I made Martha Stewart's green-chile chicken burgers.
Terri Peters
I made Martha Stewart's six-ingredient recipe for green-chile chicken burgers.
The chicken patties fell apart as I grilled them, and the recipe called for unconventional toppings.
I wasn't a huge fan of the burgers, and I'd likely change a few things if I made them again.
I won't argue with anyone who says Martha Stewart is the queen of all things cooking and homemaking.
Having interviewed her a few times and followed many of her recipes for years, I've always found the lifestyle mogul, and focus of the upcoming Netflix documentary "Martha," to be a delight.
Plus, her meals are almost always a hit for weeknight dinners in my house. Most recently, I tried her recipe for six-ingredient green-chile chicken burgers.
I figured the simple burger recipe, which called for ground chicken, cilantro, and diced green chiles, looked easy enough. However, I wasn't prepared for just how difficult the process would be. Here's how it went.
I started by gathering the ingredients for the green-chile chicken burgers.
The ingredients included ground chicken, green chiles, cumin, salt, and pepper.
Terri Peters
These patties, which call for cilantro and green chiles, are far from your average cheeseburger. I began by gathering the ingredients, which included ground chicken, cumin, diced green chiles, cilantro, salt, and pepper.
The recipe also called for a beefsteak tomato, sesame buns, sour cream, Dijon mustard, and lettuce for serving.
This combination of ingredients was outside my standard-burger comfort zone. Still, I gathered everything and did the necessary prep work, like draining the canned chiles, slicing the tomato, and chopping the cilantro.
I prepared the burgers exactly as instructed.
I mixed all the burger ingredients together in a bowl.
Terri Peters
The burger recipe was accompanied by a walk-through video on Stewart's website, so I watched it to see if there were any helpful tips I could pick up before beginning.
The chef in the video said the raw patties were very delicate, so I started to get nervous that my burgers would fall apart before they reached the grill.
However, I did exactly what she suggested. I drained the green chiles well, mixed the ingredients together, formed patties, and chilled the raw burgers in the refrigerator to firm them up.
After about an hour, I removed the burger patties from the refrigerator.
Even after an hour in the fridge, the green-chile chicken burgers seemed very wet.
Terri Peters
When I took them out of the fridge, the plate was covered in liquid that had seeped out of the burgers while they chilled. The patties themselves looked crumbly and wet and fell apart when I touched them.
After draining the juices in my sink, I tried refrigerating the patties for another hour in hopes of seeing them firm up. However, even after two hours of chill time, the burgers remained wet and mushy.
Grilling these chicken burgers was not an easy task.
The green-chile chicken burgers didn't hold together well when I tried grilling them.
Terri Peters
When it came time to grill the patties, my precautions seemed to have done little to help.
As I picked up the burgers from the plate, they started falling apart, so I had to re-form the patties. Following the directions from the video, I spread oil on the surface of each one before dropping it onto the grill.
I let the burgers cook for about five minutes on each side. When it was time to flip them, two out of four patties fell apart completely, and the other two lost pieces of meat here and there.
After 10 minutes on the grill, the burgers reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, a signal that the chicken had cooked through.
The instructions for grilling the tomato slices and buns seemed a bit off.
I think some of the burger toppings, like the tomato slices, needed more time on the grill.
Terri Peters
Next, it was time to prepare the toppings. I followed the suggested two-minute grill time for the sliced tomatoes, but unfortunately, they didn't get the dark, caramelized grill marks I'd have liked.
The heat time for the sesame buns also seemed off to me. The recipe said they'd only need to sit on the grill for about a minute, but this wasn't enough time to fully heat the bread.
Though the buns got warm and toasty, I think they needed another minute or two on the grill.
The burgers looked beautiful, and one condiment was surprisingly good.
I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor the sour cream gave to the burgers.
Terri Peters
To plate Stewart's burgers, I stacked a dollop of sour cream and a bit of Dijon mustard, a patty, a tomato slice, and a lettuce leaf on a sesame bun. The fully assembled burger looked colorful and impressive.
When I took a bite, I was surprised at how delicious the sour cream was as a burger condiment. The tartness of the creamy topping cut through the slight spice of the cumin and chile and ended up being my family's favorite part of the burgers.
However, we thought the patties themselves tasted like they should've been part of a taco-night menu instead. The chicken patties, rich with earthy green chiles, cumin, and fresh cilantro, had a unique flavor profile that wasn't anyone at my table's favorite.
If I made these burgers again, I’d do a lot of things differently.
My family didn't love these burgers, though they looked beautiful.
Terri Peters
I didn't like many parts of this recipe, from the fall-apart chicken-burger mixture to the under-heated sesame buns. Still, my husband and I sat at the dinner table, puzzling over what we could do differently to improve the recipe.
If I attempted these burgers again, I'd add eggs and breadcrumbs to the ground-chicken mixture to help the patties stay together better.
I'd also add a sharp-cheddar cheese to the mix, which might help balance the acidity of the sour cream, mustard, chiles, and spices.