4 Levels of Hamburgers: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

I'm Emily and I'm a level one chef. I'm Lorenzo and I'm a level two chef. I'm Frank and I've been a professional chef for 23 years. The last time I made this burger recipe was probably about two weeks ago. In fact, I just made this super a couple of days ago. This is the burger I make for my family and friends. The people who are most important to me when I make burgers. I only use store-bought ground beef. Here we go. This is grass fed ground beef. chuck, it's about 80 lean and 20 fat, fat is your golden ticket to a good burger for my burgers.

I like to use beef ribs, it has a lot of lean meat to fatten up, the only problem is it's that hard, so what I have to do is grind it up. I like to prepare my own meat because when you go to the supermarket they basically only buy the leftover meat they have this way. I buy a hamburger and now I know exactly what's in it. I'm going to put it on. a little breadcrumbs hold it together. I think the next step is a little better: a little Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, salt, chili flakes because my husband likes anything spicy, now he can be ground.

I'm going to shape it into patties, you really shouldn't. I handle meat for a long time. I do not agree with that error. I like to work it a little so the burger stays together and keeps its shape. What I usually do is work it until it sticks to my hand. I'm just going to like roll them up and then flatten them like hockey pucks, then I make the old dimple in the middle, work it into a volcano shape, what will happen is when the flesh curses can expand a little bit, this will actually go away . even make a nice flat burger now we're ready to cut some burgers.

I cook the burgers in a cast iron skillet. The cast iron skillet has a lot of key. I'm using a nonstick skillet, skillet, griddle, griddle, whatever I do. What I'm doing is cooking bacon, why I'm going to have a bacon cheeseburger, so when I cook them I don't need a lot of pink inside, just a little bit of pink, since the ground beef doesn't have a great texture when You cook it undercooked. I like it medium rare I season my burgers with salt, salt right before they cook, what happens when you season ahead? The salt draws out the moisture and you get a moist burger when I season, season liberally, it will help that cross shape.

I have some meat. fat, so I'm going to take a little bit of fat and cover the bottom of my pan. I'll also use the delicious rendered fat from the bacon to cook my burger. I'm going to remove them, sit there, the reason I used beef fat and not something like butter with a pan that hot I'm going to put my butter in the pan and immediately the butter is going to burn I think it's now that I have my burger I have my volcano in the middle I'm going to put the flat side first. I'll give it about 4 minutes per side when I see the bottom of that burger turning dark and crispy.

Brown, turn. I'm going to go up as high as I can to start browning and the crust in the box people tend to start moving things around, leave the bird alone. I'm just pressing it to make sure all the meat touches the pan at least a little, don't press the juices out of this delicious burger please, I want a little bit of onion flavor on my birthday I take a nice slice of onion and I'm going to put it on top so you can see it's nice and crispy, so I'm going to do the old flip oh my burgers are browning on this side.

I'm going to give it a spin so you can see I have a beautiful crust, it looks disgusting, oh no that's worse, a nice crispy outer layer has formed that seals in the juices of this burger and I'm waiting about three minutes, like this that now my onion. On the other side is caramelization, caramelization is when the sugars start to brown. The way I'm going to test this burger to see if it's cooked is I'm actually going to poke it good, if I poke it now, it's still very soft. I want it to be quite firm.

I'm going to go ahead and put the cheese on this side because at least a little less loading, this is American cheese, so today I'm using sliced ​​cheddar cheese, basically, this is when you get out your camera and start. taking pictures of this burger. I'm going to use some mustard cheese now. Monster has many of the same melting qualities as American cheese, but it also has a little more flavor. My cheesy pickle hugs my burger, so let's make this delicious one. burger, oh my lord have mercy, so now my cheese has melted, it's not completely melted, but it will continue to cook as I take it out of the pan.

I'm going to remove it and check that it's cooked very quickly if one were to eat this. It would be a little raw in the middle that burger was burnt on the outside and raw on the inside, so let's do it again. I'm going to turn this on a lot less hot than before. Butter burger, yes, it's a chef's burger and now. I'm going to get plenty and toppings and finish this burger. Today I have that Kaiser bun. I'm going to spread it with a little butter. I'm actually just toasting this on the griddle, so I just have a regular white hamburger bun with supermarket buttons.

I like a potato roll the bun doesn't need any extra fat the burger has enough plain toast now we have a delicious well toasted Kaiser roll now let's work on our toppings for the burger first of all I have a little bit of ketchup just like a little bit of moisture under the burger, put some mayonnaise, hello, okay, we have mustard on top. I usually make three slices of pickles. Fantastic as a chef. I like to make my own pickles. I have a fancy French mandolin, but this gives the pickles they have a nice crinkle cut we just want to make enough to fill our jar some dill sprigs I'm going to stick them in the bottom of the jar I have a little bit of garlic and a couple of cloves and then my spices coriander seeds black peppercorns mustard seeds some small Thai bird chilies and then I proceeded to stuff my cucumbers and now I'm going to take the brine that I made.

I got a scoop and I just fill it with a scoop and then you go put the lid on it, it goes right in the refrigerator. I leave it in the refrigerator for about a week. I have my burger. I'm going to put it on my bun. I have the pickles I made. The lettuce, which is a good slice of lettuce. there tomatoes I just like a few pieces of raw onion I like it a lot oh boy my bacon a little bit of ketchup not a ton I just want enough so that it adds a little sweetness to my burger I'm just going to press it all together BAM boom beautiful se looks good smells fantastic what I like most about this burger is that it's not complicated and now the best part I can eat it is simply delicious we have three different chefs and three very different cheeseburgers, from the bun to the meat to the toppings, but let's talk about ground beef first Emily, our first chef uses ground hamburger.

Ground hamburger doesn't tell you much about the meat you're using, so this is just the meat that was in the ground hamburger from the supermarket. comes from any skeletal muscle tissue, you won't know specifically where that meat comes from. Lorenzo used ground beef grass fed ground beef the ground beef comes from a very particular part of the animal it is close to the shoulder area the ground beef is 80% lean and 20% fat it will result in a juicy and flavorful burger it is like summer and Frank grinds his own meat from the rib liberally and it also has quite a bit of fat so if it gets stuck you just push it through a little bit, when you grind your own meat you have more control over it and you can also see exactly how much fat is in your burger, it has a beautiful amount of floor and you can make sure that you are controlling the protein to lipid ratio. buy a hamburger and know exactly what's in it.

The handling and shape of the ground beef makes the difference. Emily added lots of spices to her ground burger. She also added breadcrumbs. The spices are there to add many different flavors. The breadcrumbs are going to alter the texture a little. I don't know if it's correct, but that's what I do. I would call it more of a meatball than a hamburger. We're not making meatballs. Lorenzo believed, like many people, that you shouldn't overwork the entire hamburger. the world has a body temperature and that heat from your body melts the fat, you can't overwork the meat, but it's a little difficult to do it by hand when you're making a burger.

Oh, okay, Lorenzo made a slit in his Patty and Frank. a small volcano, changed the shape completely. I want there to be an indentation in the center. This is going to modulate the water loss that happens when you start adding heat to your burger, you start to have some steam inside and that will increase or increase. a little puff to the burger, especially when you cook it at a very high temperature Frank and Lorenzo salted their burger before cooking it, you don't want to salt the ground beef when you're mixing it, no, absolutely Salt properly and change the structure of the proteins and adds some chewy quality to your burger.

It is important to do this just before putting the burger on the grill. Salt just before cooking. Emily used butter to cook her burger, this gives it a little salt. Really nice flavors, not who doesn't like butter, but it also has a very low smoke point. I think when you add the butter and turn up the heat, you're going to burn the butter and remove these P resins and others. types of compounds that will give it a bitter, burnt taste Lorenzo used rendered pork fat, a nice little representation of fat here that we'll use and this has a really nice rich quality and a new flavor profile for your meat.

Frank used extracted beef. fat which is a lot of really nice long chain fatty acids like stearic acid, it doesn't hurt to cook beef in beef fat, it makes it taste better when you heat up the stearic acid, it melts and you baste the burger with that fat . I'm just going to riad that delicious, unique quality of stearic acid that you only get from ground beef. Emily used a non-stick pan which she didn't really need. There is enough fat in the burger, it will be very easy to remove from the pan. had a lot of stuff stuck to the pans on these Lorenza used a griddle so it had a lot of contact with the burgers, it actually looks pretty cool, you'll want conduction to happen which can only happen when the burger has maximum contact with the pan Of heat that Frank used, a newly repaired shallow cast iron skillet, holds a lot of heat, so not only was the conduction from the bottom of the cast iron skillet making contact with his burger, but it also had the advantage of The heat was retained because there were sides to that pan, so you had a good flow of heat around your burger.

When you cook ground beef, the proteins that are present will coagulate and squeeze out much of the natural water that is present in the beets. protein matrix when you have 20% lipid content you will not lose the fat and it will result in a very juicy and pleasant cheeseburger. You usually need a nice high heat to get the meat to brown nicely and that will give it a really nice flavor. Karim Allah roasted or onion flavors and that's from Bayard Browning Manor Browning is a non-enzymatic browning reaction that occurs between proteins and reducing sugars. You'll know your burger is made a couple of different ways.

Emily opened hers if one ate this. and it would be a little raw in the middle, you should generally avoid doing that, you will run out of a lot of juices and fat from that burger before you can enjoy it Lorenzo timed his meat, this is fine if you have a really consistent product, but if you change the different meats that you use when you make your burger, that can be variable, it will move around waiting about three minutes, three minutes on each side at a really high temperature for a relatively long time the thin burger should work, we also had Frank who knows how looking and touching a burger and knowing if it's cooked or not, but the burger starts to get tough, this is something that just comes from experience, okay, we're ready to move on with this Emily. used American cheese you will always know that American cheese melts very well but does not have much flavor.

I like American cheese for its cheese. Wrens are used to cheddar cheese to make it look like an old-fashioned cheeseburger. You'll always see it: cheddar will give you a nice flavor profile, you'll have a nice rich quality and a little bit of tang for that type of cheese that Frank used Munster. Munster also melts really well and gives you some really nice flavor profiles it is the most complex of the three cheeses our chef used when choosing a cheese for your burger you want to make sure to consider the water content, if you have a softer cheese , it will melt very easily. a little harder they won't melt very well because there just isn't enough moisture when choosing your bun, you have options.

Emily used a standard white bagel you buy at the grocery store. She waspractically one-dimensional. Lorenzo used a delicious Kaiser bun. Kaiser roll we have a little bit of texture on the outside of the Kaiser roll. He also toasted his bun and used butter. Butter has a really nice flavor that complements some of the chemicals and toasting compounds that are produced when you toast bread. Frank just toasted his. It was a potato roll, so it had a nice, rich quality to it. He didn't put any additional fat with his roll because there is a lot of fat in his ground ribs.

When it comes to toppings, you have a few things to consider: Texture. I'm going to make some fresh tomatoes the color of raw onion and try the pickles will add contrast to your burger. He's talking to me ha ha ha next time you make a cheeseburger. I hope you can take some of these elements and incorporate them into your own recipe