Coming out just in time for summer, The Book of Burger is Food Network Star Rachael Ray's definitive guide for getting the most out of your ground chuck. Here she serves up burgers, sliders, and sides for almost any occasion.
You've got so many base ingredients in your book--beef, pork, chicken, fish, falafel--so what constitutes a "burger"?
Anything you want to put between a bun. It’s the idea that it’s fun food and that you can pick it up with your hands and eat it. It says everybody can come to this party.
This is your first book with your new publisher, Atria. What's on tap?
Smart books. The fact that now our books literally can come to life for you, and the fact that our books have more value than ever. In that when you scan the key bar codes you’ll get recipes, for example, for all the burgers I’ve written about since the book went to the publisher.
The e-book version includes enhanced digital content, like videos. How did the inclusion come about?
I wanted to get involved in the latest technology when it comes to making books more valuable and more interactive and keeping them exciting whether you like to read them in print or whether you like to read them on, say, your ipad. So these interactive books are multimedia solution to where I think the publishing industry is going.
What's the inspiration for your signature RR Burger Blend of beef brisket, sirloin, and chuck?
It’s accessible. Everybody can get it in a regular grocery store, you don’t have to have any special skills to make it, and you don’t need a dry-aging room, you know? So it’s just an easy recipe for people to get at the grocery store and bring home and make with their kitchen-aid attachment.
You have a section on planning a burger bash. If you were asked to serve burgers at the White House for Memorial Day weekend, what would they be?
Well, they’re very good eaters. Whenever I throw a burger party I make several different types of burgers and I make them in slider size so people can mix and match and try lots of different little bites. I would probably do the turkey or chicken burgers with the Caesar dressing—I would probably also do my famous seven-hour brisket with the slaw salad on top on the smoker.
Same question, but at your house with one of your favorite bands, say, the FooFighters?
If Dave Grohl is coming I’m personally cooking every burger in the book for him. He can have all of it. He can have every burger there is.
