2For66

July 23, 2021

We returned from a trip to Flat Head Lake and Glacier National Park in Montana last week but I’m having a difficult time getting through the photos to post. So, let’s talk about typical summer grilled burgers but this time with an impressive Fake Shack Sauce from Serious Eats. It’s based on the sauce used on Shake Shack burgers. I’ve only eaten at Shake Shack once over two years ago so I can’t judge the accuracy. But I have tried out various “special sauces” on my grilled burgers and this is my favorite so far – the only one that bears making again.

The first step is to make the sauce.

There are only three spices: garlic powder, paprika, and cayenne

Slice four planks from a dill pickle and dice.

Put it all in a bowl; ½ cup mayonnaise and 1 Tablespoon each of ketchup and CYM (Classic Yellow Mustard); along with the pickle and spices

Mix it up, cover and refrigerate until ready

Summer burgers really requires corn on the cob, right?

Carla was with her sisters, daughter-in-law, nieces, and scads of grandkids down in Enhanted Forest south of Salem for the day so I held off cooking until they were close to home

Carla is home, let’s start grilling. As you know from reading my cooking posts I’m big on prep. Here is the tray ready to go outside to the hot grill.

I like my corn a little charred so I started it a couple of minutes before putting the burgers on. It doesn’t take long for the burgers to catch up,

Everything ready to come off the grill. Lightly grilled buttered buns on the far left, corn and American cheese on the burgers.

On the tray back in the house. Dinner is just minutes away.

Dinner is served: grilled cheese burgers with lettuce, onion, tomato and a spread of Kenji’s Fake Shack Sauce

Dinner is served.

This was very good; as I said above, this is my favorite “special sauce” I’ve had on a homemade burger. We still have plenty left over so I’ll likely make some smash burgers next week: exactly the same, only different.

Rating: ★★★★ 4 Stars. I’d be proud to serve this to friends. I’d like to find a better American cheese that the Kraft slices I used. We are going to the Beaverton food carts for dinner tomorrow, maybe I’ll ask the folks at the Burger Stevens cart what they use. Yes, yes, I could use real cheddar cheese (and I have) but I think a classic American grilled hamburger needs that fake, creamy, slightly salty American cheese.

A note on the photography. I’m working on making my Sony A6600 camera my main camera – replacing my Sony A7R3. As I discovered, the A6600 is so much easier to carry on long hikes than the A7R3. The APS-C lenses are also smaller and lighter. So, I’m working on getting high quality images from the smaller camera. I selected my Sony 90mm G OSS macro lens for these pictures. That’s an equivalent of 135mm on a full frame camera, so I had to stand way back to get the wider shots but could get next to the food on the closeups like the pickle picture.