Ingredients

Wasabi mayonnaise

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 4 1/2 teaspoons wasabi powder

Cucumber shallot pickles

• 1/2 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon pink peppercorns
• 1/3 cup pickled ginger
• 1/2 English cucumber, cut into 1/4-inch slices
• 1 shallot, cut into 1/4-inch slices

Japanese chicken burger

• 1 1/4 pounds ground chicken breast
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• Ground black pepper
• 4 whole-wheat burger buns with sesame seeds

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"I always like to put together flavors that complement as well as contrast each other. This concept is especially important when creating a burger because you should experience that 'kapow factor' with each and every bite," she said in an e-mail.

So for her contribution to AP's 20 Burgers of Summer series, Martinez sought a balance of salty and sweet, which she satisfied by pairing grilled fresh figs with serrano ham.

"It was a short leap then to add the piquancy of a Cabrales blue (cheese), which complements the beef component of the burger," she said. "Can you say 'party on my plate'?"

Martinez is a big believer in big flavor in her burgers, and over the years says she has enjoyed many variations, including ones made from Kobe beef and seafood, even veggie varieties. But in the end, her blueprint for a great burger goes back to her childhood.

"Some of my fondest hamburger memories involve making homemade patties with my dad when I was little. He would season them with salt, fresh ground pepper and onion powder, then we would grill them over charcoal briquettes in our backyard, and the result was a slightly charred burger on the outside that was pink and juicy on the inside," she said.

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"It may sound crazy coming from a French chef, but the inspiration behind this burger is actually McDonald's and Burger King," said Ripert, the man behind New York's award-winning Le Bernardin restaurant and Westend Bistro in Washington.

For Ripert, a great burger must be perfectly proportioned, a trait he thinks the fast-food giants have aced.

"All the elements are carefully controlled," he said via email. "The way they cut the pickles, the way they cut the tomatoes, the way they slice the salad, and the size, obviously make those burgers perfect."

Except the meat, that is.

"So what we did was we looked at their burgers carefully and studied the proportions, and then of course did the same thing, but with great meat," he said. "We're using sirloin mostly, but it's the fat content and ratio of fat to meat that is very important."

And don't forget a great bun. Ripert favored a fresh challah bun for his perfect burger.

Westend Bistro Burger
Serves: 4

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Martha Stewart isn't a big griller, but she still enjoys creating delicious varieties of burgers during summer, especially on her wood grill. In fact, in a first for her nearly 20-year-old magazine, Martha Stewart Living, she even put a burger and beer on the cover of the June issue.

And when Stewart does burgers, she considers the whole burger to make sure she gets it right.

"It is not just about using the freshest meats — chuck, sirloin, turkey, chicken — but also about the added flavorings, buns and toppings," she said in an e-mail.

For AP's 20 Burgers of Summer series, Stewart offered one of her favorites, a chicken burger with Japanese flavors, including wasabi, ginger and soy sauce.

"You will love it," she said.

Just be sure not to press the burger, which compacts the meat.

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To get from dream to dinner plate, the man famous for showing Americans just how good and even upscale Mexican food can be drew inspiration from queso fundido, an appetizer of melted cheese, onions, chilies and sometimes meat.

"I love cheeseburgers and I love Mexican queso fundido, so my concept was to bring the two things together," he said via e-mail. "My favorite queso fundido involves melted cheese with chorizo sausage, roasted poblano chilies and caramelized onions."

So Bayless whose restaurants include Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago decided to deconstruct the queso fundido a bit, adding the chorizo to the burger itself and using the melted cheese, roasted peppers and caramelized onions as toppings.

"For me, it needs to be grilled and have a nice balance between bun and meat," said Bayless, who recently prepared President Barack Obama's second state dinner. "Too much of either isn't good, nor is too many add-ons. Balance is key, both in ingredients and flavors."

QUESO FUNDIDO BURGER

Start to finish: 45 minutes.

INGREDIENTS:

2 fresh medium poblano chilies

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"It took us about five months to come up with a grind (of meat) we liked," said Love, a Texas chef who several years ago defeated Masaharu Morimoto on Food Network's "Iron Chef." "We finally came up with that 50-50 mix of prime sirloin and prime brisket. Then we started on the pickles. Then we started on the sauce.

"It took us forever to make this burger," he said.

That's because Love -- whose Fort Worth, Texas, restaurants include The Lonesome Dover Western Bistro and a burger joint called The Love Shack -- takes his burgers seriously.

"I do have a passion for burgers. I think a cheeseburger is one of those four or five foods that are so simple" it has to be done right, he said.

And he marvels at the versatility of burgers. "It can go from a road stop pick-up-and-go food to being a sit-down-with-a-white-tablecloth thing. Which is what makes it so tremendous," he said.

For Love, creating a tremendous burger meant not just perfecting the blend and grind of meat, but also seasoning it from the inside out, rather than just on the outside.

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"As a chef coming up, I always had this love affair with the burger," says Marcus Samuelsson, who got his start at a three-star Michelin restaurant in France. "We work with this French food all day. But at night we want a burger."

And so Samuelsson -- who was born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden and learned to cook across Europe -- embraced the burger, which he calls "the most iconic meal in America."

But like the rest of his cooking -- a fusion of European sensibilities and American and African ingredients -- Samuelsson's burgers blend cultures. And he says he has a rich palette from which to draw.

"When you do the history of the burger, you realize that every country and culture in the world has something like a beef patty with bread and a pickle," he says. "It really shows how unified we are as a people. We want something comforting. We want some heat on it. And we want something pickled on it. And that's essentially what a burger is."

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The good news? Christopher Kimball, the man behind the pleasantly obsessive-compulsive wing of the food world — Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines — delivers on both counts. In fact, for a burger as good as Kimball offered up for the AP's 20 Burgers of Summer series, I'd suffer twice the hassle.

No pre-ground beef is harmed in the making of these burgers. Kimball starts with sirloin steak tips and boneless beef short ribs, which are chilled until firm in the freezer, then coarsely ground in a food processor. This produces burgers that are tender, meaty and incredibly moist.

Hands down, they are the best hamburger I have ever eaten. Ever.

"This style of burger is nothing like most modern burgers," Kimball says. "It is rich, thin, craggy, crusty, salty and comes with an incredible sauce. Instead of a softball of meat, you are getting a modest layer of intensely flavored beef and a classic roadhouse burger sauce."

True to form, you earn that goodness with a fussy method for making it. The meat is barely handled, and never gets packed into a patty. The process is more of a gentle shaping of the chopped meat, which is on a tray, not in your hands.

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