How to Cook a Hamburger in More Ways Than One

We present you with the omnipotent hamburger, it is a tossup whether this is the favorite American food or the hotdog. At any rate rumor has it that hamburger was invented in New Haven, Connecticut by a man named Lassen whom I understand was from Hamburg Germany in the late 19th century. Lassen’s family is still in the hamburger business in the original building that was moved by the city to make way for redevelopment.

Not only is the hamburger stand in the same building, but they are still using the original method of cooking hamburgers which is rather unique. Rather than putting them on a flat grill and fry in them they are broiled vertically in a small gas-fired broiler. The hamburger patties are placed in a small grill looking like an old-fashioned hand toaster and are turned once to finish them. The hamburgers are served on a bun with lettuce and tomato. Don’t ask for anything else in Lassen’s place because all that they serve is hamburgers. If you want to find the place it is about halfway down Crown Street in New Haven next to a big parking lot.

An interesting variation on a hamburger is actually a large sausage patty. Many restaurants serve these as breakfast sausages. However, they can also be cooked to go on a bun with anything else you wanted to stuff in between the two halves of the bun. They are especially good with cheese and scrambled eggs as a breakfast sandwich. They can also be used as a hamburger anyway you like it.

Not only can hamburgers be cooked up as little patties to go between a bun. If you double the size of the paddy they also make a pretty good substitute for chopped ground sirloin. Actually that is all I hamburger really is anyway.

In the Army one of the favorite breakfast dishes is chipped dry beef on toast. The army being quite inventful souls came up with their own variation by substituting parboiled hamburger for the chipped dry beef in a sauce. Although they call it creamed hamburger this stuff is well known to anybody that has ever been in the Army as S. O. S.

Now that we have had fun with what you can do with hamburger they used to be a restaurant in New York City that actually came up with over a hundred ways to serve the lowly hamburger. Even the author didn’t know there were so many ways to do this.

Hamburger has found its way into so many different dishes that is practically the universal meat in America.