No, you don't want all that on one burger. Nor do you want to eat four or five burgers. Let guests taste a wide array of toppings without busting their belts by serving sliders - those 3-ounce burgers restaurant chefs love to plate in groups of three.
They're cute, convenient, and perfect at a toppings bar. And you can go beyond beef and offer slider variations made of lamb, pork, turkey, crab - even veggies.
For more inspiration on toppings, we looked at two new burger-specific books from celebrity chefs: Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries & Shakes (Clarkson Potter, 2009) and Burger Bar by Hubert Keller (John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2009).
Keller, a French-born chef, says he'd eaten perhaps three burgers in his life before 2004 when he and two other French chefs opened Burger Bar, a build-your-own eatery in Las Vegas.
Flay, the chef, restaurateur, and Food Network star with nine books to his credit, says he personally prefers classic burgers topped with American cheese.
But both books suggest imaginative combinations on the cookout classic.
Our favorites from Flay include a turkey Cobb burger with avocado, bacon, blue cheese, lettuce, and tomato; a Philadelphia burger, with roasted bell peppers and grilled onions; and a Greek burger with yogurt, cucumber, kalamata olives, oregano, feta cheese, and tomatoes.
From Keller, we liked his crab cake sliders with fennel, and his "vegan burgers," a stack of veggies topped with pesto, with portobello mushrooms for buns.
Fast-food purists insist the term slider originated with White Castle, the chain of turreted hamburger stands that made tiny, flat, square burgers, each with five holes so they could be steamed on a grill without flipping.
