Da-da's OTHER Secret Burger Recipe of HORROR

A great cheeseburger would really help right about now.

Da-da's OTHER Secret Burger Recipe of HORROR (here's is the first one) isn't that secret or horrifying, but if you smear it all over your face and stumble down the street moaning, you might serve as a serviceable zombie... which won't keep you from getting sucked into that pesky vortex. What? That's right, Da-da's talkin' 'bout Labor Day. Speaking of barely tenable workaday segues, your best Labor Day zombie burger experience will have as ingredients some or all of the things you normally put on the exterior of your burger, like ketchup, mustard, wombats, adamantine steel, etc. Many places use this simple recipe, though adamantine steel is only available from select wolverines, and even then, it's a tough harvest.

Da-da was reminded of all this while trapped in a possessed evil dead cabin in the woods over the summer, though mostly because he planned poorly and found he had NONE of his regular Da-da Burger ingredients. (Not having shallots or Dijon was the real horror, seconded only by Da-da's electric scalp massager gaining consciousness.) Trumping that, the giant mosquitos, 90-degree heat and bleeding floor boards, this impromptu burger recipe really helped. It seems overly simple, but works well.

Da-da's OTHER Secret Burger Recipe of HORROR

4 lbs ground beef

1/2 onion, minced

2-3 T. yellow mustard

4 T. ketchup
dash of garlic powder

S&P

Mix with your hands and squish until homogenous. (Da-da loves that sentence.) Form into patties and dust with a little garlic powder, S&P and GRILL, grill like THE WIND. Even zombies will think twice about eating you if you've got a Da-da Cheeseburger in your gnarled paw.

So, what do werewolves, burgers and Labor Day have to do with one another? [spooky music UP] Da-da's pretty sure you're about to find out.

Labor Day and werewolves and cheeseburgers go together like ham and ster.

Da-da's Secret LEFT-BEHIND Burger Recipe

This one comes with its own paramedic.

Now that nearly all of us survived the Rapture (well, the first one), there's really nothing left to do but share Da-da's favorite burger recipe, with sincere apologies to vegetarians, big-eyed cows and Ascended Masters everywhere. As many of you know, few things can replace a really good burger... except for maybe sleep... ...and sex... and maybe a fresh baguette and a cup of coffee... and enlightenment. Ok, lots of things can replace a really good burger, but that messes up Da-da's article so get thee behind me, un-Raptured Left-Behind hunger-monger.

Da-da refuses to eat fast food burgers. 99.9999% of them contain vast amounts of chemicals to make the "meat" taste like "meat," not the least of which is RIBOFLAVIN (not the vitamin, but the Jerry Lewis nuclear/alien variant, try saying it out loud), along with radioactive waste, ground up attorneys and vampires (tough to discern that one), Agent Orange (now used as a "green" household cleanser, go figure) and old burnt tires from behind elementary schools. Mmm-mm.

The good news is that YOU can make a better, tastier burger with just a quick, mincing tweakage. Few of you realize that Da-da has already spent too many years sleuthing out the best burger recipe in the world, let alone one epsecially suited to those of us... LEFT BEHIND. [sniff.] Like finding the best take-out mexican food place in existence, this wasn't easy (more on that later). A lot of chefs won't tell you everything that's in their burger (and they have the advantage of prime beef), but after torturing several with a mixtape of Montovani and Jose Jimenez and Burl Ives and "Chipmonk Christmas," PLAYED SIMULTANEOUSLY, they cracked, and now Da-da's gonna spill. It's pretty simple, actually. Enjoy.

Da-da's Secret LEFT-BEHIND Burger Recipe

4 lbs ground beef (90/10 or 80/20)

2-3 shallots minced

1 T. red bell pepper, minced

1 T. dijon

2 T. ketchup

3 T. worcestershire (Da-da typically uses a tbls per lb of beef)

S&P (IMPORTANT: Use Lawry's Seasoning salt.)

Get good beef from a reliable source, or don't and see if Da-da cares. Grass fed might be vogue (why?), but it's got half the flavor, so get the other kind, with decent fat content (80/20). Set the beef out for about an hour to warm it up to room temperature, then mince and mix all ingredients by hand. Squishy squishy. Let the formed burgers rest while you fire up the grill (if you're going to use charcoal, light the grill first).

Note: In forming patties, Da-da presses down on the middle of the burger, so the center is a little thinner than the sides; this helps cook the whole thing evenly, without a rare patch, unless you like ze rare patch. Grill 5-6 min./side (or to your burnt-offering liking), and top with cheese, if desired. Toast the buns, and be sure to make a plate of lettuce and onion and real kosher pickles, etc. If you want an In-N-Out-esque burger sauce, use equal parts mayo and red chili sauce (which is better than ketchup, don't ask Da-da why) and a little sweet relish and pinch of salt. Note: Da-da slices Bronko and Nagurski's burgers in half, horizontally, before putting them on the bun, so they can get their mouths on them. Serve with whatever you like to serve with burgers. A steroidal ear of corn, perhaps?