The Perfect Burger

[Tri2Cook]

I use Swiss, cheddar, blue and assorted others... really, whatever sounds good at the moment. And I'm perfectly fine with a slice of American too. Don't find it flavorless or plastic-like at all on a burger. Maybe there are levels of processed cheese or maybe I'm just crude and tasteless. 

[OkieFarmer]

Being a cheese lover I am not much of a fan of cheese on burgers. But when the mood does strike blue cheese specifically Danish Blue, mild and creamy, A very small amount on the burger gives a nice edge without stepping all over the grilled beef flavor.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

4 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

Maybe there are levels of processed cheese or maybe I'm just crude and tasteless. 

 

There are definitely quality levels in processed cheese. Kraft Singles, for instance, are processed American "cheese food product". They do not qualify to be called cheese. Velveeta is also a cheese food product. There is also American cheese that does legally qualify to be called cheese. Kraft and Borden make versions that can be found alongside their cheese food product slices. My favorite is American cheese sliced to order at the grocery store deli in front of the customers. It is also processed but retains enough cheese to legally still be called cheese. The processing allows it to become creamy instead of stringy when it melts. At the very bottom of the heap is imitation cheese food product, made with oil. Now we are talking plastic. This stuff is vile. 

 

I also like good quality American cheese on a burger. Occasionally, I'll be in the mood for cheddar, provolone or a Swiss and mushroom burger, but I keep going back to the American version. I don't like blue cheese, but almost every good burger restaurant around here offers a burger with blue cheese. I always bend the corners off a square slice of cheese and place them up nearer the center of the burger so they don't melt off into the pan or grill. The smoked provolone I'm currently buying is cut from a round log and is already perfectly shaped to melt on a burger.

 

Sometimes with very good perfectly cooked beef, I will eat it on a bun as a plain burger with nothing else, or if in a really purist mood just eat it as a "steak". It's all good if you stay far away from the imitation cheese food product. I can't believe they can legally sell that drek as food.

[Martin Fisher]

FWIW,

The FDA's 'processed cheese' regulations and such.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

46 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

FWIW,

The FDA's 'processed cheese' regulations and such.

 

That's interesting DDGF, but I need to be paid a lot of money to read much of that kind of stuff.  What I did read seems to support what I said above, and I did have to look up "comminute". It means to break down into small particles like we do at home with a blender, perhaps.

 

It's been interesting to me that some of the Modernist Cuisine enthusiasts have been the most condescending to processed commercial cheeses of all kinds. Admittedly, as with most processed foods, manufacturers will take advantage of processing to extract every penny of profit from their product that they can, and many versions of cheese food product (especially the imitation) are horrible. Thus we need these legalese regulations. Ironically, there is a recipe for a processed cheese in MC that calls for a lot of work, processing, and finding ingredients that cannot usually be found locally by a home cook. I just buy good American cheese that can still be called cheese. It's cheaper and better than the Kraft or Borden brands when I buy Food Lion's house brand from their deli. When it goes on sale, it can be cheaper per pound than "cheese food products" that contain more adulterants.

 

Good American cheese is essential for creamy melting cheese whether it's for burgers, cheese dip or macaroni and cheese. American cheese has a place in the ingredient list for making good food for many of us. Just beware the imitations, which in this country at least, must be labeled.

[Tri2Cook]

Well, I guess that settles it... crude and tasteless I am. Because Kraft singles is exactly what I was thinking of when I said I was perfectly fine with that sort of cheese being on my burger. It offends me not at all and in some cases is just the right thing. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

The local market has family pack ground beef on sale this week.  I am a family of one, at least at this location.  So I decided to revisit Kenji's smashburgers.

 

Other than being far more meat than I would eat, they were pretty good.  Kenji calls for a pan temperature of between 600 and 700 deg F.  My surface thermapen goes up only to 572 deg F.  What is one to do?  I let the thermapen go to overrange and waited another minute or so.  Not very scientific.  This is with my big Falk pan.  The air was like an opium den.  Not that I have visited an opium den but I have read Sherlock Holmes.  Thanks to the recent Thermoworks sale my heavy duty surface probe, good to 1000C, should arrive tomorrow.  But this is today.

 

Kenji recommends stainless over cast iron because cast iron is a good black body radiator, and for burgers one wants heating by conduction:

 

http://www.keatingofchicago.com/miraclean_griddle.html

 

 

[kayb]

On 8/20/2017 at 12:08 PM, JohnT said:

Bong! Bump . . . .

 

Cheese Burgers or Cheeseburgers

 

Okay, here is the truth. I am a great cheese lover of real cheese - but do not like it melted on a burger! I have had a few "cheeseburgers" and always found the cheese like a slab of plastic melted on a good quality beef patty (other than those produced by the fast food outlets - the quality beef part that is). What is the point? I recently read a write-up by some fella named Chris Thompson who proclaimed that chefs (burger flippers) are doing their assembly all wrong! The article is here.

 

Other than his method of assembly, the "cheese" square used in South Africa (and on two occasions in the US) appears to be a "processed cheese", in other words a slab of cheese looking, and flavoured, plastic!

 

So my question is not really about the above article, but what cheese do you eG folk use when making a cheeseburger? Grated cheddar or Gouda? Swiss? Blue? Other? Any other comment would also be appreciated as I want to bang out a couple of cheese burgers in the next day or two and do some experimenting to see if I can come up with something half- decent and edible!

 

American is fine. Also sharp Cheddar, or Swiss, or Monterey Jack. If I have grilled/caramelized onions, some crumbled blue. Have also used butterkase, Gouda, fontina or Havarti. Whatever comes to hand.

 

On 8/21/2017 at 6:02 AM, Tri2Cook said:

Well, I guess that settles it... crude and tasteless I am. Because Kraft singles is exactly what I was thinking of when I said I was perfectly fine with that sort of cheese being on my burger. It offends me not at all and in some cases is just the right thing. 

 

With you on that one.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tonight was an anti-Kenji smashed burger.  I formed a patty about an inch and a half thick.  I was diligent with the Thermapen.  I got it crusty on the outside with a trace of pink at the center.

 

And now I am done with hamburger for another lifetime.

 

[Anna N]

4 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

And now I am done with hamburger for another lifetime.

 

 Almost as often as I care to indulge.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I lied.  Through circumstance.  Please forgive me.  Tonight's burger was the best of the bunch.  I only hope it is the Shingrix vaccine and not ebola.

 

[paulraphael]

On 8/21/2017 at 12:16 AM, Thanks for the Crepes said:

Good American cheese is essential for creamy melting cheese whether it's for burgers, cheese dip or macaroni and cheese. American cheese has a place in the ingredient list for making good food for many of us. Just beware the imitations, which in this country at least, must be labeled.

 

Except some of us find the flavor of American cheese insipid and pointless. I don't want to eat it.

 

I'd rather have tasty cheese and a lumpy texture.

 

But the Modernist Cuisine people really have the ideal solution. Get whatever cheese you like most, and melt it with sodium citrate. This is no more "processed" or "molecular" than using baking powder in a cake. It's just an ingredient, and it just works. 

 

Here's a way to do it. I'd go for gruyere, or some aged cheddar.

 

Personally, if I can make the burgers tasty enough, I don't bother with cheese at all. 

[paulraphael]

I stumbled onto a nice discovery this weekend, making burgers to bring to a friend's back yard. The supermarket didn't have any brisket or shins, which are part of my standard blend (1/3 each chuck, brisket, shin, plus marrow from the shins). So I improvised and got 2/3 chuck and 1/3 flanken-cut short ribs. All of this was supermarket grade "certified black angus" that totaled about $7/lb ... the same as the preground, prepackaged grass-fed burger meat, with unnamed cuts that I occasionally buy when lazy.

 

This meat was easier to prepare and grind, and the burgers were really, really good. My usual blend is more assertively beefy, but not necessarily in a better way. I wouldn't be surprised if more people would like the short rib blend in a blind taste test. It's also a bit cheaper and easier to prepare.

 

This is a blend I hadn't experimented with, because back when I trying out a million version, my butcher / confidante advised against short rib. He said it wouldn't have the flavor of the other cuts. I'm no longer convinced of this.

[scubadoo97]

My every day cut is chuck for a burger.  Short ribs definitely add flavor to the blend.   All too often packaged short ribs have too little meat to make it worth it but when  I see big meaty ones I buy!

Edited May 30, 2018 by scubadoo97 (log)

[paulraphael]

3 hours ago, scubadoo97 said:

My every day cut is chuck for a burger.  Short ribs definitely add flavor to the blend.   All too often packaged short ribs have too little meat to make it worth it but when  I see big meaty ones I buy!

 

 

The flanken cut ones seem easier to trim. It's not much work to get those little cross sections of bone out.

[weinoo]

2 hours ago, paulraphael said:

 

The flanken cut ones seem easier to trim. It's not much work to get those little cross sections of bone out.

And then you've got even more bones for your beef brodo!

I'm also with you on the hamburger over cheeseburger thing.

 

I bet some good burgers could be had perusing the beef section at a Korean market...all that boneless short rib and other delicious cuts.

[kayb]

I guess I'm a plebian; whatever blend my butcher sends me as part of my beef quarter (trimmings from steaks, roasts, etc., no pink slime, no organs/internals/assorted other not-nice stuff) is fine with me. What makes it into a perfect burger, to me, is:

 

-- Cooking on the grill to a nice medium, good outside crust, just a little pink in the middle.

-- Good buns, preferably ones I've made.

-- Topping that suits my taste of the day; currently, I'm crushing on caramelized onions and blue cheese and good mayo. 

-- Lots of cold beer.

 

[paulraphael]

On 5/30/2018 at 6:46 PM, kayb said:

I guess I'm a plebian; whatever blend my butcher sends me as part of my beef quarter ...

 

In my experience, having the meat freshly ground (within not too many hours of cooking) is most important. The choice of cuts is 2nd priority. Maybe within reason ...