Jalapeño Popper Burgers

Jalapeño Poppers are one of my favorite foods. Some people crave chocolate, me I crave poppers. I had been craving them for a while when I came up with this recipe.  
I wanted the burger to have the crunch of the original snack. I thought about using ground chicken so that I could bread it, but the market was out of ground chicken.  Ground pork turned out to be wonderful! These were hard to photograph, so they taste much better than they look.  But they tasted for all the world like a popper.

These were difficult to photograph in a way that captured their popper-y goodness

Servings: 6 burgers

Hardware:  Measuring spoons and cups, two small bowls, a large mixing bowl, un-powdered latex gloves, a plate, a large heavy pan that can be used on top of the range and in the oven (I used cast iron), and a spatula

Time:  Prep:  10 minutes    Cooking: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces softened cream cheese
• ⅓ cup pickled jalapeños (drained)
• 8 slices of crumbled bacon
• 1 ½ pound ground pork
• 1+ ½ cup bread crumbs (I used panko)
• 1egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Oil to cover the bottom of the pan
• Buns, cheddar cheese, ranch dressing

1. In one bowl mix the cream cheese, jalapeños, and bacon. Place one cup of the bread crumbs in the other bowl. Set aside.
2. This is easiest to do with your hands. Put on the latex gloves. Combine the pork, remaining bread crumbs, egg, milk and salt in the mixing bowl and mix with your hands.
3. Make six patties of equal size and place them on the plate. Heat the oil on medium and preheat the oven to 375˚.
4. Take a heaping teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture and place it in the center of one of the burgers. Fold the pork over the cream cheese and flatten the burger back out.  Make sure that the cream cheese is completely enclosed in the pork so that it doesn’t leak out when you cook it. Place the burger in the bowl with the bread crumbs and press to make sure they adhere.  Do this to the other side. Place the burger into the pan.  Repeat with the rest of the patties.
5. Cook the burgers until they brown (about 5 minutes.) Flip them and place them in the oven.  Bake for 25 minutes more.
6. Top the burgers with cheddar cheese and ranch dressing and serve on soft buns.