Grilled Mediterranean Turkey Burgers

Phil Anderson: Hi I am Phil Anderson, the Corporate Executive Chef for Harris Teeter. Today I am going to show how I make Turkey Burgers. Now, these are sensational turkey burgers. We call them Mediterranean. Well, what I did was that took a mixing bowl. That's real on my ground turkey. I added about three or four tablespoons of kalamata olives. Then I put some diced onions and it's about half a cup diced onions and some garlic, maybe a teaspoon of garlic and some basil, fresh basil. Now I chopped up the fresh basil, most chefs will tell you to tear it apart because it will turn black, But you don't have to; you are not going to see that much of the basil that's inside that patty after it is cooked. It's there for flavor.

And then some Parmesan cheese, about a third of a cup of Parmesan cheese. You can use the high quality or you can use any kind. It works well. Then salt and pepper and then next these four patties. I oil almost everything before I put it on the grill and the olive oil is used because it is Mediterranean burger. So you can use any kind of oil but I used the olive oil because of that. Okay, we are going to get this started by throwing these patties on the grill. I have got a pretty hot grill. I have got it about 450 degrees. You always want to use spatula when you grill on meats. Right now what we are doing is we are marking on this, what we call marking. The bars don't need to oiled because of the olive oil that we put on the patties in the beginning. So this is really high heat. We are just marking them. What is happening is the protein is going to relax after a while, and when they relax, they won't be sticking to the bars. Ideally, you only want to flip these burgers once. It takes about two, two-and-a-half, three minutes may be. Okay, I think we have got some nice done burgers in here. I will flip this over. Okay, we are just going to do the same thing on this side but not as long. We are not going to mark it, because we are going to serve our burgers with the marking faced up. Yeah, I am going to put them over to the side here. They are releasing without sticking, and here is the trick no one has ever told you. Cover it and go off and have a glass of water, glass of wine, a beer. Five or six minutes come back to a juicy burger. Oh yeah! They are done. So we are going to put them here. Now I have got some condiments over here. Just take your favorite condiments. I like just plain lettuce and tomato on pickles, maybe mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, and we will assemble on a kaiser roll or a seeded roll. You could do kaiser roll, you could do a baguette, any kind of bread that you like, just to make a fun. Okay, there you have it, a beautiful Mediterranean turkey burger. Healthy that cost under $10 to feed a family of four. If you want to go over your $10 budget, Sonoma-Cutrer is a great chardonnay, the grapes are grown on the Sonoma coast and Terry Adams is the wine maker. He does a brilliant job adding complex layers of flavor. A great wine that will go really well with this Mediterranean turkey burger. I hope you enjoy this recipe.