patty melts

Patty melts are essentially a burger and grilled cheese love child. And they are sloppy! No matter what I do, I can't master the flipping of a patty melt- all the guts slide all over the place when I flip. But, no matter how weird or messy they look, they are SUPER yummy.

I season the ba-gebus out of my ground beef. And yes, I am actually using ground BEEF this time and not turkey! Super strange.

Caramelize your onion- no need to use sweet onions. I recently read an article that explained that when you cook an onion, all the essential sugars of the onion come out, whether it's a so called sweet onion or not. The article suggested using white onion for everything except when you might want to eat it raw. Interesting!

These burgers are cooked in a pan, in butter. Can't get better than that. I do suggest cooking them to mid-well or well. The idea of a medium rare patty melt is off putting.

A traditional patty melt uses rye bread. But, I didn't have rye bread. So, I used what I had on hand. In this case, it was cracked black pepper and cheddar bread. And it was delish.

Okay, now for the cheese and the onion. Now that I look at this, I'm starting to think my flipping skills could have been greatly improved if I put cheese directly next to the bread on the top and bottom. For sticking. Yes. There is my mistake.

Now let the butter do it's work and toast on up! Gather yourself and prepare to flip. Say a little prayer if necessary. I said several.

Not toooo bad. But this was the best flip of the bunch. And you can see that one of my onions escaped. Slicing a patty melt isn't exactly the easiest thing to do either, but it's a cake walk compared to the dreaded flip!

Patty Melts
Thank you again, The Pioneer Woman!
1 large onion, sliced
1 lb ground beef
1 Tablespoon worchestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and pepper, to taste
8 slices swiss cheese
8 slices bread, rye or otherwise
1 stick of butter

In a saute pan, caramelize onions in 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat until golden brown. Meanwhile, combine together ground beef, worchestershire sauce, onion powder, garlic powder and salt and pepper. Form into 4 patties. Cook patties to medium well or well done in 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a saute pan. While patties are cooking, liberally butter each slice of bread. To complete melt, layer in a saute pan over medium heat- butter side down bread, cheese, patty, onion, cheese, butter side up bread. Grill on either side for 1 to 2 minutes, or until crispy and golden brown. Serve immediately and enjoy!