Homemade Cheeseburgers!

You need 80/20 if you don’t want them shrunken and dry. Cast iron is great for making burgers. Just make sure the pan is nice and hot and don’t turn them too soon. I usually spray the pan with spray oil so they don’t stick, and season with Worcester sauce, salt, pepper and garlic powder before putting them in the pan.

You can’t have too many grilled onions, the secret to a great burger.

Don't use frozen beef patties. They taste so dry after cooking, though some people actually like that texture. It's so simple to just use refrigerated ground beef. 80/20 is good if you aren't on some low fat diet. Just add chopped onion, salt, pepper, one egg and a pound of ground beef for four patties.

R3 I did have fresh hamburger but I had forgotten about it. I rescued it one day before expiration I decided to freeze it into patties. My grocery store puts a best by date on the meat but I always try to use it before that date because I think they lie. The expiration date for a steak could be two days away and you open the package and it smells bad. Their ground beef tends to last two days in the refrigerator before it goes bad. I’m tired of wasting meat so I try to freeze meat before the best by date comes.

The frozen burger patty actually worked out pretty well. The burger was very juicy!

He was asking for tips on burgers, R3, not your meatloaf recipe.

Salt, pepper, worcestire sauce. I add breadcrumbs, milk, and grated zucchini. I divulged that last time and got reamed by someone the last time there was a burger thread!

Worcestershire sauce ^

I use Laura’s Lean 4% fat and they are heaven.

Cheeboogie, Cheeboogie, Petsi, petsi

R9 It’s cheesebugga!!

Americas Test Kitchen tells you how to make up for shrinkage. A divot in the middle? idk

Good 80/20 ground beef, form into patties, salt and pepper both sides, cook on grill or cast iron to desired doneness depending on thickness.

Unless you’re making some stupid theme burger at Red Robin or Fuddruckers, nothing should be mixed into the meat. You’re not making bolognese — no need for milk, egg, bread, grated vegetables, or whatever else. If you want a steakhouse vibe, make your own condiment; do not mix Worcestershire or A1 into the ground beef.

OP's cheezberger needs fixded.

Really good tips in this article, makes for a great burger.

I used to go to a restaurant years ago that used ground round for their burgers. They were very good!

R14 that was a great article! I can’t wait to try the tips. Thank you.

You're welcome, OP.

Wagyu ground beef is FRAUD!!! And they would be so full of fat that there is no way they would shrink! Wagyu is so expensive and so marbled with fat that it would only be sold as steaks (true Wagyu). It's also sooooo forged by imposter meat that I could see some clueless consumer buying something labeled as Wagyu and thinking that they are buying premium beef, but alas it's old tough cow ground up because that is the way they get away with it. By grinding it up!

R12’s recommendations sound tasty, but she’s awfully bossy in her manner.

Agree that OP probably didn't get authentic Wagyu frozen hamburger patties.

I would buy a beef steak w/decent amount of fat, put it in the freezer for a bit, then hand chop and form into patties. I'd put a divot as mentioned above. Cook to medium-rare, can go closer to medium (but still pink in the very center). I'd skip the mixers like bread.

For cheese, I'd use sharp cheddar.

Best hamburger I ever had was at Father's Office restaurant in L.A. Their burgers have caramelized onions. (Lying on top, not mixed within the raw meat.)

Buy good quality meat (at least ground sirloin). You don't need anything else but salt and pepper. DO NOT follow that article about using cheap meat.....that's why people add all that shit like onions, breadcrumbs, W'shire sauce, etc....because they use cheap meat to cover up its poor taste. Buy quality and you will have a fantastic burger.

What happened to add an egg yoke?

I think raw egg would probably be OK, the entire egg or just the yolk. Especially if your beef doesn't have that much fat.

The FAT is what makes Kobe Beef and Wagyu Beef so desirable. You don't add fat to these types of beef. These are young cows force fed to make them FAT AS FUCK so that they are marbled with fat everywhere! The younger the steer the less gristle there is!

The best tasting beef patties added an egg yolk and some amt of milk with breadcrumbs

Melt a small amount of butter and olive oil into the skillet beforehand.

Make sure the pan is hot.

Do not sear the burgers as the first side cooks.

Check a burger with a spatula to see how the underside looks - when they're a nice grilled color, flip them over and then sear them; wait about a minute and then cook over a low flame, testing for consistency.

Let them rest for 1-2 minutes before plating.

Salt and pepper only after you cook.

Try this method with a single burger beforehand - a lot of it is intuitive, but it's a no-fail method for me.

Serve on soft toasted buns with heirloom tomato salad, coleslaw with sliced concord grapes, fried potato wedges, sliced radishes and cucumber and corn on the cob.

Wagyu butcher explains it all.

Mine vary a lot by how I plan to cook them. IF you plan to grill burgers, you must mix your beef (usually a decent higher fat ground beef) with a panade. This makes all of the difference in the world and if you skip this addition your end result will be closer to a hockey puck than a perfectly grilled burger. The recipe below is a good one. Personally, I leave out the ketchup but always use either cream, half and half or whole milk, crumbled white bread, minced garlic, Lea and Perrins, a teeny tiny bit of liquid smoke and salt/pepper. I tend to make the patties rather large and always form that shallow divot/depression in the center. I try to cook them medium/medium rare. Nothing but raves every time from basically anyone who eats them. Now if you are going to sear them off in a cast iron frying pan - I follow a completely different recipe. It really is all about the way that you plan to prepare your burger. For this method, I still add fresh ground pepper, a dash of Lea and Perrins and a few drops of liquid smoke to the ground beef - but that is it. I form the same sort of patties as above. Half tablespoon of butter to a very hot cast iron skillet and sear on high heat for a few minutes a side and salt them as you sear them but not before.

so the only thing everyone seems to agree on is salt and pepper

Leave it to DL to make burgers complicated. Open the package, form the meat in a ball. Put the ball of meat on hot skillet and smash it down flat. Add salt and pepper to taste, if you wish. Throw on your favorite cheese and bun and condiments and you've got a great cheeseburger. End of story. Ignore all the nonsense posted before this post.

Agree with r30 and would only add that you should try to get a good 80/20 ground chuck for burgers, I've been getting that instead of the regular ground beef lately and it makes for a tastier burger.

I throw in onion powder. 85/15 ground chuck and don’t mix the meat too much or squeeze it together too much when you’re forming the patties. If you can get a chuck/sirloin mix, that’s even better. Don’t press them while cooking.

[quote]you should try to get a good 80/20 ground chuck for burgers

I wonder what that means exactly.

R33, Ground beef (mince, I think) in the US is often sold showing the lean/fat ratio: "80% lean, 20% fat", for example.

I see. Thank you, R34.

We just get told fat percentage (see pic).

I've learnt to get higher fat for a decent burger. Not sure how high I should go though.

Just salt and pepper sounds a bit plain to me.

R33, per Nigella's website, chuck is the same as stew/shoulder/blade cuts.

Here in the US our ground beef is a mix of different kind of meats and it's not always the tastiest thing to eat. To get a specific kind of beef in mince/ground form, you have to look for items labeled "ground chuck" or "ground sirloin" or something similar.

Not sure why people like chuck roast so much. My mom used to make beef stew with chuck. I liked the stew (potatoes, carrots), but the beef was kind of meh.

I just made a turkey burger.

I hadn't had a chance to read this whole thread but I read wherever it came from, OP's link maybe, about salt and peppering the outside of the burger only and it was REALLY good. Great taste. Much better.

Of the 2 tough cuts of cheap beef, chuck has a much better flavor than top round - but unfortunately it tends to be too fatty for some applications. It works great in stews when you can refrigerate them a day before eating and then easily skim and remove a majority of it from the final product before re-heating. Chuck also makes great burgers - again the flavor is far superior to top round and since the beef is ground the inherent toughness is not an issue. Also, burgers are expected to be fatty - part of the appeal in the first place.

Well I guess I should try 20% fat mince if everyone is emphasizing fat - but all this fancy chuck talk is still going over my head. There's no real point in trying to understand it if I can't get it.

Here are some BBC recipes for "chuck and blade," r41. Maybe they will help.

You're very sweet, R42 (probably a dollface).

R41, R42's link is helpful. Here's a diagram: "chuck" is the shoulder.

R38, Chuck is a fattier, rougher piece of meat. It’s also more flavorful. Sirloin has a more tender texture, but not as much flavor. Kind of like dark meat vs breast meat in chickens.

But at the London supermarkets, you just get "mince" and percentages of fat on the labels. There no talk about varieties or body parts.

That's why, R46, if you really care about it, you could buy a steak of specific body part and do the mince yourself.

OK, I'll try it and read this whole thread and all the links when I get a chance. Get my head around this.

My turkey burger was VERY good this evening.

A lil liquid smoke thrown in the pan can give it a nice flavor.

R20 I have a nice ribeye in my freezer. You mean to tell me I could just chop it all up together by hand and make hamburger out of it? Just mincethe f*ck out of it with a big butcher knife or cleaver?

go to a butcher, brit.

[quote] [R20] I have a nice ribeye in my freezer. You mean to tell me I could just chop it all up together by hand and make hamburger out of it? Just mincethe f*ck out of it with a big butcher knife or cleaver?

R50, yes. Putting the steak in the freezer for a little while will make it easier (don't freeze it solid, though). I would cut it like an onion, though. I.e., first slice thin sheets, then make skinny strips, then make small cubes. (To the best of your ability.) I think that will go faster than just hacking at the steak with a butcher knife.

eat a vegetable, you fat whore!

Don't you have mincers in the USA? You must do.

What do you call them there?

I have this one.

R54, meat grinders?

^^Lots of KitchenAid stand-mixers have a meat grinding attachment that looks like below. Having never used one before, I can't say how well it works.

Handy, but I don't have a dishwasher and I hate washing up stuff like that. I'm not a professional, but my knife skills are decent. For a small amount, I'd rather just use a knife.

I like to pan fry them in extra virgin olive oil. I peel and crush a clove of garlic and toss it in the pan to flavor the oil. Other than that, just sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, and some fresh parsley.

There’s a McDonald’s a mile away.

Start with a half pound of ground beef but set it aside. For best results use imported Wagyu.

Next grate two carrots, a parsnip, a rutabaga, a couple ribs of celery, an acorn squash, and about half a dozen red radishes.

Next make a panade of an entire day-old baguette softened in buttermilk and some Neufchâtel. Panade is an absolute must, so don’t skimp on this step!

Then you want to make a full batch of split pea soup. Once the peas have broken down and your soup has thickened a bit, stir in your panade and add all the grated veggies.

At this point you can really make it your own: I usually add an entire bottle of Lea & Perrins, but you could easily swap a cup of fish sauce, or a pint of mango chutney, really whatever strikes your fancy!

Once your seasoning mixture comes to room temperature, dump in your beef and use a hand mixer or KitchenAid to combine until properly soupy.

Meanwhile, heat a stick of butter in a cast iron pan over high heat until smoking and the butter solids are clearly burning at bottom of pan. Ladle one-third cup of burger mixture into pan — it will spread out, so only cook one burger at a time. Once burger is crepe-like and you can smell the underside burning, flip with a large spatula, and repeat on the second side. Remove from skillet and a eason with Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and a couple teaspoons of Liquid Smoke.

And there you go, America’s best traditional hamburger recipe! Don’t forget to top with ketchup, Bibb lettuce, and some bread-and-butter pickle slices!