I flew to Seattle for the day for work the other week and one of the things I watched on the flight was a woman making some kind of Korean burger out of minced steak that had been marinated in a ginger-soy concoction. Yum.

One of the first things I did when I got back was to buy some ground pork and try a little variation on it:

soy or tamari sauce
sesame oil
ginger
garlic
scallions
sugar
ground pork
fresh cilantro
buns

1. Make the marinade by combining the soy sauce, ginger, garlic, scallions, sesame oil, and a little bit of sugar. I’d say I used a few tablespoons of soy, a lot of ginger, a couple of cloves of garlic, a scallion, and just a bit of the sesame oil and sugar.
2. Mix the meat in with the marinade (I used a pound for three burgers and they were big), make patties, and cook them. When I cook fatty meat on a skillet, I don’t use extra fat. The meat will stick at first, but they are typically ready to flip when the meat chars slightly and releases itself from the pan. Or at least that’s what I like to think.
3. Let the burgers rest a minute or so – cooling will help them retain their juices – and place them on a toasted bun, topped with some cilantro and hot sauce.

So good! There is a reason a lot of Asian cuisine uses ginger, soy, and garlic, and these were actually reminiscent of the dumplings I grew up loving. We ate the burgers with some kind of green we got at the market that was described as a Japanese spinach, which was also good.

(The third burger was for my mom, not the baby.)