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That's R as in Rube and G as in Goldberg. It was an experiment for an appetizer of sorts. The end product was a bit oversized for an appetizer. I started out with six 1 ounce ground beef balls seasoned with salt and pepper. Because my wife has abhorred ground beef until I showed her a deep fried one, I deep fried the balls for 30 seconds at 400F. That theoretically, would allow her to at least taste these.

So out of the oil, I do a "faux" sous vide. I put the balls in a ziplock freezer bag, fill it with a homemade beef stock, press all the air out, and seal it up. Then the bag goes into a sous vide bath at 65C (149F) for an hour and a half. So no vacuum pack, but rather a braise at sous vide temperatures.

When done we pull out let cool a bit and wrap with homemade melty cheese slices. Then we coat it with a think layer of brioche dough. A very simple brioche recipe, nothing very complex. So the brioche and cheese covered, deep fried, sous vide cooked, ground beef ball is dropped in hot oil to do a quick deep fry of dough. If Rube had been a chef, he'd have appreciated all the steps but the result .... Major fail! We did one and cut it in half. The dough was not finished, just the exterior that was dark to the edge of burning. The inside had large sections of dough still very ... doughy.

A different approach was required. The other five balls go into the toaster oven at 175C (350F) for 15 or 20 minutes. We pulled them out and gave them a try. The ground beef was not totally overdone, to my surprise, but a medium well, with some hints of pink. That was good. The cheese was very soft and tasty. The brioche, while not perfect, was pretty darn good. My wife tried one and loved it, particularly the bread covering.

To the point that when we made burgers served on commercially made buns, she said no ... she wanted to keep the memory of the flavor of the burger ball and brioche wrapper and not replace it an with okay burger on a so-so bun.

Next time, I will try to thin it down some. And I will try to treat the brioche a bit nicer. I will have some sesame seeds and an egg wash for it. But I will give it a go again, probably down sizing the meat a bit, since I really want something I can hand out as an appetizer or amuse bouche for guests and their children when we are making pizza or ribs.

This is for the Heart Association picnic, right?

I admire your creativity, Steve

Fuzzy, everything I make seem to fall afoul of the longevity police.

phoenix, thanks. It's really the folks here and on other forums that love food and the process that gets me playing with this. You guys are all quite inspiring.

I think these would work even dropping the meat all together and doing a cheese center and brioche exterior. Well, for cheese lovers. Surprisingly, very bland cheeses and cheese-like substances (processed to the point it doesn't require refrigeration) are popular here, but even a medium cheddar or similar is off putting to many Filipinos tasting for the first time. I won't even mention what happened when I found some good blue cheese home and passed it around. Heh heh.

Steve, I'm not much of a fryer because I'm trying to watch my danty figure. But I imagine I'd attack "burger Balls" a couple ways.
The "faux" sous vide is clever! After that you might consider either dumplings, or tempura for the dough.

By "dumplings" I'm envisioning enveloping the meat ball in dough and steaming them. You could boil them in a broth but they'd be really too wet unless the dough is similar to pretzel or bagels; boil and bake. I like the idea of steaming the dough, you can then rename your dish "Steve's Sweaty Balls" (not to be confused with "Schweddy Balls"). Finish these in the fryer kind of like won ton or bake them for that baked bun texture.

The tempura route would work for cheeses. Think of tempura ice cream. Make your cheese balls with a sprinkling of cooked beef for the burger connection, then refrigerate. Make a thickened tempura batter-cold. Fry it up like a cheese stick. You'd have to abandon the "burger bun" texture, but the results may be more interesting.