft beer and sink my chops into one of the best burgers I've ever had! And if I really want to go for it, I'll add a side of onion rings to go with it.
I have never made a homemade burger so far, I just buy them in the fast food chain. I love the ones with bacon, mushroom and pineapple, aside from the usual toppings like meat, lettuce, mustard, etc. I think buying burgers is more convenient than making them since they're not really expensive to begin with.
I have to tell you, when you finally sink your teeth into a homemade burger, you will want to eat them this way by choice. Making them from home, you can get the exact flavor you want and make it exactly the way you want. Don't get me wrong, I still love a good burger out on the town, but homemade rocks.
For me, the #1 rule of a hamburger is that it should be able to be eaten like a hamburger - not be so huge that you need a fork and a knife to eat it, or so overflowing with toppings that you can't pick it up to take a bite without everything falling out all over the place. I know some restaurants love to make their burgers really high for the dramatic effect, sometimes to the point where they need to stab a knife through it to hold it all together. But in most cases, I wind up picking off a lot of these toppings and eating them separately almost like a side salad, because the sandwich is too tall for me to take a bite out of it. Honestly, there are some days where I'm happy with just some yellow mustard and a few slices of fresh onion - I love the tartness and the little bit of heat they add. Other days I'm a ketchup, mustard, cheese and pickles guy. If it's a really thin patty, like at a diner, I will go for more toppings to make it more substantial, like lettuce and tomato. But for a really thicker burger, I will often leave them off. I've had some weird ones in recent years though, since we have several restaurants in my area jumping on the gourmet burger bandwagon. Everything from smoked pulled pork on top of the burger patty to pierogies . They were amusing, but I wouldn't order them like that on a regular basis. One other personal favorite though is hot peppers in oil. You can usually find these at Italian specialty stores, it's roasted hot peppers packed in oil with garlic and oregano. They're awesome on a burger with some melted smoked provolone.
