Shami-kebab meets Hamburger

One of the most cherished memories I have from my school-days involves lounging on the stone benches under the huge shady tree in front of our school canteen. The canteen looked dank and decrepit but man! they made the best hamburgers in town and a bargain even two decades ago, at Rupees 2 each (25c at the time).
Theirs was a slight variation on the hamburger, the meat patty being used was actually a shami-kebab squished between buttered and skilleted buns.

For the un-initiated, shami-kebabs are a refined form of hamburger meat. Traditionally the meat wasn't ground in a meat grinder, but your friendly neighborhood butcher minced the meat using a heavy meat cleaver on a wooden block cut out of a tamarind tree trunk. It is a laborious process, particularly for kebabs, as the meat needs to be minced finer. This then is seasoned with salt and a bevy of aromatic spices and boiled until cooked thoroughly. Still sticking to tradition- the boiled mixture is ground on stone by hand. Finally, after adding chopped onion and coriander leaves it is made into patties and sauteed on an oiled skillet or flat pan until browned evenly on both sides. The finished product can proudly look any hamburger in the eye and make it wilt.

Yesterday, I craved shami-kebabs but lacked all energy to go through the entire process, even with all the mechanical kitchen aids. So, I decided upon a compromise with a small variation. Take all the flavours and none of the hard work of a shami-kebab.

1 lbs ground meat (of your choice; it should have about 15% fat)
3-4 garlic cloves chopped / minced.
1 small onion chopped finely
a sprig of coriander/cilantro chopped finely
1 jalapeno pepper / green chilly chopped (ONLY if you like the heat)
salt to taste
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 cloves ground or broken into small pieces.
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
and finally the surprise ingredient (drumroll): 1-2 chipotle peppers out of a can and chopped up. This added a very nice smoky flavour to the meat.

Optional: If the meat is very lean - add a tbsp of EVOO or butter (no points for guessing which of the two actually tastes better).

Add everything to the meat and using the long hi-tech penta-digital twin-tools always available with you - aka your hands - make a uniform mixture. Now make patties out of this mix using the aforementioned hi-tech gadget or you can go with some poor substitute like a burger-press (yeah! I know! - sounds like a food chewer) and grill them 6-8 minutes each side.

Swift and immutable addiction is guaranteed. In a rare euphoric moment - you might live a few moments of my happy and lazy school days :-)