Burgers with Blue Cheese Mayo and Grilled Onions

I made this this weekend and, since I was using the torn out page from the magazine, thought it was from Fine Cooking. That's how good it was. Imagine my surprise at getting ready to share the recipe here and finding it was from Cooking Light!

These blue cheese burgers with the somewhat charred grilled onion rings were simply fantastic. I actually can't wait to make them again.

I have to admit I used the recipe as inspiration rather than following it to the letter. Although what I did was pretty close. Looking it over, the most variations were to the onions. The recipe was sent in by a reader and you can see it in its entirety at Cooking Light.

I used:

• Chuck instead of sirloin
• Hellman's regular mayonnaise instead of a canola version (for all I know it may be made with canola)
• Dried thyme (have you seen the price of fresh thyme?)
• Regular onions (if your CSA farmer continually kept bringing onions for weeks, you'd ignore buying special onions too ... plus I'm not that big a sweet onion fan)
• Onion rings instead of keeping the slices intact. I like my onions fully cooked or fully raw and the idea of those slices just seemed too much in-between ... which would have grossed me out.
• No marinade of sherry vinegar and fresh thyme for onion slices ... since I wasn't using slices. That might have been a good addition but the rings were charred enough that I was worried they might dissolve a bit.
• No arugula (I didn't read the recipe carefully enough ... I'm leaving that in because arugula or even a good leaf lettuce would probably have been a fantastic addition)

So here is our version, though I encourage you to click through above to see the real deal.

Burgers with Blue Cheese Mayo and Grilled Onions



Ingredients

1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled blue cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco
1 pound ground chuck
Pepper
Salt
1-2 tablespoons oil
1 medium to large onion, cut into fairly thick slices and then turned into rings
4 burger buns
2 cups loosely packed arugula, washed and dried

Preparation

1. Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
2. Combine 1/2 cup blue cheese, mayonnaise, thyme, and Tabasco in a small bowl; stir well.
3. Divide beef into 4 equal portions, shaping each portion into a 1/2-inch-thick patty. Sprinkle burgers with salt and pepper.
4. Toss onion rings with oil and some pepper. 
5. Place the patties and onions on grill rack. (We use a vegetable rack for onions.) Grill burgers to taste and onions until fairly well cooked and browned on the edges.
6. Spread cut sides of buns evenly with mayonnaise mixture. Arrange 1/2 cup arugula on bottom half of each bun.
7. Put a burger on the arugula and top with crispy onion rings.