Being from Minnesota, I feel obligated to impart a little of my home state’s cuisine into this column. Since we’re coming up on grilling season, this Tuesday we’re learning how to make the Jucy Lucy, a famous Minnesotan hamburger served at two competing Minneapolis restaurants, Matt’s Bar and the 5-8 Club.
The Jucy Lucy is not a spelling mistake (at least, not at Matt’s Bar), nor is it an ordinary hamburger. What’s so special about it? The middle of the burger is filled with hot, gooey cheese.
If you’re thinking “I saw this on the Food Network,” you probably did. “Man vs. Food” covered the 5-8 Club, which is, in my opinion, the inferior burger. The problem isn’t the cheese itself; it’s that they use way too much of it. Matt’s Bar achieves a better balance with a single slice of American cheese. And, sure enough, when “Food Wars” covered the feud, Matt’s Bar came out on top.
When I told my roommate, a Green Bay native, about this highly interesting and novel piece of Minnesota cuisine, she informed me in a very “been there, done that” tone that you could find hamburgers like that “all over Wisconsin.”
Well.
None of that matters because today I’m telling you how you can get a burger better than any from a bar or restaurant, which is to make it at home.
Begin with two pounds of ground chuck (the fattier the better) mixed with a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. Two pounds of meat will make about five Jucy Lucys. Form 10 3-oz. balls of ground chuck, and place them between two sheets of plastic wrap. Flatten out the balls with your hand or the underside of a frying pan until they are about five or six inches in diameter.
Here’s the fun part: choosing your cheese. You can pick any kind of cheese you want – American, cheddar, Swiss, Colby, pepper jack – as long as the amount does not exceed the equivalent of two slices of American cheese. You can also arrange it any way you want. I usually go for overlapping squares arranged in a circle.
When your cheese is in place, top it with another flattened circle of meat and pinch around the edges to seal it in. Season your meat with salt, pepper and a bit of garlic powder.
Heat your grill up to about 160 degrees. When the grill is piping hot, place your burgers on it.
When should you flip? About five or six minutes into grilling, beads of grease will begin to form on top of the burger, a result of the burger cooking through the middle. When you see this grease forming, it’s a good time to flip.
After you flip the burgers, salt and pepper the underside. Do not press down on them with the spatula like you’ve probably seen done in movies. This squeezes all the juices out of them so all that fatty goodness is lost to the depths of the grill. And of course, when you’re making Jucy Lucys there’s the added danger of a demolished burger and getting blinded by hot cheese squirting into your eye.
It’s difficult to gauge when Jucy Lucys are done for the same reason, since you can’t poke them or cut them open to see if they are pink in the middle, but three minutes is usually a solid bet for the second side. If you’re really feeling gluttonous, you can melt another slice of cheese on the burgers in the last 30 seconds.
After the burgers are done, take them off the grill and tent them with tin foil to keep the heat in. Then, butter and toast your buns. This is important! Meat is important, of course, but crispy, buttery buns really make a great burger. It can be easy to burn bread, so make sure you watch them.
As for toppings, I highly recommend onions and mushrooms sauteed with a little butter and minced garlic. And pickles. And ketchup, of course.
There you have it: your very own Jucy Lucy. How will you know if you’ve done it right? The first bite will blow your mind.
Good luck grilling!
Sam Stepp is a senior majoring in journalism. Email recipes, suggestions or comments to [email protected].
