Byron cookbook challenge: Victoria Stewart has a go at flipping burgers

It's incredibly hectic, but a success, concludes Victoria Stewart
Byron's Californian burger
Martin Poole
Victoria Stewart11 April 2016

One Friday evening in a small kitchen two people are hovering over a stove, taking occasional swigs of red wine from glasses hidden among the kitchen debris. One, slatted spoon in hand, is swirling rectangular-shaped pieces of potato around in skin burningly hot vegetable oil, while another is frantically hopping around five beef patties, preparing to flip them. Loud drumming from ‘Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues’ is thumping overhead, while from the room next door the crunching sounds of four people snacking on homemade pork scratchings can be heard.

This is a cookbook challenge and it takes place in five parts. It all began with a simple plan: to make really good burgers, and feed them to friends. The book is by Tom Byng, the founder of Byron - the burger chain that started out with one branch on High Street Kensington in 2007 and turned into an unfathomable number of restaurants across the city - and his meat maestro Fred Smith.

I admit I was sniffy about doing this challenge. First, because I haven’t bothered with burgers at home since I’ve been able to pay for better ones on the high street. Second, while I used to like Byron’s burgers now there are plenty of other places that I can rely on for consistently good ones. Theirs aren’t anymore, in my book.

Victoria's pork scratchings 

However when I first met Fred Smith, now Byng’s right hand burger guy, it was while he was still making patties at The Admiral Codrington pub, and boy, were they good, so I decided that if Smith can convince me to make something at home that my friends will want second helpings of, I was game.

Two days before part five, the cook-off, I sift through the recipes, and quickly realise this is not going to be a simple supermarket job. In order to ‘make the best hamburgers you could hope to’, Byng and Smith tell me, I must get fresh mince. ‘As a minimum, this means asking your butcher to grind the beef for you… Avoid packets of mince from supermarket chiller cabinets. These are likely to be several days old; ground beef left for ages tends to “set” and clag together. You also won’t know what parts of the beast have been used, and the meat have been sealed with gases to keep it “fresh.” Meanwhile the buns, they insist, must also benefit from proper treatment as “most shop-bought buns can’t shake a stick at the ones you make at home… If you feel that life is too short to make your own, then source ready-made burger buns that reassuringly rich and buttery.” There goes my Friday afternoon of writing.

London's best burgers

1/4

After this there is a step-by-step picture guide on how to grind meat and form patties, then suggestions on how to prep them either on a BBQ grill or in a kitchen frying pan. In no position to start grinding mince, I make a mental note to get something ready-shredded from the nearest reputable butcher, Clapham’s Moen & Sons, before calling The Old Post Office Bakery who say they can happily make me 12 brioche buns to order at 45p each.

A wedge of iceberg lettuce

After this it gets harder. Beguiling pictures of hamburgers loom out - one with pork scratchings; another with tomato relish; and what looks like a chicken mountain. Alongside fun box-outs on Byron's background, there are melting mozzarella bites and fantastic-looking pork scratchings, hot dogs and macaroni cheese to share, and sides. Next to two types of fried potatoes - thick-cut chips, and French fries - is the other Byron classic, courgette fries, then sweet potato fries and a deluge of sauce suggestions. Sweet American puddings and frothy milkshakes follow.

Sweet potato fries

But it’s all very well salivating over pictures and reading stories; how on earth are three types of burgers, two rounds of chips and a side of Iceberg lettuce with blue cheese sauce going to come together in time before six people arrive at 7.45?

By 4pm on Friday I’m cycling back home lugging an increasingly heavy bag of burger buns, mincemeat and pig skin on my back before rushing to Sainsburys to tick off the rest of my shopping list. At 5.45pm, I’ve surpassed the panic (stage three) and enlisted the help of my friend Tim to get on with the prep (part four).

Victoria's homemade California burger 
Victoria Stewart

For two hours we work. We shape the mince into circular patty shapes, after which Tim cuts up and salts pig skin, and we plonk it in the fat left over from the bacon I’ve cooked, letting it crackle and spit. As the kitchen gets hotter, we ditch our jumpers, wipe our brows and reach regularly for water; there are still red onions to pickle, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and cheese to slice, croutons to crisp, bacon to cook and dry out, and guacamole to prepare. Byron sauce is an easy combination of mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and gherkins, but remembering we have no buttermilk for blue cheese sauce, we have to make our own by adding lemon to milk. Just as sauce splatters everywhere from the hand mixer, the first three guests arrive, so we make conversation before throwing pig snacks at them and darting back into the kitchen. It’s tiring, hot work, and we haven’t even started cooking yet.

And then suddenly we are there by the hot pans, frying meat. Once ready we scan the recipes a third time, checking the order of ingredients, before layering them up. Mostly it’s a repeated pattern of putting mayo on the bottom bun, followed by lettuce, meat, cheese, tomatoes and sauce, before toasting everything to melt the cheese. Byng and Smith’s instructions are not complicated, but we get carried away with it all, burning croutons and setting off the fire alarm. It is all unbelievably hectic.

Guacamole

Round one of cheeseburgers, classic Byron burgers and sweet potato fries with green chillies goes down well with the team - “I am a VERY happy man right now,” says Nick - although I am not happy that the fries are not crispy (even deep frying them later does little to improve things). Meanwhile the cheeseburger bun is a little dry and towers over the patties, and the meat is not seasoned properly. Our second round fares much better. I decide I’d pay money for the twice-fried chips, which have come out with a perfect dark crisp and fluffy insides, while the patties are rich, slightly pink and, in the case of The Californian, moistened with Byron sauce, pickled red onions, and guacamole.

Finally, it is time to clear up. “That was a triumph - and I’m not usually a burger person!” declares Kate, just as my flatmate Tash returns from a gig to scoop up some leftovers. “Oh my god, I’d pay for these,” she says. “And I’m just so happy that I’ve learned to make amazing chips and pork scratchings” says my sous-chef.

I call that a success.

Byron: The Cookbook, by Tom Byng and Fred Smith, is out now (£20, Quadrille)

Follow Victoria on Twitter @vicstewart

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