Black Garlic and Scotch Bonnet Beef Burgers

1. Take the mince out of the fridge 20 minutes ahead and heat the barbecue or a heavy pan to medium high.
2. Tip the mince into a bowl, spoon over 2 tablespoons of the marinade and add the roasted garlic, the salt and a good grind of pepper.
3. Fold it together with your fingertips in about ten passes and stop. Worked any harder, the mince goes springy and the cooked burger turns rubbery.
4. Fry a teaspoon of the mix as a tester patty, taste it, and adjust the salt or the marinade before you shape the rest. It is the only safe way to taste a raw seasoning.
5. Divide the mince into four and shape patties about 2cm thick and slightly wider than the buns, because they will shrink.
6. Press a shallow dimple into the middle of each one with your thumb. It stops the centre doming as the meat contracts.
7. Cook the patties for 4 minutes on the first side without moving them, so a crust forms.
8. Turn them, lay a slice of cheese on each and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes for medium.
9. Brush the remaining marinade over the tops in the last minute and move the patties away from the direct flame. Sticky marinades catch quickly over high heat and turn bitter.
10. Lift the patties onto a warm plate and rest them for 3 minutes. Toast the cut faces of the buns in the pan or on the cooler side of the grill while they wait.
11. Spread mustard on the top halves and burger sauce on the bases, then build: lettuce, patty, caramelised onions, tomato. Press the lid on and eat it straight away.

Make it ahead, and what else the jar will do

Patties can be shaped a day ahead. Sit them on a lined tray, cover them and keep them in the coldest part of the fridge. What will not wait is the seasoning: do not mix the marinade through more than about four hours out, because salt and acid start curing the surface of the mince and the texture moves from tender to firm.

The rest of the jar is a weeknight ingredient. Brush it over chicken thighs for the last five minutes of roasting, stir a spoonful through caramelised onions for a fast onion gravy, or loosen it with olive oil for lamb cutlets. Our guide to nine ways to use the black garlic and scotch bonnet marinade has the rest of them, and which sauce goes with which meat covers where the other jars on the sauces and mixes shelf belong.

Common questions

Is scotch bonnet marinade very hot?

Scotch bonnets sit at the hot end of the chilli range, in the same bracket as habaneros, but a marinade is not a chilli sauce. The heat is one part of a jar that also carries black garlic, sweet and nearly balsamic, and it lands late rather than on contact. Spread through 600g of mince, 2 tablespoons is roughly a teaspoon and a half per burger, which most people read as warm rather than hot. Cook the tester patty in step 4 and you will know where you stand before committing the rest.

Can I use the marinade on chicken instead of beef?

Yes, and thighs take it better than breast. Allow 2 tablespoons per 500g, turn the pieces through it and refrigerate for 30 minutes up to four hours. Cook to 75°C in the middle and hold back a spoonful to brush on at the very end, off the direct heat, for the same reason it goes on late in the burgers. Skin on, the sugars colour hard, so keep the pieces to the cooler side and finish them over the flame.

How long should burger patties rest before serving?

Three minutes, five at the outside. A patty is thin, so it does not need the ten minutes a thick steak wants, and it cools faster than you expect once the cheese has melted. Rest them on a warm plate rather than on the buns, or the juices go straight into the bread. Toasting the cut faces takes the same three minutes, so do that.

Ottolenghi Black Garlic and Scotch Bonnet Marinade is $22.95 for a 270g jar, about four batches of these burgers, and it sits with the rest of the Ottolenghi range and our wider condiments shelf. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100, and the festive entertaining range covers the rest of a December table.