Sliders at Home

I was so happy after my trip to White Manna last weekend that I decided to turn burger night in our house into slider night. I had watched the slider-meister at work while I was at White Manna and I decided to imitate his work. Its not hard, and the sliders I made have a distinctive slider taste. The only necessary piece of equipment seems to be a griddle, although I did use a food processor to cut the onions into uniformly thin pieces, which helped them cook into sweet little greasy pieces of pure joy. I could not find the small Martin Potato rolls on the Upper West Side on short notice, and used the regular Martin Sandwich rolls, which I cut into quarters.

The next time its burger night in your house, try sliders. They are scarily tasty and in some ways easier to make than regular burgers!

INGREDIENTS

1 pound or more of chopped ground beef (leaner is not necessarily better)
onion, quartered lengthwise and put through a food processor for thin strips of onion
salt
American cheese, cut into slider sized pieces (about a 1/4 of a slice)
Small Martin's potato rolls or regular sized Martin's potato rolls, cut into quarters
dill pickle slices, ketchup, mustard, etc.

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Griddle
Metal Spatula (to help smush meatballs into sliders you need the heft of metal)
Optional but nice: food processor to slice onions

INSTRUCTIONS

Place griddle on low heat. Put ground beef in bowl, and pull out meatball (about 1" in diameter) sized pieces, form into loose balls, and place on griddle. After you have done several of these, smush them down with the spatula. I did not totally squash them, just flattened them to look like little mini-thick burgers. Salt liberally. If these are onion sliders, which the lovely wife and I preferred, place a good amount of onion in and around the burgers. If they are not, don't add onions. The photo shows you how I cooked with onions and without onions together, with no complaints of onion from either Boy #1 or Boy #2 (boy #2 formed many of the sliders himself, although I did the smushing). Turn the onions a bit to avoid burning, but the beef grease prevents this. Flip sliders when the sides are brown. If you are using cheese, the sliders should be cheesed about a minute after flipping. They're done when they are somewhat firm to the finger.

Pre-open the buns so you can easily plop the sliders right on them. The onions go with the meat. Serve immediately with condiments and sliced dill pickles.