The Nerd Lunch Burger

The Nerd Lunch BurgerI was listening to the Nerd Lunch Podcast recently, which is easily one of my favorite podcasts out there, when they had Jess from BurgerMary.com on the show talking with them about burger toppings.

More specifically, they were imagining a world in which they were traveling through the galaxy in an experimental spacecraft when their food replicators were damaged and in turn were only to replicate a set amount of food items for infinity  or until they were rescued  one of which was a Cheddar bacon cheeseburger. If this sounds a little hard to follow just listen to Nerd Lunch episode 148 where you can hear them explain the concept a hell of a lot better than I just did.

Anyway, this led to a conversation about which bacon cheeseburger toppings they’d choose if they were limited to only five – again, due to issues with the replicator. After much discussion and back and forth they settled on American cheese, hatch green chilies, a fried egg, yellow mustard and peanut butter, which honestly sounds like it could make for a pretty unique and delicious burger. So, I decided to create the Nerd Lunch Burger for myself, with one small change. Instead of using only the five toppings they ultimately decided upon I instead opted to use every single topping the four of them had up for debate.

Wondering what the Nerd Lunch Burger all entails? Here’s a list of toppings from the bottom up:

  • Cream cheese
  • A burger patty topped with Cheddar cheese and bacon
  • French fries
  • Hatch green chillies
  • Goat cheese
  • Blue cheese
  • A middle bun with peanut butter on it
  • A second burger patty topped with American cheese
  • Onion rings (battered, not breaded per CT’s specifications)
  • Chili
  • Mushrooms (sauteed in bacon fat because according to Jess regular mushrooms are “too vegetarian”)
  • Swiss cheese
  • Beetroot (this is apparently a legit burger topping in Australia, which is where Jess is from)
  • A fried egg
  • A couple more onion rings (because you can never have too many onion rings)
  • Mustard

Topping off the burger  literally is a mini Cheddar bacon cheeseburger because when Pax suggested a second burger patty as an additional topping Jess questioned whether or not it should be an actual burger or just a smaller burger that sat at the very top like a hat. Clearly I had to go with both options….

There wasn’t much talk about what type of bun would be served with the burger, but a pretzel bun was mentioned so I went with that because let’s be honest, any time you have a pretzel bun as an option and you choose a regular bun instead you’ve just made a huge mistake.

So, there you have it… the Nerd Lunch Burger. It may not be the easiest thing to eat  or really even possible to eat at all without making a pretty ridiculous mess  but it sure is spectacular!

3 Comments on The Nerd Lunch Burger

  1. CT
    September 29, 2014 at 9:33 am (10 years ago)

    “Spectacular” isn’t even a word good enough for this piece of magnificence. This turned out better than I could have imagined. I was wondering what you were going to do about the second cheeseburger. Absolute perfection.

    Thanks, Nick.

    Reply
  2. Ben
    October 1, 2014 at 10:42 am (9 years ago)

    I love pretty much everything about this post, from the fact that you actually made this to the fact that CT commented on it. As a side note, I lived in New Mexico for a while and had a lengthy discussion with some friends about how awesome hatch green chilies are on burgers.

    Reply
  3. Mike
    December 16, 2014 at 10:00 pm (9 years ago)

    Staioned at White Sands Missile Range, Hatch Chiles are what Wisconsin is to Cheese. As far as the recipe goes, it reminds me of a northern VA special at Rays Hellburger: Hot mess – 2 fried eggs over tater tots over fried onions over 2 burgers over chili over mac and cheese.

    The really weird thing about this burger joint is that they don’t have fries. They have everything else, including a milkshake with bacon and rum, but no fries. Go figure

    Reply

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