Lamb Smash Burgers with Feta Mayo

a continuation of my 2023 lamb journey

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Since the spring I have been dreaming of a lamb smash burger. This is the year that I fell in love with lamb, mostly as something to braise, mostly thanks to Reem Assil’s excellent 2022 cookbook, Arabiyya. Her lamb shoulder converted me, with all its sticky crispy spiced lamby edges. Then I moved onto lamb necks—another success. A smash burger, I kept thinking, should be next. With some kind of feta-mayo mashup to replace the cheese and comeback sauce on the common smash burger, and pickled onions for crunch and acid. Finally this summer I bought some really good ground lamb from my CSA and shoved it in my freezer. When I spoke to Assil about lamb she explained that the quality of the lamb you buy really does matter: since lamb is a pastured animal, it takes on the flavor of its terroir. Good lamb isn’t cheap, but all the other ingredients here are. A good burger is a luxury because it’s delicious, but it can also be a luxury because you’re taking a really good product and smashing it in a pan and its own fat and putting it between to griddled potato buns with something saucy and something tart. Finally last week I tried this. Finally I have a recipe to offer you.

Because I do not own a grill or a backyard, burgers are usually an inside affair for me. I like a hot cast iron pan, I like a thin patty, I like a charred crust and a pink middle. I think a smash burger is a perfect fall dinner: it’s quick and offers a hint of summer reminiscence, without the heat and bugs.

As I was brainstorming this recipe, I again returned to Arabiyya, which traces Assil’s life through food, in recipes and essays: her childhood in Massachusetts as the child of a Palestinian mother and Syrian father; her career as a chef and activist in the Bay Area. I stole the shredded onion trick from Assil’s kafta, which she shapes into both burger patties and meatballs. To make her burgers, she dimples the patties with the pads of her fingers, which I’ve found helps with the smashing and spreading required of a good crusty burger.

The book, along with Assil’s work as an organizer, has been on my mind recently. As a response to the genocide unfolding in Palestine, Assil has helped organize a coalition of chefs and hospitality workers who have penned an open letter calling for a ceasefire. Jaya Saxena interviewed her about the effort for a piece in Eater, which very clearly outlines the way that foodways and food sovereignty, and even the American restaurant industry, are interwoven with this ongoing struggle.

It continues to feel strange to publish my little cooking newsletter while we all watch a US-backed army obliterate hospitals and refugee camps, entire neighborhoods and families. But here I’d like to mention that last week I joined thousands of other writers in signing this (other) open letter to express my solidarity with the people of Palestine and my opposition to the war being waged against them. I am grateful to the friends and writers and cooks I continue to learn from, Assil among them. Our food is an assertion of our existence, she writes in Arabiyya, and our connection to the land.