Last night, we had a couple friends over for dinner. The weather in Chicago was kinda gross, and we had burgers on the mind, so we attempted a few recipes from The Food Lab, and the results were delightfully delicious.

slow-cooked fries, fry sauce and an (almost) smashed burger. look at those crispy fries!!!

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s smashed burger came out delicious, though not quite as smashed as we’d hoped. My guess is that in fear of burning things, we didn’t kick up the heat quite high enough, so the burgers puffed back up a bit. We’ll attempt again and update with results.

We topped the burgers with onions (under the cheese = game-changer), Organic Valley American cheese (which is apparently a thing, and actually really great on burgers. It tastes like American and cheddar cheese had a baby, and is almost as melty as American, but not at all artificial and doesn’t look or feel like plastic), Kenji’s fry sauce, and cucumber muchim from Tyler Kord’s A Super Upsetting Cookbook About Sandwiches (which is hands-down the most entertaining cookbook I’ve read in years).

The fries were also from The Food Lab–we opted for Joel Robuchon’s slow-cooked fries because they promised to be a 2 in effort and 8 in flavor. They tasted like they were from a restaurant!!–a first in fry-cookery for me.

Sidenote: In the book, Kenji suggests using a wok to fry in, because the wider upper lip reduces potential for boiling over (which if you’ve never had that happen–it’s a little terrifying). Worked great.

the aftermath. worth it.