Gut-busting Smokehouse Burger

Total Time: 40 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 2
• 1 lb ground beef
• 3 tablespoons smoky barbecue sauce (your own or bottled; i like uncle dougie's from barrington, il)
• 5 -6 dashes tabascoâ® brand chipotle pepper sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons liquid smoke (or to taste)
• 1/2 small onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 lb smoked gouda cheese or 1/4 lb cheddar cheese, preferably at room temperature (enough to have 2 tbsp. per burger)
• 1/4 lb thinly sliced smoked ham (enough for 3 or 4 thin slices per burger)
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 -3 good sandwich buns (i like the ones dusted with cornmeal)
• more barbecue sauce
• i like to use a little jack daniels hickory smoke mustard

Recipe

• 1 in olive oil, briefly saute ham slices and onion slices together until lightly browned.
• 2 remove and wrap in foil to keep warm in oven.
• 3 mix barbecue sauce, chipotle tabasco sauce, and liquid smoke into ground sirloin.
• 4 separate into 2 or 3 servings, then separate again to make two separate patties per burger.
• 5 layer smoked cheese of choice in the center; cover with"matching" patty and seal edges tightly.
• 6 at this point, you can either cook the cheese-stuffed patties in the same skillet used to saute the ham and onions, or throw'em on the grill (mmmmmmm!) for the pan-frying method, it will take about 7 minutes per side for the two burgers (1/2 pound size).
• 7 to serve, top each burger with 3 or 4 slices of ham and some onions.
• 8 i like to serve with more barbecue sauce and jack daniels hickory smoke mustard.