【Casual Camp Meals】Surprisingly, hamburgers made with no-knead patties were quite delicious

During a recent camping trip, I forgot to take wet wipes, and the hamburger I made lazily to avoid getting my hands dirty turned out to be very tasty. The method of cooking and the choice of ground meat are the key points for success.

Even though it's a fishing camp and I'm not catching anything, I'm making hamburgers

This time, I was planning to fish for chars and yamame trout at a campsite in the headwaters and grill the fish on a stick over the campfire. However, things didn’t go as planned, so I decided to make hamburgers with the ingredients I brought. After about three hours of fishing, I'm also quite hungry.

This campsite allows open flames, has plenty of fallen branches, and the charm lies in being able to enjoy a campfire to the fullest. Burning the birch I collected while walking gives off a uniquely pleasant aroma, reminding me of the joy of camping.

The secret to the flavor is the smell of the campfire! Is the unmixed patty delicious?

For making hamburgers this time, there isn't a nearby water supply, and I forgot wet wipes, so I focused on cooking without touching with my hands.

I just seasoned the ground meat in the pack with salt and pepper, covered it with a plastic bag, and pressed it firmly to shape it. I hardly touched it, hoping it would be smoked by the aroma of the campfire.

I want to add the smell of smoke, so I'll grill them on a wire mesh, but I will preheat the mesh to prevent sticking. When cooking on a hot plate, the meat tends to stick due to moisture left in the unseen uneven surfaces. I’m not sure if preheating the wire mesh will have a similar effect, but I decided to try it anyway.

Since it's not kneaded further, I thought it would be prone to crumbling when moved, so I decided to use a foldable wire grill, as shown in the image above, to sandwich and grill the patties in advance.

I’m not sure if this cooking method was good, but it turned out better than expected! Perhaps because I used a mix of beef and pork that has a lot of fat, I noticed the patties naturally detached from the grill. I also placed cheese on one of the two patties I made.

After sandwiching with lettuce and adding ketchup and mustard, it’s complete! There was no smell from the meat at all, and the flavor of the mustard matched perfectly. Combined with the extraordinary experience of cooking over an open flame, it was quite delicious. However, the flavor of the butter roll was a bit strong and significantly affected the taste, so hamburger buns are definitely a must.

It would be perfect if I just had hamburger buns.

When I looked up supermarkets where I could buy buns online, I found names like Costco, Seijo Ishii, and Gyomu Super. Among them, I went to Gyomu Super, which is the easiest for me to access, and they were indeed selling them as reported.

When I tried to remake it with my home frying pan, the smell of the buns became the same as that of the hamburger chain, and the sense of discomfort disappeared.

However, this time, the flavor of the mixed ground meat became a point of concern. It seems that adding the flavor of smoky fire from grilling was indeed the right choice. Next time, it would be good to take buns specifically for hamburgers and to use 100% beef ground meat for frying in a pan or on a griddle.

How about trying to enjoy hamburgers while camping?

Interview and text by Kazuma Tanaka

Search Hamburger buns on Amazon