Bison Burgers, Corn on the Cob, and Sauteed Mushrooms

So last night I wanted to grill some burgers. I hadn't had a good burger in a while so it sounded like a good idea. I had been reading on various websites about burger recipes and came across some suggestions of using Bison meat instead of beef.

Bison has a lower fat content then ground beef and therefore some claim that it is a healthier meat to use for burgers, and tastes very similar to ground beef. The problem with less fat though, is that it cooks faster then ground beef and can "dry out" faster, so you have to watch your heat and length of time cooking with Bison.

I decided to give bison a try. I purchased 2lbs of ground bison, smoked gouda cheese, and some mushrooms. I added some worchester sauce, chopped green onion, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper, an egg and some panko to the bison and mixed it all up. I formed the meat into balls and then flattened them into patties. I was able to make 7 patties from the meat. I did not measure them so I am sure that you can get more patties out of the 2 lbs if you want, but I wanted nice big juicy burgers. This aint McD's!

My lovely wife Mary Lou sauteed the mushrooms with some raspberry chipotle sauce and some pinot grigio. She did a marvelous job and they tasted fantastic!

She also prepped the corn on the cob while I was making the patties. She buttered the cobs and wrapped them in tin foil.

I setup my grill with the coals on one side, similar to how I would for smoking. I wanted to be able to grill some directly and indirectly. The direct heat temp was right around 350.

The patties went on first, over the direct heat. I wanted to sear them a bit and get a nice grill mark. I seared each side of the patties for about 2-3 minutes per side...with the kettle cover on. Once they were nice and brown, I moved the patties over to the indirect side of the grill to continue cooking, but not too fast.

I put the corn on the cob directly over the coals and let them start heating up. After a few minutes we could hear the corn "pop" every so often. During this time I added the gouda cheese to the burgers (one person requested provolone).

Once all the patties were done (about 10 minutes on indirect heat) and the cheese was nice and gooey, I pulled them off the grill. In the meantime I rotated the corn cobbs, and put the buns on the grill for toasting.

It ended up being a great meal. The burgers tasted great and weren't dry. The mushrooms were fabulous and the corn on the cobb was delicious.

Bison Burger pics

Koopdaddy