CB’s Chili Jalapeno Burger

Ken loves a good chili burger. The only thing I don’t like about them is “To eat one, you ware one”. They are all over the place, which is part of their charm. Well, at home I don’t care about that. So we grilled up some nice burgers and loaded them up with lots of cheddar cheese, chili and jalapenos.

For an added layer of flavor, we mixed up a little Country Bob’s Chipotle Mayo.

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Grill: Traeger Pellet Grill

Medium Indirect Heat 300-350

Ingredients:

2 lbs. ground sirloin or 80/20 (any leaner and you have DRY BURGERS)

2 eggs, well beaten

¼ cup crushed dried garlic

½ tsp. black pepper

½ tsp. Country Bob’s Seasoning Salt

1 cup Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce

Buns of choice (onion buns here)

Condiments of choice

Cheddar cheese slices

1 can of good chili (without beans), of your choice

Sliced jalapenos

Ingredients: Country Bob’s Chipotle Mayo

½ cup mayo

½ cup Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce

½ tsp. ground white pepper

1 tsp. ground garlic

1 tsp. chipotle chili powder

Mix all of the ingredients in a small bowl and place in it the fridge. The garlic and pepper were dry and will need time to get happy, at least 30 minutes.

Directions: Meat

Mix the beef, eggs, garlic, pepper, CB’s Salt and CB’s Sauce in a bowl. Make you patties either by hand or use a press. Tonight we did it by hand. Ken likes the press because they’re a more uniform size. Patti likes to shape them by hand, because she likes them thick and cooked rare. She’s tiny, but likes a burger that needs two hands to hold. Put the patties back into the fridge until you are ready to put them on. (You grill hamburger patties COLD, the patties hold together better. Unlike steak, that goes on at room temp so it cooks more evenly.)

Cooking Directions: Traeger

Open the lid and set the dial to “Smoke”, after about five minutes shut the lid. Give it about 10 minutes to heat up. Patti has lined the drip pan with foil for me, it makes for easier clean up.

The Traeger is a SMOKER!!! USE IT… I COLD SMOKE everything for 30 minutes before I put any heat under it. It is just magic what the smoke does to your food. The Traeger uses pellets and they come in lots of flavors.

Place the burgers directly onto the center of the grill and just let it hang out in the smoke and get happy for 30 minutes or so. This is referred to as “cold smoking”; the temperature is around 100 degrees. 30 minutes of cold smoking is not enough to have any cooking effect on your meat. But, it is enough to open the pores up so that the meat can pick up all the flavor of the smoke.

After 30 minutes, turn the digital control up to 350 degrees and pull the meat off the grill.

When the grill comes up to temperature put the meat back onto the center of the grill and cook until you reach your desired doneness. For big burgers, like this, I like to give them about 5 minutes a side. This will be about medium rare.

Add cheese and close the lid, it will melt in a minute or so. Heat the chili inside. Either on the stove or in the microwave.

Let’s eat! Prepare your bun, add the patty and pile it high with chili and jalapenos on top of your burger. Lots of flavors…all good.

Note: I get a lot of questions about the kind of pellets you can use with a recipe. Keep in mind that a recipe is just an outline. Some you need follow closely like when you are making bread, but most you can do anything you can dream, our favorite way to cook. Feel free to mix and match the pellets until you find a combination you really like.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Grill: Gas Medium Indirect Heat

Preheat your grill to medium heat (300 - 350) and turn off one side so you will be cooking with indirect heat. Add your wet hickory chips over the fire and oil the grill. A cooking spray is easiest for this.

(Note: you can add your hickory directly to the grill or you can use foil smoke packets.(Two handfuls wet chips and one dry, fold foil into a packet, poke holes in it with a fork and you’re good to go.)

Note: I use a spray bottle when cooking on the grill filled with a Worcestershire sauce and liquid smoke mix that keeps things moist and adds tons of flavors. (Mix is 3 parts Worcestershire with 1 part liquid smoke)

Preparing Charcoal Grill

Medium Indirect Heat

Get the Grill ready, you will want your temperature of around 300-350 degrees. Remember, you are going high heat here for about 10 minutes. Bank your coals over to one side of your grill. Add your “drained wood chips” and you are good to go… Your cooking times and temps will be the same as above.

Add some Country Bob’s before you add the Cheese

About Our Recipes

We do our recipes on our patio where we have a lineup of grills, including Traeger, Charmglow, Char-Broil, Brinkman and Weber. I call it our “Wall of Grill”. Our grilling styles will fit pellet heads, gas, natural wood and even charcoal purists. Almost any of our recipes can be done on any kind of good BBQ.

The important thing to keep in mind is TIME & TEMPERATURE. You can even do some of them in the oven or crock pot, but, then you lose all the flavors you get from cooking outdoors. But sometimes it does rain.

Remember that a recipe is simply an outline; it is not written in stone. Don’t be afraid to make changes to suit your taste.

Take it and run with it….

Live your passion,

Ken & Patti

Hey, if you are interested in learning more about Traeger Grills or for fine meats and sausages for your grill, go see Jacob. He is a Sausage Meister and we are not kidding. If you get a chance, go and see him. It will be a fun day trip. (Take an ice chest; we always fill up a big one.) Or check him out @ www.tandhsausage.com or call him 760 471- 9192.

Al Malekovic makes a fine all purpose sauce. Patti uses it for seasoning all kinds of things, but I like it on burgers and steaks. “Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce”

Check it out, for a free bottle go to his web site or email him. If you email him, tell him that you saw it here and we used it all up and to send us more...

 www.countrybobs.com   or email   Al@countrybobs.com