The Perfect Burger

As you may already know, I have been on a bit of a quest to find DC’s best burger.  In this pursuit, I have tasted the awesome, the pretty good and the not so good.  During this quest, it never occurred to me that the best burger in DC could be right in my own kitchen.  All that changed when I read an article in the New York Times about creating the perfect burger.  And thus began a new quest…my quest to make the perfect burger at home.

The article detailed the pursuit of burger perfection in the culinary world, with tips and advice from the likes of Hubert Keller, Michael David, Mark Bucher and even that idiot Bobby Flay (who I routinely like to pretend doesn’t exist).  One of the tips repeatedly given was to grind your own meat, foregoing the pre-formed and pre-packaged burger patties sold in stores.  This intrigued me, especially given my interest in knowing where my food is coming from.  By grinding my own meat, I would know exactly what cuts of meat (and their fat content) were used to make my burger.  And since I now make a conscientious effort to find responsible meat producers, I would also know that my burger was made from grass fed cows (who were given no growth hormones and treated in a humane manner).  Setting aside the socially responsible factors associated with grinding your own meat, all the chefs raved that the taste difference was enough to justify the extra effort.  With all this running through my head, I headed out to buy the food grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer (any excuse to buy more kitchen stuff really).

The article suggested using a meat with at least a 30% fat in order to render a more flavorful patty, with some suggesting using brisket.  On Saturday, we headed out to the 14th & U Farmers Market to pick up provisions for the week, including two big hunks of beef brisket from Pecan Meadow Farms (a farm located in Newburg, Pennsylvania).  We also picked up some lovely olive oil and Parmesan buns from Panorama Bakery, the same buns used by Central for their highly touted burgers.  If I was going to go all out and grind my own meat, you didn’t think I was going to half ass it on the bun too, did you?

With the attachment, grinding the meat turned out to be a breeze.  Following closely the advice given in the article, I cut up the brisket into chunks while it was still partially frozen.  The amount of meat you use depends on how many burger patties you want to make (and how much you want each patty to weigh).  I bought almost 4 pounds of brisket and it yielded 13 six ounce burger patties.

The food grinder fit easily into the attachment hole of my stand mixer and in no time I was off grinding up beef.

Once the Boy saw how much fun I was having, he muscled in and ground up a majority of the meat (as some of my Twitter followers saw).  After all the meat was ground up, I once again followed the article and refrained from seasoning the meat before forming the patties.  Instead, I picked up about 6 ounces of the meat, rolled it into a ball and then flattened it with the palm of my hand.  After forming the patties, I created small dimples in them (once again as suggested by the article to prevent the patties from puffing up during cooking).

To help prevent the burgers from losing their shape during cooking, I refrigerated the patties for about an hour before cooking them.  While I waited for the patties to chill, I lined two baking pans with aluminum foil and set the oven temperature to 375.  Following Michael David’s lead, I planned to sear the burgers on the stove top to form a nice crust on the patties and then finish them off in the oven.  Once I was ready to cook the burgers, I placed my cast iron griddle on the stove top over high heat.  When the griddle was super hot, I generously seasoned the patties with salt and pepper on both sides (a tip from Mark Bittman in a similar New York Times article) before placing them on the griddle.  NOTE: If your griddle isn’t non-stick, make sure to spray it with a cooking spray before placing the burgers on it.  I allowed the burgers to stay on one side until a good char was formed before flipping them.  Once both sides were seared, I moved the patties over to the baking sheet.

I placed the burgers in the oven and cooked them for about 8 minutes to get them medium rare.  Once removed from the oven, I allowed the burgers to rest while I toasted the buns and set up the condiments for the burger.  I opted to top the burgers with some cheddar I picked up at Keswick Creamery (one of my favorite local cheesemakers) and a combination of mayo and ketchup (a quirk I picked up years ago).  The result was an amazingly flavorful, juicy and overall yumtastic burger – the perfect dinner for the 4th of July.  The difference between using pre-made patties (or even pre-ground meat) was astronomical…there wasn’t even a comparison.  And the fact that the meat was so easy to grind made me decide then and there to grind all of my own meat from now on.  So don’t be surprised to see a myriad of burgers using everything from lamb to chicken in the future!

And even if you don’t have a stand mixer, you can still grind your own meat!  Using your food processor, you can easily grind up your own beef, chicken, turkey and just about any other protein!  The taste alone is worth the extra effort!

Tagged as: Burger, Burger Recipe, Burgers, Food, recipes