Bitchin Kitchen’s Blue-Cheese Burgers & Roasted Garlic Aioli with Canadian Living’s Caramelized Onions

As my kitchen dries over the next few days and I put my foodie life back together, I cast my mind back to last week’s adventures with food for your reading pleasure.

As you all know I am putting the Bitchin’ Kitchen Cookbook through my test kitchen this month and wanted to take on a main dish and who doesn’t love burgers?! Add some garlic aioli and caramelized onions and you have a winner recipe.

To make the truffle aioli you need… truffle oil, of course. I looked all over my grocery store for it and it was nowhere to be found. So, I made roasted garlic aioli instead.

Nadia G. instructs us to make this in a food processor but mine was in the dishwasher. I have made aioli by hand before so this is what I did. Please note I divided the recipe in half. No matter how fabulous, I should only eat so much aioli within a few days!

In a bowl add two cloves of degermed garlic chopped fine, a few cloves of mashed roasted garlic, one egg yolk, a pinch of sea salt and half a tsp of Dijon mustard. Whisk together and then slowly drizzle in half a cup of olive oil. I used a light tasting olive oil since extra virgin is usually too strong for me. Add half a tbsp of fresh lemon juice and a bit of water.

What a stunning aioli! Using Dijon and an egg yolk will help give newbies confidence to make this with their double emulsification superpowers. Makes a beautiful rich aioli that you can use on sandwiches, dip French fries in… Yum!

Now I totally missed the note that she had a recipe for making caramelized onions on page 25. It was at the end of the grocery list and I just missed it. As a result, I turned to another cookbook I am recipe testing, Best Recipes Ever from Canadian Living and CBC. Heat 1 tbsp of oil over medium-low heat and cook 1 onion thinly sliced with 1 tbsp of wine vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, 2 gloves garlic thinly sliced (I minced them), 1 tsp of dried thyme (I used 2 tsp of fresh) and salt and pepper. Stir occasionally until very soft, golden and caramelized.

These turned out perfectly! I often have trouble making caramelized onions, they tend to burn before they brown, but these were great!

My husband prefers Havarti to blue cheese so I added cheese to his and let the burgers finish cooking in the oven.

Finally, the burgers themselves! You were supposed to use organic chuck, “No excuses or exceptions.” Well what if you can’t get it? Like the truffle oil, this kind of ingredient is just not available to me. Which is very frustrating. You are supposed to eat these medium rare which is why she insists on the organic chuck. She also does not add spices to the meat so I took the liberty to add a few spices similar to this post here. I had to make my patties thinner than 1″ thick because I had to avoid a medium rare burger.

Set the grill on high head, sprinkle patties with salt and pepper. Sear on each side for two minutes. Turn down grill and cook patties another three minutes per side. Take off heat and let rest for five minutes. I did most of that but I also put them in the oven at 325F to finish cooking.

I picked up some PC Blue Menu Thins – Whole Grain Round White Buns for this dish and wow, who eats a burger that big? They were way too large! The first time I ate this burger I ended up being mostly bun.

The next day I put it all together again with the aioli on the bottom, then I made a slider-size burger, topped it with caramelized onions and a little blue cheese.  I used a tea biscuit cutter to make my slider buns that fit much better this time!

This was a lot of work but was it worth it? Absolutely freakin’-lutely! Damn, this was one of the best burgers I have ever had in my life. As Nadia G. says, “If this doesn’t get you some action, you can always find a hobby to distract you from your crappy sexy life, like golf… or reproducing.”

Always edgy, funny and fabulous, I am happy to say that despite some of the issues I had with making this burger, I have to give it five out of five wooden spoons for flavour. I can not imagine just how good this would be with truffle oil and organic beef… Dang!

I wish I lived in a place where I could buy all these fancy ingredients, because you know, I would! How happy am I that even with my cheap lean beef and non-truffle aioli this recipe was still a homerun.