BUBBLE BASS: "I'll take a double triple bossy deluxe on a raft, 4x4 animal style, extra shingles with a shimmy and a squeeze, light axle grease, make it cry, burn it, and let it swim" SQUIDWARD: "We serve food here, sir" BABISH: Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish where this week, I'd like to cordially welcome you to the new kitchen. There's lots to do and see here, but we'll get to that in due time because we need to make Bubble Bass' order from Spongebob and we will not forget the pickles. An ingenious redditor with the username "Boothin" meticulously broke down the secret menu lingo and translated this into a 24-patty patty melt for which we are going to prepare our 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘯 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦. We're gonna start by slicing a whole bunch of tomatoes and shredding a whole bunch of iceberg lettuce. We're gonna remove the core from the bottom center of each half of our head of iceberg lettuce And then we're going to cut it into thin shreds and then cut it across the shreds to make smaller, burger-appropriate pieces of iceberg lettuce and we're also going to finely chop a few white onions for the "make it cry" part of the order, which refers to extra onions. Now, onto the subject of bread. He orders it on a raft, which means Texas toast. So we're going to cut thick slices of plain white sandwich bread and we're going to toast them up on the all-new Binging with Babish six-burner kitchen station. But we need a griddle, so -- hang on a second, I just happen to have a 38 inch griddle right here. And this is gonna come in handy because we have a lot of things to fry up and this makes me feel like a real fry cook. So I'm gonna melt some butter and place our slices of Texas toast into the butter and fry until golden brown. We're not going to reapply butter because he orders it specifically with light axle-grease referring to not too much butter. We're going to set those aside because now it's time to deal with one of the most important parts of an animal style burger, and that is caramelized onions. We need a whole lot of onions; eight in total, sliced thinly and placed on our gigantic griddle -- or if you don't have one of these, a large fry pan with a little bit of oil over medium-low heat and we're gonna cook these for a solid hour. I know that seems like a long time but that's the amount of time that you need to truly break down the sugars and create a soft, jammy mixture of onions Add a little spritz of water if they start to dry out too much and just be patient. Please. Your patience will be rewarded with the jammiest of jammy onions, deep and rich in both color and complexity of flavor. Give 'em a little chop before you take them off the griddle, and set them aside because we need to make In-N-Out style spread, which is an equal mixture of ketchup and mayo with a sprinkle of garlic powder, onion powder, a conservative pinch of kosher salt and an even more conservative sprinkle of paprika along with a few tablespoons of pickle juice. Once that's all nice and homogeneous, it's time to start preparing to make smash burgers. I'm going to measure out a 2 ounce ball of meat -- nailed it, first try, 'cause I'm a pro like that -- and then we're just gonna sort of imitate the size and shape of that initial meatball until we have 24 identical, slightly larger than golf ball-sized meatballs, which we are going to throw down on a super-hot griddle, if you can't tell by all the smoke, and using a large flat spatula, smashing down. They're gonna cook for no more than 30 to 45 seconds before developing a beautiful brown crust, which we're immediately going to hide under a layer of American pasteurized cheese product. Then as soon as that gets nice and melty, it's time to head over to station 3: The Assembly Station, where, into a custom-made aluminum foil trough, we are going to stack high four patties atop two slices of toast, followed by tomato, onion, shredded iceberg lettuce, and then top the opposing piece of Texas toast with a healthy spread of spread and some of our delicious jammy caramelized onions. Then, according to Boothin's recipe, we stack two slices of Texas toast atop that...mess, and then start all over again. Six times all told, so I'm doing eight patties at a time, grilling them up and gently placing them into my giant burger trough, rinsing and repeating until I have created six layers of 4x4 burgers stacked on top of one another. This is very hard to keep upright I don't know how Boothin did it but hats off to him. Eventually, i managed to get the whole thing into a sort-of burger, on which I am happy to say that I did not forget to stack a healthy sprinkling of pickles upon. What? Is that a sentence? I'm not entirely sure. I'm tired because I've been making this monstrosity for the past...six hours or so. After some fruitless attempts to try and get this thing to, sort of, line up a little bit better, we decided to say "f**k it", divide it into six equal burgers, and dig in. Now, while this was not the most structurally sound sandwich I've ever...swallowed, it was a really acceptable patty melt, but its structure leaves it inherently flawed. I think we can do better. So why don't we refer to Bubble Bass' lesser-known second order as a guideline for a much more reasonable quadruple patty melt? BUBBLEBASS: "I will have a quad patty with a sprinkling of Himalayan salt, smoked paprika, "I would like my patties with cheese, but not just any cheese will do. Have you any aged how-uda? (gouda)" Fussy cheese name pronunciation aside, this has the makings of possibly a very good patty melt. So let's fry 'em up, stack 'em high, top it with the requisite thinly sliced tomato, shredded iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced onions and, of course, do not forget the pickles this time. Even though he didn't specify them, i'm gonna keep the spread and caramelized onions because I think they're gonna be really really good, and why not? And mercifully, this results in a sandwich that can christen in the new kitchen with its first cross section. Not half-bad. A whole bunch of melty cheese and crispy, juicy beef, some flavorful toppings and some unorthodox, but I would say, on-point cheese and spice choices on the part of Bubblebass. As you can see, the sandwich is not structurally sound, but it is tasty. All in all, this patty melt was a great way to ring in the new kitchen, with or without pickles.
Hey, /u/OliverBabish, assuming there were no hidden skewers/straws poked through the original prep photos, it looks like /u/boothin assembled the whole thing holding the trough at an angle, allowing each layer to press into the crook of the aluminum V with gravity working against the stack spilling out. It never seems to be held straight up.
Lordy, that 38-inch griddle and Good Eats reference though. For those without a large cooktop, here's a Food Lab guide to caramelizing onions at home.
It'll be extremely unlikely that someone's gonna join the 24 hour club on this episode, I think.
This will forever be my legacy, however I was not the one to originally break down the order, I just made it when some anonymous users on the /ck/ cooking board on 4chan were discussing it and broke it down.
And my trick was to toast the bread low and slow first, to get the whole piece to dry out a bit and get stiffer to help the burger hold the shape more.
Here is a link to the breakdown of the order for anyone curious, I saw it was not in the youtube link.
Well that was absolutely ridiculous but after the every meat burrito it's borderline tame.
New kitchen looks great!
As cool as that 38" griddle is, hopefully we don't see too much of it. One of the best things about binging with babish is being able to see kitchen techniques demonstrated in a way that I can repeat in my own kitchen. And there's no way I'm getting a 38" griddle.
That is a beautiful kitchen.
Holy cow.
u/boothin
Merry Christmas.
I fucking loved this, but I'm genuinely shocked Babish managed to get through the whole video without a single I've gotta.. Go eat some kale.. On my treadmill.. For like.. The next two days..
How does one clean this gigantic grill plate? oO Garden hose?