WE ARE CALIFORNIANS!!!

That shout alone should let you know three things about us: 1. Snow is a place, not a weather pattern. 2. Yes, we WOULD rather be at the beach. 3. We L-O-V-E In ‘n’ Out.

Now, In ‘n’ Out is pretty strict about where they’ll build their restaurants. In the foreseeable future, there is just no way we’re getting one within 1000 miles (and we probably wouldn’t drive more than 500 for a burger–but we would def drive 500 miles for an In ‘n’ Out burger if that were an option). Luckily, some crazed chef did a serious breakdown of an animal style double-double. Here is the link. That man is a saint.

With recipe in hand, we tracked down all the necessary ingredients.

You may notice a lack of buns. Totally on purpose and not ’cause we left them in the car.

What you’re looking at is:
-half pound burger patties (the recipe calls for 2 quarter lb burger patties, but we’re rebels)
-six onions
-a tomato
-a head of lettuce
-mustard
-mayo (for sauce–2 tablespoons)
-sweet relish (for sauce–2 tablespoons)
-ketchup (for sauce–1 tablespoon)

In ‘n’ Out Animal style burgers have a few components that make them different than a regular In ‘n’ Out cheeseburger. The one that really stands out when you take a bite, though, are the caramelized onions. Oh my. Those onions…they are perfection.

Now, the recipe says that the onions take a while to cook. A while? A while is the length of a sitcom. This was forever. It really should say, “the onions will take forever.” But when we want something, we put in the hours. Hours. 3 hours. Not joking. Start the onions EARLY. We thought this would be a lunch meal, but it ended up being dinner, because of these onions. However, let us say two words: WORTH IT!

So! Now that you’ve got your six onions in hand, chop ’em up. We stuck ’em in the food processor after chopping. And LG left quite a few on the floor, too.

“Chopping is hard.”-LG

After chopping/food processing the onions stick ’em in a pan with some oil over medium heat (let’s be honest, we started them on high heat and then realized that impatience didn’t make them cook more quickly–it just burned the bottom ones). After about an hour, pour 3/4 cups of water over the onions to “deglaze” the pan. We’re not chefs–that’s just a word the chef used. But it works, so whatever.

Wow. that is a TON of onion.

When the onions FINALLY start turning brown, turn the heat down a bit. Get up from your game of Wii Monopoly about once every hour to deglaze the pan again. You’ll end up doing it 3 times.

No joke. Here is what you’re left with at the end. It’s delicious. It’s fragrant. And it’s about 1/6 of what you started with. This is the bowl we used to move the onions (one at a time) to the pan. They REALLY cook down.

Delicious onion jam.

So, now you have your onion jam. Next step: make your special sauce.

So, this is where we thought the recipe guy got a little nuts. You broke down the exact amount of ketchup, mayo, and sweet relish of the sauce? I bet they don’t even try that hard at the restaurant. However, we thank him, because it’s delicious. The special sauce is easy: take the 2 tablespoons sweet relish, 2 tablespoons mayo, and 1 tablespoon ketchup and mix them. Easy peasy.

“Special sauce is gross.” Whit the weirdo
(possibly captioned by LG)

Now it’s time for burgers!!!

Whit did our burgers (LG is scared of raw meat…unless it’s fish. Weirdo). She added some salt, pepper, and garlic powder to the meat for taste. Then the magic happens: mustard. What? Mustard. Whaaa? Mustard. For real. We’ve more or less decided anything cooked on a pan should be cooked with mustard. What? Mustard. Whaaa? Mustard.

Just some raw meat hanging out in a pan.

SO! After seasoning, we threw the burgers in a skillet. Then mustard was added to the top. THEN we flipped the burger. The smell of that mustard cooking is so good. SOOO GOOD! Then throw some cheese on top and let it melt. Once your burger is cooked through (please make sure your burger is cooked through) it is ready to go!

Assembly line dinner: what it looks like to live with roomies.

We won’t run down burger assembly–we’re assuming you can assemble a burger. We wrapped them in lettuce ’cause LG-the-weirdo doesn’t eat carbs.

No. Thank god.

The burgers were AMAZING! We made ours with thicker patties instead of two patties, and it worked just fine.

Whit

LG–eager much?

Really, what makes it great are: the onions, cooking the burger with mustard, and the special sauce. We figured it out! And yet, we will definitely still pay for In ‘n’ Out every time we’re back home.

Whit and her protective eye wear. Onions are dangerous, people!

We’re giving this a HELLA INVOLVED rating, because the onions took forever.

Posted by El Geeezy in Recipes Tags: California, hella involved, In-N-Out Burger, LG, Recipes, Whit