Food from heaven!

I’ve always maintained that 10% of a good burger is the bun. You slap a good cut of ground beef on a bun that’s meh and the experience is just that much less. One thing I like for burgers is good crusty bread, so on Friday I checked the local grocery store. Sadly they aren’t large enough to have a bakery, so you’re stuck with whatever they have delivered that morning (which isn’t very much at 7pm.)

I went to the local Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning to speak with one of the organic growers for a class project. While there, I wandered around and found a stand selling Artisan Bread (cooking over 225, yes!*) I bought some rectangular rolls that seemed nice and crunchy looking and then went to Shaw’s and got a pound of ground Angus Beef.

Typically, here’s what I use when I make my own burgers:
– ground round, about 85% lean. You don’t want it too lean or there’s no fat, and fat = flavor. Likewise you don’t want it too fatty, or you’re paying $1.75 a pound for fat.
– Garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper.
– one egg
– good crusty rolls

Mix the beef with the egg, then shake in the spices as to your tastes. Like a lot of garlic, use more garlic, etc. Definitely be liberal with the salt, or your burgers shrink down to nothing. Optionally, you can mix some hot peppers into the beef, just make sure they are drained, and use gloves to mix it or you’ll get pepper oil all over your hands (and pepper oil is hard to wash off.) I have also seen recipes that said to mix ketchup and mustard right into the beef as well, but I think this makes it too wet. Wet beef makes your burgers fall apart.

Mix it up well, then form into patties that will fit the rolls. Allow for some shrinkage, as some of the fat will burn off. Put the patties on a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and stick in the fridge for an hour or two. This lets the flavors meld and helps the beef stay together.

If your rolls are square or rectangular, here’s a tip I saw on Good Eats: cover the beef with plastic and roll it into a flat rectangle. Use a pizza cutter to divide into bun-sized squares, then refrigerate.

Take out of the fridge and slap them onto a hot grill that’s been greased with a bit of oil (so they don’t stick.) NEVER use propellant-style cooking sprays on a lit grill! I typically use an oil mister that you pump up by hand. Grill the meat until done, about 4-6 minutes per side unless you made them really thick – in that case, flip them over every 2 minutes to keep even heating (else your centers are moist and the outsides are dry and black.) Decorate your rolls with whatever you like, although I recommend mayo on the bottom so the roll doesn’t get soggy. Put the burgers on the rolls, and enjoy.

Tell you what – this had to be the best burger I have had in a long time. I bit into it and realized that the rolls were kinda sweet, but then as I chewed a few times I realized that it really added to the burger. I don’t kill my burgers with condiments either, as you want to be able to taste the beef, not a large blob of ketchup. The rolls I used were more chewy than crunchy, but I would definitely use them again. Wonderful!

* People who don’t play World of Warcraft won’t get that…