It may seem easy enough to fire up the grill and make some burgers, but there are several things to consider before attempting to create that perfect burger, which comes down to the quality of meat, temperature, the type of buns, and toppings. In celebration of National Burger Day, here are 15 pro tips from restaurant and Food Network chefs on what to do (and perhaps as importantly, what not to do) in attempting that perfect burger.
1. USE HIGH-QUALITY MEATS.
Chef Tony Chu thinks texture is important. “Blending different grades of ground beef influences the burger’s texture,” he told Charleston Eater. “Too fine and the burger will feel like beef pâté. Too rough and the burger will look like a meatloaf. From my experience, brisket, short rib, and chuck are a good start to the perfect burger.”
2. GRIND YOUR OWN MEAT.
Chef Nathan Thurston of Charleston’s Thurston Southern says grinding your own meat at home because you don’t know exactly what you’re buying from the store. He says to grind a mixture of ground chuck, brisket, and boneless short rib.
Serious Eats’s chief culinary consultant J. Kenji López-Alt’s motto is, “Once you grind, you never rewind.” He recommends an electric meat grinder or a food processor to grind the meats. “Just dice your meat into one-inch chunks, spread them on a rimmed baking sheet, put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes until they’re firm but not frozen, then working in 1/2-pound batches, pulse the meat to the desired grind size (about 10 to 12 one-second pulses),” he writes.
3. ROLL THE MEAT INTO A SAUSAGE-LIKE TUBE, AND KEEP THE MEAT COOL.
Chef Heston Blumenthal of Bray, Berkshire, England’s three Michelin-starred The Fat Duck did scientific research on how to make the perfect burger, and he found that rolling the ground beef into a tube with all the grains of meat facing the same direction worked well to create a juicy burger. After forming the meat tube, he covers it with plastic wrap and refrigerates it for half an hour, then slices the meat into patties the way a sushi chef would.
