Hunting & Cooking: Smoked moose burgers with pomegranate caramelized onions

I love homemade burgers because of the versatility one has with toppings. I start my wild game burgers with a simple patty, seasoned only with Montreal steak seasoning to add a little garlic, salt and pepper to the base. From the patty foundation, the building blocks can be assembled to structure a burger exhibiting your personal culinary style.

Wild game patties constructed from deer, moose, elk, bear, pronghorn, pheasant, and turkey are all delicious, and each game selection brings its strengths to the burger. Most wild game meat is incredibly lean and requires the addition of a fat source to increase the moisture of the burger patty. Bear meat is the exception and is a juicy, oily burger without supplementing with domesticated fats. Pheasant and turkey make for lighter-flavored burgers. Moose meat has a subtle sweet flavor not found in other proteins.

When working with moose meat for a burger, an added fat source creates a juicier burger and a little better texture. Fat can be added in a few different ways. First, when grinding the burger, pork or beef fat can be added directly to the mixture. A nice thing about adding your fat is you control the ratio of meat to fat for your patty. My preference is 90% meat to 10% fat. Another popular ratio is 80% meat to 20% fat.

A second fat-adding method is adding bacon during the grinding process. Bacon not only adds fat but also a nice salty pork backdrop to the burger patty. When adding bacon, which is what I did for this particular recipe, I run at a ratio of 80% moose meat to 20% bacon.

Finally, if you are in a pinch and don’t have access to other fat sources, a tablespoon of butter inserted in the center of your patty works great with moose meat. To insert the butter, work the ground moose meat into a ball, insert the tablespoon of butter into the ball’s center, and then form the patty.

Ingredients

1 lb ground moose meat (fat added either during the grinding process or a tablespoon of unsalted butter inserted in the patty center)
Montreal steak seasoning
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
3 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
4 slices smoked gruyere cheese
Arugula
4 buns

Instructions

Preheat the smoker to 500 degrees. Make sure the pellet box is filled with your wood of choice. I used cherry wood for this burger.
To caramelize the onions, preheat the tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over low-medium heat. Add the sliced onions to the skillet, stirring to coat the onions in the oil, and let slow cook for 10 minutes. Be sure to stir often to keep the onions from sticking or burning. This is a slow process, so keep the heat low.
After 10 minutes, add the tablespoon of salt to the onions and continue cooking onions 10 additional minutes.
Finally, add the pomegranate molasses and cook the onions for the final 10 minutes.
While the onions are caramelizing, form the moose patties. In a large bowl, mix the ground moose meat with the Worcestershire sauce and Montreal steak seasoning. I add the steak seasoning slowly to meet my personal taste preference. For a pound of burger, it usually ends up around a tablespoon of seasoning.
Form the patties and place them on the preheated smoker. Smoke burgers for 15-20 minutes. Melt cheese on patties if so desired.
To plate the burgers, add a patty on the bun, place fresh arugula on the patty, and pile on the pomegranate caramelized onions. Enjoy!

Lindsey Bartosh is an eighth-generation Moab girl who loves hiking, hunting, fishing, cooking, writing, photography and working on her website: www.huntingandcooking.com.