Hamburger Dressing

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp mayonnaise or aioli
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp sriracha
• 1 clove garlic

Method

Garlic dominates this condiment, so treat it as your base. Mince the clove finely — not just chopped, but worked on the board with a pinch of salt until it breaks down into a paste. This distributes the volatile allicin throughout rather than leaving hard fragments that bite unevenly. If you're using a microplane, you're already there.

Combine the garlic paste with the mayonnaise in a bowl. The mayo is your emulsification vehicle: the egg yolk's lecithin holds fat and water in suspension, and the garlic's moisture integrates without breaking the emulsion. Stir for twenty seconds until uniform. Add the ketchup next. Ketchup contains both vinegar and pectin, which tightens the structure slightly and adds body — it's not just flavour, it's texture work. Fold it in rather than beating it; you're not re-whipping the emulsion, just distributing the tomato base evenly.

The sriracha goes last. This order matters. Sriracha's heat and hot-sauce complexity will dominate if you add it first, drowning the garlic and mayo's subtlety. Add it tablespoon-wise, stir through completely, then taste. Most sriracha brands run 2,200 Scoville units or higher; the heat will creep up slightly over the first hour as the chilli compounds diffuse into the fat. If you've made it too fierce for your palate, add another tablespoon of mayo — the fat will dull the burn without losing the peppery back-note.

You're aiming for a suspension that coats a burger surface without sliding off. It should have the consistency of soft-serve, not runny sauce. If it splits or looks grainy, you've either whisked too hard (rare, but possible if you're aggressive) or added cold sriracha to warm mayo; let it sit for ten minutes and re-emulsify by stirring slowly from the edges into the centre.

Use within two days if the garlic's raw. Raw garlic will ferment slightly and turn bitter. If you prefer it mellower, blanch the garlic clove for ninety seconds before mincing — it softens the sulphur compounds whilst keeping enough pungency to define the dressing.