Memories of America

When we were in San Fransisco, one of the things we did was go shopping. In Union Square we had the opportunity to wander around some of the big American chain department stores, like Macy's and Bloomingdales. As we wandered around Macy's, it occurred to me that it was kind of like an American travelling all the way to the UK and then wasting their time visiting the nearest branch of Debenhams.

However, there was one thing I wanted from Bloomingdales that I wasn't leaving without. My very own, authentic Little Brown Bag.

I thought it would be weird to just find a counter and ask them if I could just have the bag. So we wandered the floors trying to find something small and cheap that I could buy, to have a genuine reason to get a bag. I had to try really hard to contain my joy when the man at the counter asked "would you like a bag?" and didn't mind at all that I had to pay 10 cents for it! What we bought was this:

A burger press. But not just any burger press. This one makes normal burgers and stuffed burgers. It's specially designed and everything! And look - made in the USA!

You get two plastic discs. The top one makes the stuffed burgers, one side to create the patty with the space for stuffing the other to seal two stuffed patties together to create an enormous stuffed burger. The other one just does plain round burgers, and for some reason, square burgers.

You take your ball of ground beef, and you squish it

Now you have a patty with a dimple in the middle

We stuffed ours with mozzarella, because that's our favourite

Next, lay an empty one over the filled one and squish
with the other side of the press

Et voila! one stuffed burger ready for cooking

Arty shot of my stuffed burger, complete with rocket and pesto

We had enough spare beef to test out the normal round and square press as well. The round one works really well, but the square one didn't really stay square during cooking! I can see it coming in very handy for mass production of burgers for barbecues. As for the stuffed burgers, they were delicious. Massive, but delicious. The press created a seal that stayed put during cooking, and the patties were the right thickness to cook through perfectly.