I had never heard of Adam and Brett Walton before I downloaded Smashed: 60 Epic Smash Burgers and Sandwiches for Dinner, for Lunch, and Even for Breakfast – for Your Outdoor Griddle, Grill, or Skillet. They have an outdoor grilling YouTube channel called the Waltwins. I’ve watched a few of their most popular videos and they are fine. They are fine and so is their cookbook.
The bulk of the cookbook is beef burgers and I’m going to tell you a secret – anything you can do with ground beef you can also do with other ground meats. I bring this up because they have a robust selection of beef burgers and an anemic selection of chicken and pork burgers. It does a pretty good job of explaining how to make a basic smash burger and then it mostly riffs on toppings and size. The Molly Smash Burger is the most interesting burger in the book. The recipe comes from another YouTube grilling show, The Gallery Backyard BBQ.
And here’s where my real complaining begins – If you do not already know how to grill or cook, you still need to do further research or watch videos on their channel. Even if you do know, they include some directions that are either not explained or described incorrectly. For example, The Molly Smash Burger (named after a dog, not MDMA). The Molly is a stacked smash burger with griddled onions and cheese. The burger meat is rolled in brown sugar so the smashed patty will have a sweet, crispy crust. The recipe includes three ingredients that are used differently depending on if you read the book or watch the video on the original creator’s site.
2 teaspoons salt (to taste)
2 teaspoons pepper (to taste)
2 teaspoons garlic powder
…
When your edges start to brown, flip and season with the salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
This recipe is two smashed burger stacked on top of each other and makes one burger. If you follow the recipe as written, you are sprinkling a teaspoon of salt, pepper, and garlic powder on each patty. That is a lot. And even if you use less salt and pepper, because the directions say “to taste,” you are still directed to put a lot of garlic powder on each patty. That seemed odd, so I went to Tommy Scarano’s video. He seasons the onions with a pinch or two of a mixture of salt, pepper, and garlic. That’s a very different process and is going to give you a much more pleasant outcome than a layer of garlic powder on your burger patty.
In the intro to the Oklahoma Onion Smash Burger (I have a difference of opinion about how these should be made, but nobody asked me), they say that steaming the bun while the meat and onion cook makes a better burger, but then they don’t describe how to steam a bun. They do describe how to toast a bun. Because I looked it up, I know that steaming and toasting are two different things. Is this something you would know if you watched the Waltwins channel? I don’t know. I do know that you won’t learn how from this cookbook.
The authors clearly love their beef burgers. I do wish they had been more thorough in their explanations and directions, and more imaginative in their non beef recipes. Ok, I’m going to make one more complaint. The Texas BBQ Burger is just a burger with bbq sauce. Texas bbq is primarily about the smoke, not the sauce. So a smoked burger would have been more appropriate, or a pressed sandwich with smoked brisket. It’s not really important.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Quarto Publishing and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.
