Grill/Barbecue

Wild Animal Style

by:
October  4, 2022
5
1 Ratings
  • Serves 2 humongous ridiculous burgers
Author Notes

On a recent trip to California I had my first ever (yes, first - my brothers were shocked and appalled) InNOut burger. It was a good burger. What I did not know was apparently California's worst kept secret - the Secret Menu (which you can find online by googling InNOut secret menu) - had I known I would have ordered my burger Animal Style - mustard grilled with onions and special sauce. Sounds delicious. So I decided to make one for myself - using organic bison and hothouse tomatoes from the farmers market, lettuce from my garden, Texas 1015 sweet onion, whole grain buns, and good old yellow mustard. Good stuff. As an aside, these are gigantic. I did not finish mine, and Ginger and I shared. But go for it! Or - downsize them. —aargersi

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 1 pound ground bison (or grassfed beef if you can't get bison)
  • 3 tablespoons yellow mustard
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 thick slices of a sweet onion - whichever is best in your area
  • 2 slices of a very good tomato
  • 1 tablespoon mayonaise
  • 1 tablespoon ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon chow chow or sweet hot relish - I used Miss Ginsu's outstanding green tomato chow chow which I can and have avaiilable at all times: http://www.food52.com/recipes...spicygreentomatochow_chow
  • lettuce
  • hamburger pickles
  • 2 whole wheat hamburger buns
Directions
  1. Mix the meat with a generous pinch of salt an pepper and a tablespoon of mustard. Form 2 gigantic patties (or 4 smaller ones if you want normal sized burgers - if you do you will need 2 more of the onion, lettuce, tomato, and extra sauce). Coat each patty with a tablespoon of mustard and then put them in the fridge to rest a bit.
  2. Fire up the grill to medium high.
  3. Mix the mayo, ketchup and chow-chow. Walla! Special Sauce!
  4. Brush the grill with oil. Grill the burgers to your desired done-ness. While the burgers are grilling you also want to grill your slabs of onion. Right when they are done, toast your buns too.
  5. Assemble: Bottom bun, onion, burger, sauce, pickles, tomato, lettuce, top bun. Eat like a wild animal.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • savorthis
    savorthis
  • fiveandspice
    fiveandspice
  • aargersi
    aargersi
aargersi

Recipe by: aargersi

Country living, garden to table cooking, recent beek, rescue all of the dogs, #adoptdontshop

3 Reviews

savorthis June 26, 2014
We used to get In N Out on our way to Tahoe when we lived in SF and I always liked the first 3 bites before I was over it. And once a friend told us we could get a fried egg on top (which sounded great!) but the teenagers in the to go window just stared at us like we were crazy. Alas....of COURSE your version looks better!
 
fiveandspice June 23, 2014
Now this is my kind of burger! Joel is obsessed with In N Out, but I wasn't that impressed. I prefer gigantic humongous homemade burgers.
 
aargersi June 24, 2014
Thanks Em - yeah we were sort of MEH about InNOut too! But this one amps it UP.