The burger: The lamb burger at Sparks has been a delicacy that executive chef Drew Ledo has been preparing on his own time for a long time. He finally put into play on the restaurant's menu a few months ago, and diners have been delighting in it in ever-increasing numbers.
"It's growing in popularity, for sure," he said. "I get a lot of people who say they don't like lamb, but then they order it and they say, 'This is amazing.'"
That was my experience. Well, that second, this-is-amazing part, anyway; I love lamb. And I'm crushing, hard, on this burger. Ground lamb is tricky, because it can go from succulent to parched in five seconds flat, but Ledo utilizes a smart trick: Bulgur. You know, steamed, dried and crushed wheat kernels. The addition makes all the difference, and then some.
"When you cook lamb, all of the juices and fat runs out of it, because the fat doesn't have a very high density," he said. "So I put in the bulgur to soak up the juices, and the fat."
Genius. The idea was inspired by his extended Lebanese family, and a favorite dish that Ledo grew up eating: Kibbeh, a mix of minced lamb and bulgur. The good-old American melting pot never stops, does it?
The meat, a pasture-raised product from Star Thrower Farm in Watertown, Minn., has a clean but faintly (and wonderfully) gamey bite, one that requires little seasoning (Ledo tosses in a bit of cumin) to do it justice. He forms the mixture into thick (bordering on 1-inch) patties, and rather than frying them, they're baked.
"And you can't tell the difference from a flattop-fried burger," said Ledo.
He's right. This is invention born out of necessity: the Sparks kitchen relies entirely upon a wood-burning oven (one that chef/owner Jonathan Hunt astutely nabbed, second-hand, from a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Sacramento, Calif.) for all of its cooking needs. Burgers are seared in pre-heated skillets in that oven, and that intense heat inserts a light and decidedly mouth-watering char on each patty.
