I can’t remember what stations I’ve seen them in but I saw Hache burgers on the tube quite a lot last week and had quite the hankering for a gourmet burger – as opposed to the Big Tasty I had in a wee drunken haze last week. I had plans to meet a friend of mine on Monday night for cocktails out in Clapham since we both live there but usually hang out in central or North London. However after the shenanigans of Sunday we decided to watch Freeheld at mine instead with burgers & rum cocktails.

I went grocery shopping (Tesco to use my newly acquired club card) with a clear idea of what I wanted to get:

Ingredients (for 4)

• Avocado (1 ready to eat) £1.80
• Bacon (1 rasher per burger) £1.50 on sale
• Tomatoes  – chose vine tomatoes over my usual cheap salad ones in a nod to the gourmet nature of this meal (1 large) £1.00
• Red onions (4 small) £0.79
• Lettuce (1/3 of the pack)  £0.35– tried out round lettuce for the first time because it was so cheap compared to the other kinds of lettuce that cost more than £1
• Sesame buns (4) £0.80
• Mature cheddar cheese slices (4) £2.00
• Mushrooms (half a pack of closed cup) £0.90

I already had some salt, black pepper, 1 green  bell pepper, vegetable oil and soy sauce at home. Total cost (overall not for just what I used)  £9.14

Method 

• Slice / chop the onions, mushrooms and pepper into whatever size you like. I made everything quite big as I wanted the textures in the burger
• I caramelised the onions in soy sauce on low heat for about 15 – 20 minutes
• Then I sautéed some onions, mushrooms and pepper for about 10 minutes so that they were tasty but  the onions and pepper still had a bit of bite.
• I fried the burgers on a medium to low heat until they were quite brown on the outside in the hope that they would cook all the way through. (They did not unfortunately. I had to cook a couple of them for longer and mine was rather ‘rare’ in the middle. Might put them in the oven next time)
• Add the cheese slices to the pan just before serving so that it melts on the burger
• Fry the bacon
• Smash the avocado to create a spread for the bun
• Layout the individual ingredients an assemble to each person’s taste

I bought nice ingredients saving money where I could

I really like burgers but should I eat them?

My friends and the person of interest loved it and I definitely sated the urge to to go Hache. Even with the pricier ingredients I chose, at £13 or so for a burger and £8 per cocktail, we saved ourselves quite a bit on a traditional evening out and had a great time too. Frugal evenings in for the win.