Sometimes you want a burger, and possibly at the same time your diet says you shouldn’t. That is where the slider comes in. Its smaller size makes it easy to portion control, or make you feel like you are. They are often easier to cook than a full burger due to their smaller size. You can make them on a stove top, or on a grill. Their fun size, let you make them anyway you wish. Dress them up with stuffed cheese’, peppers, spices or anything you can think of.
We decided to stuff them with some bleu cheese crumbles. We bought a lot of meat, and mixed it in a mixing bowl with the crumbles until we felt we had the ratio we wanted. Once we popped them on the grill, it didn’t take long for the cheese to start oozing out the sides. While they were cooking we toasted our buns, then layered the bottom with thousand island dressing. Just about as we finished dressing the buns, the burgers were cooked. 1 by 1 we pulled them off and put them onto of the dressing. Finally, we topped with some spinach leaves, and a few more crumbles for good measure. Not only did we want the melted bleu cheese, but we wanted that texture that came with a fresh one.
When photographing this, we did it in the studio. We wanted to convey that it was outside however. So the first thing when creating an outdoor feel is to create a sun. So we put a bare reflector high, tall and far away, to the back right of the photo. This gave us some wonderful direction. But we still needed a sky. We shot a few lights up at our ceiling, which is white. This gave us a huge soft source like clouds. On the front left side of the photo, we felt it was going a little dark, so we filled in with a white card. After that, it was filling in other areas with directional light to style and preference.
YIELD
Makes about 30 (2-inch) sliders
ACTIVE TIME
45 minutes
TOTAL TIME
1 1/2 hours
INGREDIENTS
- Burgers:
- 3 pounds ground beef, turkey, lamb, or pork
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 2/3 cup Bleu Cheese Crumbles ( to taste )
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (or other fresh herbs)
- 2 small garlic cloves, crushed with a garlic press
- ( cheese lovers ) 6 ounces Cheddar, feta, Saga blue cheese, Gouda, Pepper Jack, or whatever cheese you’re partial to, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 30 (2-inch; a.k.a. party size) soft rolls, such as potato and brioche, or mini pitas
- 1,000 island dressing ( to taste )
PREPARATION
- Gently combine meat, eggs, cheese, parsley, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper with your hands. (Do not overmix).
- Form scant 1/4 cupfuls of meat mixture into about 30 meatballs. Push a cheese cube into center of each ball and encase meat around cheese, then slightly flatten each ball to a 2-inch diameter.
- Broiler directions:
- Preheat broiler. Put half of sliders on an oiled rack of a broiler pan and broil, turning over once, until just cooked through (no longer pink), 4 to 8 minutes total. Repeat with remaining sliders.
- Grill directions:
- For easy entertaining, go with a gas grill. Preheat all burners on high, covered, 10 minutes, then adjust heat to medium-high. Grill sliders, in batches if necessary, turning once, until just cooked through, 4 to 8 minutes total.
- Make sliders with toppings and rolls.