The burger

“So, what are we having for dinner tonight?” asked my Mom as we drove home from the airport. During my parents’ annual visits to Boston, I try to cram all my latest gastronomical discoveries into those short 3-4 days. They came to expect the menu to include some fish they’ve never heard of, interesting cuts of meat, and unusual vegetables that my Dad never thought he’d like and then ends up asking for seconds. In fact, if I told them that we were having snails or frog legs for dinner, they would be less surprised than when I said “Burgers.”

“Burgers?” my Mom said in shock. “That should be interesting. I’d love to try your burgers.” she quickly added not to hurt my feelings.

“It was Jason’s idea,” I said apologetically. When he suggested that I make burgers for my parents, I thought he was kidding. “They live 5 minutes from Fuddruckers!” I told him, “They’ve had plenty of burgers.” “But have they had your burgers?” he asked. He had a point.

I’ve been obsessed with making a perfect burger for the past 3 years. It all started with my internship in Casablanca restaurant. In the end of the night, Ali, one of the line cooks, asked everyone what they wanted for dinner. The options were roasted chicken, burger, or a salad with some veggie sides. The weight conscious side of me always asked for a salad, but one night I was so hungry and so tired that I asked for a burger.

“O-Ma-Gawd!” I mumbled with my mouth full, and the juices running to my elbows. I leaned over the counter so that I don’t drip on the kitchen floor. “This is so good.” Ali smiled. I squashed the bun around the beefy goodness with both hands and took another bite that revealed the pink and succulent center. That was my first real burger and I’ve been on a quest to reproduce it ever since. I’ve asked Ali to show me what he did, but he just shrugged, “You just mush the beef into a patty and put it on the grill.” “But how much do you season and how do you know when it’s done?” I asked. “Once you make enough burgers, you’ll know,” Ali answered.

The problem was that I don’t eat that much meat, and my burger practice of 3 times a year was not persistent enough to produce consistently excellent burgers. Doneness was a particularly big problem. Feeling how firm the meat is might work for a steak, but does absolutely nothing for a burger. With the burgers you have to dig in and look inside. The trouble is that digging in created such a pool of juices it’s hard to see the color of the meat without pouring out all that juice – not a good solution either.

This burger quest seemed so hopeless, that I gave it up completely and tried to find a restaurant that would serve a perfect burger. To my great surprise, I found that it was practically impossible to find what I was looking for. It was a rare case when the burger was perfectly seasoned, and even rarer case when it was cooked to medium-rare as requested. And not even once have the planets aligned for a burger that was both seasoned AND medium-rare.

“But surely, in culinary school they’d teach us how to make a perfect burger,” I thought when I set off on my boot camp adventure at CIA. We went around the room on the first day introducing ourselves and saying what we were hoping to learn. When I said that I wanted to learn to make a perfect burger, people gave me strange looks. Sadly, burgers were not on the curriculum.

There was only one thing left to do... buy 5 Lb of ground beef and make burgers and more burgers. Throwing food away makes me feel really bad, but eating this much beef makes me feel even worst, so I settled for the lesser of two evils.

The recipe that finally led me to success was Michael Schlow’s. His timing was dead on and the grilling technique flawless. The only thing that I changed was the seasoning. Instead of mixing all of the salt into the meat, I only mixed a little of it in and sprinkled most of it on the outside once the burgers were shaped. That’s the way Ali used to do it in Casablanca. By my third try I was getting pretty confident and Jason, my quality assurance department, proclaimed these to be the best burgers in Boston. But even if they are the best burgers, who (besides me) cares?

Since we already bought ground beef, Iggy’s phenomenal black pepper brioche buns, and all the fixings the morning of my parents’ visit, there was no turning back – burgers it was. I was a little nervous that I’ll overcook them, and then not only will I be serving burgers, I’ll be serving bad burgers. But everything went as planned. The mushrooms got sautéed; the buns got toasted and slathered with garlicky borsin cheese; the burgers got grilled and rested.

We opened a good bottle of pinot noir and toasted my parents’ visit. I held my breath as my Mom and Dad took the first bite. When I heard “Oh-ma-gawd!” I knew I got it right.

Burgers

About that beef: Michael Schlow calls for 80% lean / 20% fat beef, and if you can find it more power to you. When I made these burgers for my parents the second time on the 4th of July weekend in Baltimore, I found 80/20 beef at Whole Foods. But the Whole Foods in Boston area is a bit too “health conscious,” so they only carry 85/15. It makes excellent burgers too, but if you go any leaner than that, I cannot be held responsible for the results.

Serves 4

2 Lb 80/20 ground beef
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp Kosher salt (if using table salt, you’ll need to use your judgment)
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 burger buns cut in half

1. In a small bowl, mix salt and pepper.
2. Combine ground beef with olive oil and one-third of salt/pepper mixture. Mix well and divide the mixture into 4 patties 2/3 inch thick.
3. Make a slight indentation in the center of the patties to the thickness of about 1/2 inch to prevent your burgers from blowing up into meatballs. They’ll even out during cooking.


4. Line a cookie sheet with paper towels, put the burgers on top, and press another sheet of paper towel on top of burgers. This will keep them dry before you grill them so that they can brown before they overcook. If not grilling immediately, keep burgers in the fridge (no longer than 1 hour).
5. Get all your fixings ready. Preheat the grill to high. Have a timer handy.
6. When ready to grill, season burgers on both sides with the remaining salt and pepper mixture (yes, it’s a lot of salt, but that’s what it takes to flavor ground beef). Immediately put the burgers on the grill (don’t cover).
7. After 1-1/2 minutes, give the burgers a quarter turn to make grill marks. Cook 1-1/2 minutes. Flip the burgers and cook for 1-1/2 minutes longer. Another quarter turn and another 1-1/2 minutes. So, a total of 3 minutes per side for medium-rare burgers (4 minutes per side for medium-well). I grill my buns during this time too.
8. Turn off the grill. If using cheddar or some other cheese you want to melt, put it on your burgers now and cover the grill. Wait 4 minutes without opening the grill. While the burgers are resting, get the buns ready with the fixings. Place the burgers on top and enjoy.
   

Fixings ideas:

Burger 1: Cheddar with bacon
(melt the cheddar on burgers while they are resting in the covered grill)

Burger 2: Sautéed mushrooms with garlic-herb boursin
(spread the boursin on the buns, not the burgers)

Burger 3: Blue cheese with caramelized onions (that’s the one in the picture)
(put blue cheese on burgers after they are done resting)

Burger 4: Bacon and horseradish sauce (sour cream, mayo, horseradish, and Dijon mustard)

I like lettuce, tomatoes, and thinly sliced red onion on all my burgers, so use them as you see fit.

Phew – that was a lot of instructions. But you wanted a perfect burger, right?