Here is the recipe Mom used, it is in the Blackham Family Cookbook in the Traditional Holiday Dishes section because Mom used to make it for the 4th of July. I remember having these at a 4th of July barbecue in our backyard under the fruit trees. Of course there was no actual barbecue in sight, we never had one. Mom got this recipe from Marlene Julian. I started making them mini hamburgers/sliders one year for the Bame 4th of July BBQ and fireworks. There was going to be other meat offerings (the Bames have a real barbecue) and we wanted something else, I remembered these from our Blackham family tradition, but with the other options a full-size hamburger would have been too much. Thus our new spin on the family tradition, our version of sliders was born.
1 1/2 lb hamburger
1 beaten egg
2 tablespoons onion, finely chopped (can use dehydrated onions)
3/4 cup bread crumbs
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Sauce:
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 cup catsup
1/2 cup water
6 tablespoons chopped onion
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard.
Mix hamburger, form into patties and brown in a pan with hot oil. Mix sauce in a pot and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Layer hamburger patties in the sauce and simmer for 30-60 min. There is a note that Cream of Mushroom soup may be used in place of the sauce, but I don't remember experiencing that option.
Here's what we do as an updated version: We mix the hamburger mix and then with 1 oz or so size scoop put them on a griddle and smash them to flatten with a flat glass cup, sometimes we use parchment paper between if it gets sticky and cook the mini burgers on both sides (I don't add oil). Then I layer them in a crock pot with barbecue sauce (we usually have Sweet Baby Ray's on hand). We just use barbecue sauce we have on hand. Set the temperature on the crock pot to low if it will be a few hours until you eat or on high if it will be only an hour or so.
We love them with King's Hawaiian rolls, but you can make your own rolls or mini-hamburger buns or you can even cut up a hot dog bun into 2 or 3 pieces to be the bun for your mini-burgers. Serve with additional barbecue sauce and can add pickles and/or cheese.
We like to make them in a larger than needed batch and freeze the pre-cooked mini-hamburger patties for future use.
