Bet on Black Garlic Burger

This post is inspired by binge watching using Verizon FiOS. I am a member of the FiOSPhilly team.
Bob’s Burgers, the animated television series on Fox, is my guilty pleasure. Before it was removed from Netflix, I would watch a few episodes as I fell asleep. The Mister would occasionally join in, scoffing at Gene’s absentmindedness.

The episode that really caught The Mister’s ire was Best Burger in Season 5. In this episode, Gene repeatedly “Gene’s out” while on an errand to retrieve Bob’s black garlic. As The Mister rolled over fussing about Gene, I was intrigued by the black garlic. My local markets carry regular garlic and I would always forget to stop in the specialty stores while I was out shopping.

I finally remembered to stop at Whole Foods in Center City and snag two bags of the garlic. Black garlic is a type of caramelized garlic mainly used in Asian cuisine. It can be made at home, but all of the recipes I read mention weeks for this process, and I am not ready to invest that type of time.

The Bet it All on Black Garlic Burger recipe, from the Bob’s Burgers Burger Book was inspired by Cole Bowden. Bowden recreated almost every burger scrawled on the chalkboard from the show. The Bob’s Burgers Burger Book is a collection of recipes based on Bowden’s blog.

The recipe calls for black garlic, mayonnaise, and Sriracha sauce. I mashed the garlic, added four teaspoons of mayo, and Sriracha sauce. Not having all of the ingrdiants to completely duplicate the burger, I used Romaine lettuce instead of spinach and Swiss Cheese rather than fresh mozzarella.

The Swiss cheese burger:

I opted for Romaine Lettuce instead of spinach, and Swiss Cheese for Mozzarella. The romaine added a crunch to the burger, but the nuttiness of the Swiss overpowered the flavor of the entire burger.

The American Cheese burger:

The Mister decked his burger out traditionally. He added fresh tomato, pickles, Romaine, and American cheese. He really enjoyed the heat of the Sriracha in the mayonnaise, and said he didn’t miss onion. His thoughts were that onion would compete with the taste of the mayo, and make the burger more of an afterthought.

Plain Burger:

The Boy refused, saying he didn’t like anything fancy, and his answer would be a straight “No” no matter how I asked.

…sigh…

Conclusion:

The recipe is a really easy to make. I don’t have a food processor, which is suggested to puree the garlic. Instead I channeled lessons from my time watching my mom in the kitchen and used a fork and elbow grease to mash the garlic.

Next, I added four heaping teaspoons of mayonnaise. I prefer Hellman’s mayo because the quality is consistent and the taste isn’t sweet.

Finally, I splashed enough Sriracha sauce to add a kick with some heat.
As summer barbecue season kicks off, this is a great recipe to add to any cookout!