Anthony Pautrat, winner of the 2024 French Burger Cup, presents the burger that won him and which is now on the market!
Once symbolic of junk food, the burger has conquered the general public and is found everywhere, in fast food restaurants as well as in gourmet restaurants. A French burger cup has even been organized since 2016 by Socopa, bringing together the national cream of the round sandwich at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris. On March 13, the 9th edition of the competition asked the finalists to create a burger based on the spirit of beef in 25 minutes, in front of a jury of experts. Among the original recipes proposed, the burger from a young chef from Montigny-le-Bretonneux in Yvelines (78) won.
It is now the most popular burger in France, “perfectly seasoned” with “real bread work”, according to the president of the jury. “Ruminez-moi”, a culinary creation by Anthony Pautrat, is distinguished by its shape generous where each ingredient is completely legible, topped with a beautifully made bostock bread. “What made me win the competition as a priority was this slightly futuristic bread since we only end up with brioche crumbs,” the young chef from the Ile-de-France region confides. It is a cylindrical mousseline brioche with blue poppy cream, which Anthony Pautrat designed using his expertise as a pastry chef over nearly 15 years. “I cut fairly thick sections which I browned in clarified brown butter.” A hot sauce, a mixture of cream, corn and whiskey, tops the bread.
Another special feature of Anthony Pautrat’s burger: the salad which remains fresh. “Because there are a lot of detractors, and I understand them, who don’t like to eat hot salad, I created something that isolates the salad.” To protect the oak leaves and the battavia salad from the heat of the steak, Anthony Pautrat created an insulator: “it’s a seed pickle (flax, poppy, yellow flax and sunflower seeds) that I have roasted in the oven and placed in a vinegary and sweet solution which was first used to season the salad, and then to place the steak,” he told us.
While cooking on the plancha, the steak is nourished with hay-smoked butter. “Better technique, no need for a bell,” explains Anthony Pautrat. “In a container, we melt butter, we add raw hay, we burn it with a blowtorch with large flames. When the flames subside, we wait for the heat to come down and we film immediately, which will create steam with the butter and will infuse while hot. After about ten minutes we filter the butter, and we end up with a butter which is powerful with hay. The 150 gram steak is then covered with a PGI cow’s tomme without additives or preservatives, coming from a small company in the Aldudes valley in the Basque country. A Cecina crisp with Espelette pepper is placed on top. on top the cheese which has been caramelized with a blowtorch. A little bit of very finely chopped red onions and a large quantity of parsley leaves top it all off, before closing the top of the burger.
Does this burger really make you salivate? That’s good, it is now marketed à la carte The Menagerie in Saint-Cyr-L’Ecole, the tavern-style restaurant where Anthony Pautrat has been chef since April. The burger is reproduced identically to the competition, offered on a very large board accompanied by fries, all for 25 euros.