Two of my best friends from Fortune were in town for a journalism workshop, so they joined us for dinner on 11/1. Back at the beginning of the year I had made the pork burgers from Sunday Suppers at Lucques, which Tom had seen on the blog Well Fed. They’re a little rich for my taste (they have chorizo AND bacon in them) but Ben loved them and he wanted to grill again while the weather was nice. There are a lot of ingredients in the burgers, though I left out the cumin, which I dislike.

The meat: Ground pork, bacon, chorizo. (+parsley)

Flavoring: Shallots, a mild roasted chile powder, thyme leaves, lots of garlic, salt. These are sautéed together before being added to the meat mixture.

Then the whole mess is shaped into burgers:

Then grilled, topped with manchego cheese, arugula and tomatoes, and served on toasted rolls slathered with a cheater’s version of aioli (mayo with mashed garlic and some cayenne):

I served a salad and some roasted potatoes on the side, but the potatoes weren’t as good as usual–I’d cheaped out and gotten regular red potatoes instead of the new ones, and so instead of quartering them and having nice evenly-sized pieces, I had to cut them up smaller and it was a bit of a mess.

Still, the burgers tasted great–I liked them much better this time–and it was a fun night. I missed having my cooking buddy, Tom, to help with the chopping/mixing, though.