Alton Brown Cooks Food | Episode 17: Slip Slidin' (Sliders!)

0:00 I think that we could probably all agree that if the United States

0:03 of America had a coat of arms at the very center of said heraldry,

0:08 we would find a hamburger.

0:13 More than a food, you know, a burger is an edible symbol of pretty much

0:17 every core belief that we hold to be self-evident.

0:20 And although America has often been referred to historically as a melting pot,

0:26 I think the idea of all of us being

0:28 unceremoniously dumped into a massive industrydriven grinder to be

0:33 cooked up as billions of identical patties fried

0:36 on the wide open planes of a steel griddle.

0:39 To be more metaphorically accurate, you know,

0:43 a bun stuffed, pickle swaddled, off you go.

0:46 Have a nice day.

0:47 Amen.

0:48 Now, despite a plethora of apocrypha,

0:52 no one really knows who invented the hamburger or where.

0:56 But we do have a pretty gosh darn good idea who

0:58 forged the burgers purest and in my view most American expression.

1:03 I speak, of course, of the fairly

1:05 dimminionative and delicious slider, not actual size.

1:09 This is a close-up.

1:10 Now, just to be clear,

1:12 I'm not talking about the myriad Instagram iterations gorged

1:17 like ticks on hounds ears with run a muck chefology.

1:21 No, I speak with reverence of the pure simple form.

1:26 Now, the slutter by definition is a small

1:28 burger typically delivering a beefy payload only maybe, you know, 2 in across.

1:33 All right.

1:34 And named, by the way, for the fact that it slides right down.

1:37 supposedly a nickname uh granted by American servicemen around World War II.

1:43 Anyway, this slider was launched.

1:46 So, the story goes in Witchah, Kansas.

1:50 All right.

1:50 in 1921 when a diner cook named J.

1:54 Walter Anderson crossed paths uh with a hustling entrepreneur Edgar

1:59 Waldo Billy Ingram to create what is known as White Castle,

2:04 beloved Midwestern burger joint that still sells sliders

2:07 by the sack to a grateful nation to this day.

2:10 Now, from the very get-go, the White Castle vibe was sanitation.

2:15 Everything was and span and clean and wholesome.

2:18 Even the name White Castle was chosen because it sounded so gosh darn clean.

2:25 Now, why was was this maybe the most genius play in culinary business

2:30 history and the the true birth of what we know of as fast food?

2:33 Because at the time, the nation was super freaked out,

2:37 did not trust me and general, and it certainly didn't trust ground meat.

2:42 Why?

2:43 This book, this is The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, published in 1906.

2:50 This docu novel about life in and around Chicago's union stockyards was intended

2:57 to enrage the American public regarding

2:59 the terrible living conditions of immigrant labor.

3:03 But what Americans really took away was that damn, meat is gross.

3:09 The outrage was so profound that the government jumped in and uh and passed

3:14 a whole spate of food safety laws

3:16 that we essentially still live under to this day.

3:19 So White Castle, which strove to create a highly

3:22 uniform assembly line product in shiny white conditions,

3:26 gave Americans what they needed.

3:29 Belief that ground beef wouldn't kill them.

3:32 I mean, at least not right away.

3:33 Consult your doctor.

3:34 For me, the slider is special because

3:37 the way I make them is is somewhat factoryesque.

3:42 Okay.

3:42 And the resulting bite or three is

3:45 to my mind not only satisfying but ideologically pure.

3:49 Enough talk.

3:50 We cook.

3:57 Start by combining a/4 of a teaspoon of kosher salt

4:00 with half a teaspoon each black pepper and garlic powder.

4:03 Just mix that and set it aside.

4:05 Then get yourself either one really big onion

4:07 or a couple of smaller onions and chop them.

4:10 You know, peeling's not that difficult.

4:12 Now, to chop onions, what I do is I look just just get that off of there.

4:18 Don't start crying already.

4:20 All right.

4:20 What I do is I cut them in half longitudinally, leaving the root end intact.

4:24 And then I cut radially and then cross cut.

4:26 That's just how I chop onions.

4:27 It's not perfect, but it works for me.

4:29 Once you have those in a bowl,

4:31 add two teaspoons of kosher salt and really mix that in.

4:34 What we want to do here is to Yeah, I'm I'm crying now,

4:38 but you'll be crying if you miss my new live stage show,

4:42 An evening of Alton Brown.

4:44 Just go to alton brownlive.com to look for dates in your area.

4:49 Shameless.

4:49 I mean, that's really shameless.

4:51 um or mix that because what we want to do

4:52 is pull juices out of the onions and uh and so

4:57 after about 20 minutes um you can dump them

5:00 into a a strainer of some type and let that juice drain out.

5:03 All right, move on to the fun part.

5:05 Now, get yourself a 12 by6 in piece of parchment paper.

5:08 I usually tape it down.

5:10 You'll see why in a minute.

5:11 Now, these are called uh pastry rulers.

5:13 Uh they help you to roll things out very thinly and evenly.

5:16 It's a good idea.

5:17 Rolling pin, French kind.

5:19 I like those.

5:22 Oh, okay.

5:23 Now, uh, we've got one pound of ground chuck.

5:25 Not ground beef, not ground sirloin chuck.

5:28 Um, and cover that with a plastic wrap.

5:31 Just put that right in the middle of the parchment.

5:33 And you're going to roll the meat out until it covers the parchment.

5:37 That means it's going to be a little less than an eighth of an inch thick.

5:39 It's pretty thin, I admit, but it'll get better.

5:42 There you go.

5:42 Now, peel off the top plastic.

5:45 Nice flourish.

5:46 Just get rid of it.

5:47 Somebody will pick it up.

5:48 Don't worry about it.

5:49 Okay, now we're going to put two tablespoons of mustard,

5:54 just yellow mustard on there and spread it all the way out nice and thin.

5:59 Nicely done.

6:00 And then um sprinkle on your spice mixture just right over everything.

6:04 There you go.

6:05 Okay, I think you got it.

6:06 And then fold um over long ways.

6:09 Uh so now you've got an 8 by12 piece and push down uh

6:13 to uh seal and then refrigerate for h 10 minutes to half an hour.

6:17 Did you push down on that?

6:18 Good.

6:19 All right.

6:19 Need to clean up in here.

6:21 Just just make room.

6:23 Or you could just put one of those frozen ice sheets u on top of it.

6:26 You know, if you don't have room in the fridge, which I don't.

6:33 Go ahead and uh give the onions a squeeze.

6:36 Um you can see you've got about 2 tablespoons of juice.

6:39 That's good.

6:40 I've got myself eight bio rolls here.

6:42 Eight slices of American cheese.

6:44 Even more mustard cuz that's how I roll.

6:45 and half a cup of chopped pickles.

6:47 Um, and go ahead and get that meat out.

6:50 You really need to clean up in there.

6:52 I mean, seriously.

6:54 So, the uh the meat slab comes out and u going

6:59 to peel off the uh the parchment there on one side.

7:03 And go slowly or it could tear it.

7:04 You don't want that.

7:05 Now, I use a pizza cutter to break

7:08 that into eight even uh rectangles or squares, whatever you end up with.

7:12 Now, I've got my griddle here, non-stick griddle set for 350°.

7:16 I've also got another piece of parchment paper that I've

7:19 cut a rectangle out of that is 8x 12, the same as the uh the meat size.

7:23 And I'm going to use that as a guide to put down the onions.

7:27 I'm just kind of I don't know, anal that way.

7:29 Then lay the patties directly over the onions.

7:33 Nope, they do not touch the griddle or the patties, that is.

7:36 And then pour on the onion juice.

7:39 Now, the reason that I'm doing that is because I want

7:41 more steam and I also want a little more salt and flavor.

7:44 Then layer on the pieces of American cheese and then the bun bottoms.

7:49 Okay.

7:49 Cover with foil and cook for h four to 5 minutes um

7:54 or until the patties um are are cooked through, no longer pink.

7:57 Then on the top of the buns, I put on more mustard.

8:00 You don't have to.

8:01 Um and then all of the pickles have those standing by.

8:04 In several minutes, you'll see something that looks kind of like a mess,

8:07 but trust me, it's going to be delicious.

8:10 Maybe another minute.

8:11 Okay, another minute.

8:12 Fine.

8:13 Okay, once you know the patties are cooked through

8:15 for real and the cheese and all messy with the onions,

8:18 just scoop and move to the bun tops one at a time.

8:21 So, now you've got inverted sliders.

8:23 Now, what I like to do is flip is I just

8:25 kind of cover the whole thing with foil just for neatness.

8:28 Put on another pan and then just flip it.

8:30 You know, kind of messy.

8:32 And there you have it.

8:34 All right.

8:34 They're a little on the messy side, but perfectly delicious.

8:42 Go ahead, take a bite.

8:46 Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

8:51 Here at the end, I just want to quickly address some questions that I

8:54 know are coming and I want to save you from from all that painful typing.

8:58 No, these meat patties never touched the griddle.

9:02 Uh in the classic uh cooking methodology, um the meat is steamed.

9:07 I would rather have some actual uh deep color on the onions,

9:11 which will bring more flavor uh and the the patties simply float above that.

9:15 Uh number two, I want to address the type of bread.

9:18 Now, you may have noticed that we are actually

9:20 using a uh a form of bio bun here.

9:23 Uh some folks in the Midwest might not agree

9:25 with that and would prefer to have potato rolls.

9:28 That is perfectly fine.

9:29 Um, some other of you may address the fact

9:32 that you saw me apply mustard, but no ketchup.

9:40 No ketchup touches these.

9:42 If you want ketchup on a burger, do not eat these.

9:44 Okay?

9:45 This is not meant to have ketchup on it in any way, shape, or form.

9:48 And the very last thing I want to address is, can you eat just one?

9:53 Of course you can.