depression era onion burgers

Flank to Flame Cooking Depression-Era Onion Burgers

by Tony Niccoli

My Gammy could cook! I don’t just mean gourmet ingredients and the poshest preparations. Grandma could cook poor-folk food and make it taste as good as anything you’re likely to find being served by a highly awarded chef in a top restaurant today. And growing up, a lot of what she was cooking was coming from what she was canning. Every year, we would help (or get in the way) as Gammy tended a garden that took up most of her backyard. Tidy rows of every vegetable and herb that you could grow in Ohio were lovingly planted, weeded, and harvested. Fruit trees were cared for and more jars went into the boiler for the overabundance. Gammy’s house was where you got to eat fresh peaches in the middle of winter, crisp beans long after the season was over, and homemade strawberry jelly the year around. Nothing was ever wasted, and every meal was a feast with main courses and sides that had often spent hours in a pressure cooker, double boiler, or braiser pan. When a condiment or staple ran out, there was always a replacement already waiting on the shelves by the breezeway, neatly organized next to the rows of cans with homemade labels. Dinners with Gammy are the best I’ve ever eaten. I learned later that it was the depression that had taught my grandma the values of self-reliance, thriftiness, and preparation. Food was carefully stored because tomorrow the money might run out. Everything was grown when it could be instead of purchased, and nothing with any possible use was discarded. It was a generation that still knew how to darn a sock – still saw value in maintaining what you had. But it wasn’t a burden or disappointment to share in that way of life. We weren’t eating unappetizing food for the sake of economy. In reality, you could have told me that it all cost a fortune and based on taste I would have believed it. As more of us spend this extra time we now face with thoughts of the skills we wish we had paid more heed to when we still had the chance, when we ask neighbors to sew us simple cloth masks because we snickered at the idea of mastering an antiquated practice like operating a sewing machine, when victory gardens pop up in every yard and Instagram abounds with images of people’s tomato starts, when we rush home with takeout hoping to arrive while its still warm because our favorite restaurants have been forced to close their seating, and when we all find ourselves trying to eek out a little more from what we already have, now more than ever, I want to finally try a recipe that has been on my to-do list for years. I’m doing it honor of my grandma – and yours – and all the generations that made do with so much less that what we take for granted. Today, we are cooking Oklahoma Onion Burgers – Okie Dokies. They are from the depression, and not just the depression, but from the Dust Bowl no less- born in the height of the poverty there. But here’s the thing, if I had just written this article a few years ago, you’d have no idea. I could pass these off as high-society’s newest delicacy. I could charge $25 a burger at a fancy restaurant for these and then tell you that fries cost extra. And after you tasted one, you wouldn’t even flinch. You might just buy two. These aren’t just poor-folk food, they aren’t just thrifty and a clever way to use less meat. These are real burgers that pack real flavor.

You want to use sweet onions, and you want to use a lot. I used about a half of a bulb for each burger and paired that to ¼ pound of ground beef but that can vary based on the size of your onions. The pile of onion should actually be larger than the ball of meat for the burgers. If I just lost you – please – believe me this is worth a try. I have always liked sautéed onions or grilled onions on burgers so for me it was a no-brainer, but Heather, who doesn’t always like hers that way was just as impressed.

So why the mountain of onions? Because they’re cheap! They were then and they are now. And for a Route 66 burger stand in Oklahoma, faced with a rising cost of beef, and a drive to keep burgers at a nickel, there wasn’t much choice except to get creative.

I used a grater, but you could also do it with a mandoline. Try to get the onion strips as thin as possible and then use a towel to squeeze out the excess water. For the burger prep, we are not going to do the normal patty style I recommend for a regular patty – instead make a loosely pressed ball with ¼ pound of ground beef. You could up this to 1/3 for each burger, just make sure to use more onion to keep the appropriate balance. These burgers are designed to be cooked on a flat-top so you can easily make them in a pan in your kitchen. But that’s just not how I do things. So at my house, it’s a cast iron pan on the grill outside. I heated it to medium temp, with the pan on the grill so it had a lot of stored heat before the burgers went in. When I was ready to cook, I started with a healthy drizzle of olive oil, tossed in my two burger balls, and immediately smashed them as flat as possible.

I know – long time readers are cringing – I’ve told you many times not to ever do this on a grill, and I do still hold by that advice. But with the inclusion of the cast iron pan, we have essentially created a cook-top. Our fats, and the delicious juice that will give the burger flavor has nowhere to escape, so it won’t just be wasted on your lower grill area creating a massive flair-up and dry burger this time. Go ahead, just this one time, press, press, press away. When you think its flat enough, push just a little more. Once they are flat, hit the top with a heavy dousing of salt and pepper. Allow them to cook for a few minutes on this side – I did about 2 minutes on my grill but that pan was pretty hot so your time may vary just a little.

When I checked them, I was just starting to see a little bit of a cook to the top side and decided this was the perfect time to add my onion. I built two big mounds on the flat burger patties and then smashed the onion down into the meat. You want to create a single, cohesive, mixed burger patty – not just a burger on bottom with a heap of onions on top. With a good spatula, and a lot of force you should be able to drive them completely into the burger. The seared meat on the bottom surface will still be in direct contact with the pan and getting a great crust, but the rest will become a heavenly mix of shaved onion and ground beef. At this point, I gave them just a little more salt and pepper and closed the lid again to wait.

About two or three minutes later I gave another check and tested one to see if it would easily release. With just a little spatula wiggle I was able to get it to let go of the pan, so I knew it would be ready to flip without leaving my perfect char behind. I turned both patties so that the smashed onion side was down, gave another quick pinch of salt and pepper, and then closed the lid to let them finish the cook. This side got a little over two minutes, and then I opened the lid again and hit them with a slice of cheese. No, that wasn’t on the original recipe for the standard burger, but I decided to give it a try for my first cook – to be honest I was still a little skeptical and wanted to make sure they were at least enjoyable. I put my buns on the grill for a quick toasting after adding the cheese, and about 1 minute later everything was ready to come off and rest.

For plating I followed the original recipe exactly – a plain hamburger bun, a few thinly sliced pickles, and some yellow mustard. Nothing more. Other than the cheese, I really wanted to get as close to an authentic depression burger as possible.

And let me just say – I was amazed! These might just be my new favorite burger. The onion sweetens the flavor and adds a great depth, the tang from the yellow mustard cuts in effortlessly, and the crunch and acid from the pickle round out a perfect bite. In fact, if you were to serve one of these without telling someone that it was an Oklahoma Onion Burger, they might not even catch it. The deep crust on the first side, and the full cook of the onion side, mixed directly into the beef, creates one seamless and enjoyable burger patty. It’s just a burger – with a kick of extra flavor. Definitely not something less because of its thrift and use of inexpensive ingredients to stretch it out. Instead, these are full-on flavor bombs that could stand up against any burger from any chef. In fact, the next two times I cooked them that week, we didn’t even use cheese. That’s right – two more depression burger cookouts quickly followed – we just couldn’t get enough.

I’m not sure what will be going on in our community as things continue to evolve. Sometimes life hits us with things and it means that sometimes people are making more sacrifices and having to tighten their belts a little more. What I do know for certain is that I’ll still be making onion burgers, and I’ll be doing it for the taste. The thrifty part is just a little bonus that reminds me of my grandma. The fact that the onions I’ll be using by the end of summer are now growing in my backyard garden now is something that would make Gammy smile, too.

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