On the heat. All four heats

Ingredients

• 4 × 150 g Singh's mutton patties
• 1 tsp flaky salt
• 1 tbsp neutral oil, high smoke point
• 4 soft potato or brioche rolls
• 4 slices cheese (optional)
• Butter, for the buns
• — IF PRESSING YOUR OWN
• 600 g regular lamb mince, fridge-cold
• Nothing else. No egg, no breadcrumb, no onion.

Method

1. If pressing your own: handle the mince as little as possible, press to 2 cm and slightly wider than the bun, and put a thumb-dent in the middle so it does not dome. Chill until it goes in the pan.
2. Salt only on the outside, and only just before cooking. Salt mixed through mince makes it bouncy.
3. Cast iron or heavy steel, oil, over the highest heat until it shimmers. This is hotter than you would take a beef burger.
4. Patties in, do not move them for 3 minutes. Turn once. Two and a half minutes on the second side. Cheese on at the turn.
5. Butter the cut faces of the buns and toast them in the fat left in the pan.
6. Rest the patties two minutes on a rack, not a plate. On a plate they sit in their own steam and the crust you just built goes soft.

Cook's note. Temperature. Because this is minced meat, cook it through — 75 °C in the centre — rather than serving it pink. A 2 cm patty on a properly hot pan reaches that in five and a half minutes without drying, which is exactly why it is pressed thin.

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