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  • Babish is binging.

  • Bid you with Babish is one of my favorite tunes on the Internet because, like me, he's always down to improve his culinary chops.

  • Which is why I brought him to George Bush, his kitchen.

  • The last time I was there, I learned about the unique world of regional burgers, and it blew my mind.

  • So I wanted to come back for another round of schooling and taste.

  • Test three Regional Burger Legends.

  • Professor.

  • Better.

  • You know, the first time I was here, I was like starting my burger journey and you showed me a couple of regional burgers.

  • Let's learn more about some burgers and I brought the home here.

  • Babish himself.

  • Babish.

  • Let's wrap me in my kitchen.

  • It's like the church of burgers is the way he talks about it.

  • It's like coming to like a higher level of burger education every time we come here.

  • Technique where it's from history.

  • I've eaten thousands of thousands of burgers in the last 18 years of research, and I've seen a lot of different regional food ways.

  • So what I have done this is what I get to give to you is my knowledge of method redid the East Coast, West Coast, the New Angeles, the Loss York burger of in and out and share together.

  • There's so many regional burgers out there, we've barely scratched the surface.

  • We're gonna do three regional burgers today.

  • One is the lacy edge burger that exists pretty much only in central Illinois.

  • The juicy Lucy, which is pretty much only in Minneapolis, and the Cuban Frito, which again exists pretty much only in Miami that is she ready for this?

  • I'm tired.

  • I'm hungry.

  • I'm hungover.

  • I've never been through this burner.

  • We sort of called the Lacy Edge burger because it has a lacy edge of beef.

  • Can we call it the laces?

  • Stacy, I'm not changing the name.

  • I don't know.

  • Stacy is Lucy.

  • You shut out.

  • Stacy Smashburger.

  • It's so thin the edges that when it cooks and the course is the proteins in the beef start to caramelize.

  • It becomes almost like a beef can be afraid of mine in Midwest, Titus Titus has really become my go to guy for all things Midwestern, such a brother named Titus Titus.

  • He has gone very, very deep into the world, Lacey at Burger, and it will be discovered is that there is a very definitive line you can draw from ST Louis almost to Chicago.

  • There are certain places nearby Indiana, but mostly in Central Illinois is very odd.

  • There's a place in ST Louis was called Carl's Driving.

  • And that place inspired Danny Meyer to make shake shack that grew up there.

  • He's from there.

  • Yeah, that was his hometown burger.

  • We need a very hot flat top right now.

  • We're burning it about.

  • Look at that for 50 roughly.

  • It was about a three ounce ball of meat seasoning on the but liberally salted.

  • Right.

  • Watch this.

  • Ready?

  • It's not smash straight down.

  • It's smashing.

  • Smear?

  • What's ready?

  • Oh, yeah.

  • You should call that doily meet doily.

  • Oh, my God.

  • Yeah, That's a pretty nice spatula out there.

  • This'd smash alone.

  • I sell these on my website.

  • You see what's happening right away?

  • The proteins in the meat are starting to turn into, like, a beef candy.

  • Yeah, Crispies.

  • Yes.

  • Only pancake with the outer crispy edge.

  • Oh.

  • Oh, shit.

  • I know that's gonna be good.

  • I'll be the judge of that.

  • If you go to Carl's driving in ST Louis, they put a little chopped onion on there.

  • It's pickles on top, but that's pretty much it.

  • It's done that you could see through it.

  • You could see through this guy.

  • Well, perfect.

  • That's really, like, sort of turning the whole world of smash burgers on its head for making that takes a lot of precision and expertise.

  • You think about smash burgers today is that they've made it foolproof by using something called a channel smasher.

  • Most places like Shake Shack in five Special actually has these sort of these stops on it.

  • So when you do smashed burger has thickness never change?

  • It's always give you the exact same things that make it foolproof.

  • You There's no way you can ever over cook a burger under her burger, But this actually involves method because the center is still no, that's what makes it awesome.

  • The edges are thin.

  • Yeah, you can tell this is something that spawned Shake Shack because they're soul in this, that burger.

  • You know, it was substantial, but I'm barely there.

  • It's all about crust is a is a burger made of crust.

  • Whoa, Next level.

  • Next level, your education.

  • The next line next level next burger on the syllabus is the juicy Lucy, the famous juicy Lucy.

  • Legend, as you know, is cheese stuffed.

  • I have fucked us up 100 million times.

  • It's actually pretty easy to fuck up because it is pure science.

  • George, What's the What's the back story about this burger?

  • Juicy Lucy?

  • I don't think there was a Hey Lucy.

  • A guy ran into a bar Matt's Bar in Minneapolis and he said, maybe something different and the time the bartender of the owner, he said, Okay, how about I put some cheese in between two Patties?

  • Cook, Cook that for you.

  • What do you think is great?

  • Why not?

  • And apparently he took one bite of the burger and it burned his face and he said, Whoa, that's one juicy, Lucy.

  • Now, that's what I mean.

  • Wait.

  • I think there's one witness picturing this like pork that's juicy, juicy Lucy, that's actually two pinched Patty's together only would actually make this burger correctly is to use a Patty press war.

  • This is rad show.

  • Okay, two nearly identical sides looking down.

  • Cheese goes on the inside.

  • She's had to be obviously folded up so that it can fit.

  • Watch this this is put together on the part of paper just like that, right?

  • They do this every day at Matt's bar.

  • I'm not pinching.

  • I'm actually pushing me out of the flat top.

  • Now you're at mats.

  • They do use chopped onion.

  • They put one of these on the grill and then just throw chopped onion.

  • A little place.

  • It's like a Peter right now.

  • You know, like, wouldn't you make a pita like, Yeah, it starts to bubble up because, like all that heat, like starting a dome upon flip, baby, look at that crust.

  • Right.

  • Prevent cheese blowout to pick top center.

  • Relieved.

  • Watch what happens here.

  • Watch this right there.

  • Sure is being relieved in Liquid is coming out the top.

  • Oh, yeah.

  • Oh, yeah.

  • Hot molten cheese.

  • Be careful.

  • That's hot.

  • That's hot.

  • Yeah, that cheese.

  • It's perfect.

  • This is a stunning burger.

  • Making some burgers isn't necessarily efficient or practical at all.

  • Not at all.

  • Most stuff burgers are such flops.

  • But when you nail it and you get something like this, it's stuff of legend.

  • And to think this was Burger was actually invented at Matt's because they're trying to keep people in the bar drinking it was used to give my for free work was a burger was a free burger.

  • Burn your tongue.

  • The Cuban, Frieda, Florida specifically in Miami.

  • It's bully in Little Havana, I think every single human being who shows up Miami has to make the point across 95 into the actual cultural part of Miami.

  • And the most incredible things happening there is the Frito Take Us there.

  • It's the Cuban hamburger.

  • In 1959 Cubans began to flee their country following the Cuban Revolution, and many settled in Miami, only about 200 miles away.

  • Frieda was one of the culinary survivors of the exodus, sharing the same DNA as the American hamburger Frieda was served from street carts in Havana before Fidel Castro seized control of the country was absolutely fascinating about this burger is that today you can't find this burger in Cuba phase out.

  • Communist Cuba would not keep up with the demand from looking at them and agreeing to a happier lots ingredients.

  • I knows that there's no she's here exactly.

  • No cheese to a traditional.

  • Frieda didn't.

  • There's so much going on in this burg, you don't actually need you I'm sure it's a sort of, ah, line of demarcation.

  • You can tell in a freedom place who's younger or older because older folks one order cheese at all.

  • I'm also noticing that looks like Ichabod Oh, is that That's right.

  • This is actually exactly what is this?

  • It's Cuban bread in the shape of a hamburger bun.

  • That was important.

  • Part of the free to experience is actually spicing the meat.

  • Things actually shaved onions, right?

  • Chopped garlic freakin.

  • They're obviously a pinch of cumin just like that.

  • Smaller.

  • A pretty good sized by four ounce ball I'm going to use it gets onions.

  • First time they had a lot of money.

  • Is onions in the burger ready?

  • In Miami, they use a sauce.

  • Everyone has a proprietary liquid.

  • Well, it's mostly water, but water.

  • Hot sauce, vinegar, beto paste, garlic, some onions, some sugar.

  • Magic.

  • It's a magic in a bottle.

  • And then watch this.

  • What they dio Dad's on the edges will smell that.

  • Melon liquids evaporate.

  • Sugars are certainly Carmela for you.