Tips for Better Burgers (2010)
seriouseats.com
seriouseats.com
Big burgers should be wider, not taller.
But at that point maybe just get a Whopper from Burger King, or almost anything else.
All cheeses are polymers though, so I guess it is somewhat accurate to call all cheese plastic
> Modern American cheese is a type of processed cheese [...] It is typically yellow or white in color; yellow American cheese is seasoned and colored with annatto. [Image: an individually wrapped slice of American cheese, also known as a single]
Maybe 'processed' (not a good term I know, but we sort of know what we mean), coloured, sliced and individually wrapped cheese is 'normal' to you, it certainly isn't to me.
> Manufacturing process
> Traditional cheese is ground, combined with emulsifying agents and other ingredients, mixed and heated until it forms a "melted homogeneous" mixture. To pasteurize it, [...]
> Processed American cheese is packaged in individually wrapped slices, as unwrapped slices sold in stacks, or in unsliced blocks. Individually wrapped slices are formed from processed cheese which solidifies only between the wrapping medium; these slices, sold as 'singles', are typically the least like traditional cheese. Blocks of American cheese are more similar to traditional cheese, and are sliced to order at deli counters.
I didn't know how it was made until I read this, but I think that settles it? It 'contains' 'normal cheese', but the manufacturing process specifically starts with that as input.
If I ground some assorted meats, pasteurised them, seasoned them, and then shaped it - is that 'normal steak'? No, it's basically a burger (albeit multi-meat & steak-shaped), a distinct thing.
Or a better example because it actually exists: 'fish fingers' can be called 'fish' because they're a blend of multiple normal fish, but the resultant processed blend isn't 'normal fish' or 'a fish'.
Here’s the problem: you’ve confused Kraft Singles (a “prepared cheese product” that can’t legally be called “cheese”) with American cheese, which is a blend of cheeses.
It's not, like, a Kraft™ Single™ or whatever.
https://www.seriouseats.com/the-burger-lab-what-is-the-best-...
So… it well may be a Kraft Single.
Here's the beauty of reading an article on cooking, and subsequently of cooking for yourself: you can take what you learned and then make your burger however you like. And how you like your burger might not be how someone else likes theirs.
I also do not fully agree with their idea of not salting the meat at all before forming the patties. I do not want a hamburger with the consistency of meat loaf. I want a bite to it. It's a burger, not a steak. The meat matters, but the bun and condiments matter just as much.
I generally get med-rare burgers from places that ground their own meats recently, so streak houses that ground the steak trimmings from yesterday that morning. Else I'll order medium and not risk it, but everyone's risk profile is different.
Cooking at home one is typically using a significantly smaller amount of ground beef from a smaller batch, so lower chances overall of some bacteria from one package of beef being distributed across a large number of burgers.
Additionally most bacteria that gets onto food prepared in reasonably clean environments doesn’t do much more than cause an upset stomach.
There’s liability at restaurants on the above for the reasons you mentioned, where those same liabilities don’t exist for steaks as highly. At home, all bets are off on liability from being undercooked.
Still though I wouldn’t eat rare burgers at home.
When I'm at my supermarket meat counter near closing time, they are washing everything -- equipment, countertops, walls, floors with hot soapy water, brushes, and a hose. Everything goes down the floor drain.
When I worked in restaurants, equipment was mostly cleaned with rags and a bucket.
I don't know what 'restaurant' you were at that used rags and buckets, but it certainly would have failed health and safety regulations.
Source, 15 years as a chef.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/vibrio/vibrio-oysters.html
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/salmonella-and-...
Omaha Steaks says they use it (only) for ground beef because, "Unlike solid cuts of meat, the potential exists that surface bacteria may have been mixed within ground beef."
Wegmans has a cooking temperature page[4] that gives lower temperatures for irradiated ground beef than for regular ground beef.
So that's one way safe + rare is possible.
Another way is sous vide. It's a "low and slow" cooking technique, and germ-killing is a function of both time and temperature[5], so it can achieve safe + rare. It's definitely more trouble to cook your burgers for 1-2 hours, though.
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[1] https://ccr.ucdavis.edu/food-irradiation/are-irradiated-food...
[2] https://www.supermarketnews.com/archive/wegmans-offers-own-i...
[3] https://www.omahasteaks.com/servlet/OnlineShopping?Dsp=5707
[4] https://www.wegmans.com/final-cook-to-temperature-charts/
Overall, 10/10 American.
As for putting the meat grinder in the freezer, I'd like to know if restaurants do that or not. Because I highly doubt it. Seems very silly.
It is not, for all the reasons listed. You get much better texture when everything is cold, because you are actually grinding/cutting the meat, rather than squeezing and smearing it.
Except that's not true. It's perfectly seasoned. Whenever you cook meat, especially if you're grilling it, you need to season well because half of your seasoning isn't going to remain on the meat.
1. Only true if there's copious amounts of oil to absorb the seasoning. Otherwise it might get absorbed by the rendered fat of the burger. Sometimes 50% or more of it gets lost, sometimes less.
2. It is better to underseason than overseason. If you overseason, you end up with an inedible salt mess. If you underseason, all it takes is a quick sprinkle before you eat it.
That being said, I think the picture in #6 looks perfectly fine. I'd use a dash more of pepper though.
I’d lose the pepper though. Each to their own, but I find that peppering just results in a burger that tastes of burned pepper.
Are we also going to stop called puttanesca dishes by their name because sex workers might be offended because it includes a profane term? Can we finally say enough to the constant quest for purity typified by a food critic penning a column on what words she won't use?[0] She won't even write "guilty" because that might trigger someone, even though I think nearly anyone would agree that an Animal Style 3x3 from In-N-Out is indeed a guilty pleasure.
I just want to cook and eat good food, not play these kinds of nonsense games that cater to a certain rather noisy (and politically homogeneous) audience.
[0]: "The trouble comes from the fact that the word is a cognate for a slur used by white colonists to refer to Black Africans in South Africa. Though the spirit of the word likely has very little to do with the latter context, my reasoning is the same as the reason why you’re never going to catch me casually saying or writing the word “niggardly.”" https://www.sfchronicle.com/restaurants/article/Words-you-ll...
Always ground. I can incorporate other things to make it be whatever I want, and there's no issue with rare-not rare. Outright burgers aren't worth the hassle to me. Anyway, I couldn't eat a 1 pound burger most days, but have no issue with ground for some reason.
Cooking a burger isn't rocket science. All the typical tips and tricks that you'd apply to most other beef dishes apply to it. But slaving over a fucking burger kinda defeats the point. It's a dish that's very tolerant of loose cooking procedure and you'd be a fool to not take advantage of that.
If your burgers aren't coming out how you want try cooking them slower or making them much thinner.
Sure but that doesn't mean that it's not worth talking about complete optimization. If you know the absolute best technique then you can decide which parts are worth the extra time for you. Or sometimes you feel like a burger and you have a lot of time, so it's worth knowing the optimal way to do it all.
I think of it more like... a bad burger is still good, but that doesn't mean it can't be better.
I enjoy putting effort into my food. Not always every time, but when I want to, I want to know how.
I'm not sure why you would denigrate that.
As for burgers, I've settled on using the broiler. I'm not convinced that a fry pan offers any advantages. And he's right about using salt. Adding more after it's cooked is NOT a substitute.
However it IS in this: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-vegan-experience-be...
It's a rule in many kitchens I've been in to only flip once, because you don't want to lose the juices from the fat.
Whether it's a mushroom/egg/tomato, coleslaw on the side, ketchup, tzatziki (lamb burger) or something else, most burgers will have juices enough to not make them dry.
You also might not want to eat 100% of the rendered fat from a burger. Some fat is good, but it's still a very high-calorie substance.
Is there something specific that you feel they failed to do correctly in their process?
Flipping your burger less doesn't help. Yes, the salt level is correct. Yes, putting the grinder in the freezer is a good idea. Stop assuming you know more than experts without conducting studies your self, you arrogant people.
Surely not here - on Hacker News? I'm shocked! Shocked!