Camp Sous: Week 4 - The Pizza Burger Experiment

Week four and camp sous is cookin’ with gas (electricity actually)! This week the camp saw a slight departure from the regimen of sous vide protein-laden dishes. Plus, one crazy camper came up with a dream mostly realized.

If you didn’t know better one might think the only thing you can cook, with the sous vide technique, is meat. While it’s dang near the best way to treat meat, it’s also a great way to provide produce to your hungry campers. Check out the tasty treat for any fan of rabbit food, sous vide Carrots-N-Butter. Other campers, who like to plan ahead, have discovered how useful this system is for food prepping easy to reheat, meals using the Camp Sous Survival kit ( external vacuum sealer, sous vide cooker and pouches and roll bags).

      

This week’s curious camp cooker decided to try and go at it without a map. Guided only by sheer grit, determination and a foggy childhood vision to hunt down the fabled hybrid pizza burger.

The Pizza Burger Experiment

One time, on a family vacation in Minnesota, I had a stuffed pizza burger at an A&W Root Beer restaurant. I’ve never seen one since and have made several attempts to recreate it. When I saw Chef Eric Villegas craft a “Juicy Lucy” sous vide style, I knew my childhood dream, having eluded me all these years, was well within my reach. If only I could get my hands on a sous vide device! When VacMaster proposed having us work with the machines I knew the prize was only several ingredients away. With that I give you a rough map to guide you to a…

Juicy Lucia Pizza Burger Recipe

1 lb Ground Beef

1 lb Italian Sausage

4 tbsp Pizza Sauce

2 oz Provel Cheese

1.5 oz Mozzarella Cheese

1 oz Pepperoni Minis


Instructions:

Lightly mash together ground beef and Italian sausage by squeezing with hands.

Divide mixture into 8, 4 ounce patties.

Make half of the patties into concave bowl shapes for the bottom.

Drop 1 tablespoon pizza sauce on bowl shaped patties.

Divide Provel and Mozzarella cheese into 4 equal portions and place on top of sauce in bowl shaped patties.

Place the remaining 4 patties on top of bowl shaped patties, pressing edges together to form one whole mega patty. DO NOT compress. It will only make a mess!

Lightly press 10-15 Pepperoni minis onto top of mega patty.

Place in vacuum bag and pull a light vacuum as to avoid compressing the meat patties.

Cook in sous vide bath for 4 hours at around 140°F.

Pull mega patties from bath and bag and sear finish in skillet on stove top.

Serve either on their own or on two pieces of garlic toast.

Notes: OK, so it did not turn out EXACTLY as planned. Things I would change the next time I make these [oh and I will try again!], less meat more cheese. The burger was pretty hard to manage. Also, would probably drop the Provel as most of it leeched out in the bag. Might try something like Havarti for its stringy meltedness. Or, since I do love me some Provel, I may cook it at a slightly lower temperature. Also, will make sure the patties are sufficiently joined together on the edges. Suffice to say it was still a tasty treat and I will continue my gastronomical experimentations.