Come on down to Tony's Diner!

We're cooking up burgers today! Not just any burgers, but good old fashioned roadhouse "sliders" on fresh baked potato rolls!

To start with, we need the rolls. Good bread takes time, but even so this recipe isn't all that intensive. Mostly it just needs time to rise:

1 pkg (1/4 oz) yeast
1 1/2 cup warm potato water(1)
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup potatoes, mashed(2)
4-5 cups all purpose flour

In the bowl of your stand mixer, proof the yeast in 1/2 cup of the potato water with 1 tbsp of the sugar. Once the yeast is foamy, add the remaining water, sugar, salt, and butter, and beat until well mixed. Add the potatoes and continue mixing for 2-3 minutes. Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time, allowing each addition to fully incorporate before adding the next. At around 3 or 3 1/2 cups, the dough will be thick enough to switch to a dough hook if you have one. Continue adding 1/2 cup of flour at a time until the dough is pulling away from the bowl. Depending on the humidity, this should be at about 4 or 4 1/2 cups.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until you have a smooth, satiny dough. You may have to add up to another 1/2 cup of flour. Once it is smooth, form into a ball and place into a buttered bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours.(3)

When you are ready to continue, take the dough out and punch it down, then let it rest for 10 minutes. Prepare a 9 x 13 baking dish with baking spray or butter.

To prepare the rolls, place the dough onto a cutting board. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into equal sized portions and arrange those portions into your baking dish.(4) Place in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk.(5)

Bake at 400° for 16-20 minutes until golden brown.

Once these babies are in the oven, we start preparing the meat. We're doing regular hamburgers as well as grilled chicken, portioned out to fit nicely on the rolls.

Following Alton Brown's instructions from his "Man Food Show" episode, we roll a pound of ground chuck out nice and thin (using a sheet pan, or just eyeballing the size and shape). We sprinkle the top with kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, and onion and garlic powder, then fold the meat over longways, pat it together, and cut into eight squares with a pizza cutter. Finally we put them on a 350° griddle for 3-4 minutes on a side.

For the grilled chicken burgers, we take a split chicken breast and cut each side into three pieces. The thicker portions get flattened out a bit by folding a piece of waxed paper over each piece, then hitting them with a rolling pin a few times. With a bit of olive oil on the griddle we cook them like the burgers, 4 minutes on a side at 350°.

Each burger is served with a bit of your favorite sauce (mayo is mine), some grilled onions, and a slice of cheese. They're small but packed with flavor! Come on down and order yours now!

__________________

(1) This is the water you cooked the potatoes in.  Since I do a lot of potato bread, I'll boil up five or six potatoes at a time, then portion both the potatoes and the water into baggies (1 cup of potato or water in each) and freeze them so I can get out just as much as I need at baking time.

(2) Don't add any salt or butter. This isn't a side dish, it's an ingredient.

(3) Potato bread is a wondrous thing. It does its first rise in the refrigerator, and you can let this go until the next day, allowing you to prep the dough the day before a big dinner. The next day you just get it out, let it warm up, and pop it in the oven.

(4) For the sliders, I went with 16 fairly large rolls by cutting the dough into halves four times. You could also do 24 more dinner-roll sized rolls by cutting the dough first into thirds, then cutting those into halves three more times.

(5) If you refrigerated for the minimum 2 hours, the second rise should take 40 minutes to an hour. If you refrigerate longer, the rise will take longer as the dough has to warm up, so allow enough time and watch the volume of the rolls. I find it helps to put the oven on "warm" (about 170°) for about 5-10 minutes to create a good rising spot. I cover the pan with a towel a spritz a tiny bit of water onto the towel to keep the top of the dough moist but not wet.