I Made The Perfect Burger

There are millions of ingredient combinations to choose from when creating a

burger

, but which ones are the best today? I'm joined by

burger

expert George Moes, chef and owner of Hamburger America. New York City, we will take a culinary deep dive to compare and taste. almost all the common components that go into creating a burger the buns the meat the sauce the toppings at the end of this, assuming we did everything right, we will have created the

perfect

burger or at least my idea of ​​it or at least we have given you the power to create your own, let's get started.

George is our scholar. George is the legend. He'll be here to give us input as we go and he'll judge my final burger at the end, so we've got several buns in front of us. We'll judge them based on the taste and appearance of the Squish Toasts, pick one of the top three, and then I'll pick the best one to assemble into my

perfect

burger. Let's start trying the Kaiser roll, it's rare. choice I feel like for a burger it's sturdy, listen listen, it's soft on the inside, although if you have a thick burger with grease dripping out, you need that crush proof.

What I like is that he recovers, he has integrity. a bonus in toastability, these were all toasted with the exact same butter in a flat toast pan, required a little pressure to get right, deflated naturally every time the heat went up, but looks great and is crispy , oh yes, that's it. nice we give it a little flavor it's a little chewy it tastes like breakfast it's too much bread I think for a hamburger the taste is nice the texture is a little chewy maybe not perfect for a hamburger the next appearance of buns looks good This just looks like fancy hamburger buns, what's wrong with that?

It's not yeast. It looks like we are introducing a smell test which I like. It is important. One of the most important parts of the tasting is through the nose crush test. You know, these are a little less sturdy. but I don't mind, I like it to have a little softness to it, it's on the verge of being too soft for a classic fancy white soft bun which in some ways is pretty perfect if George thinks it's fancy, we're so today, to our toast test, this test was super nice from edge to edge, like an air hockey table because it wants to move just because it's so perfectly uniform, oh yeah, oh wow, it smells amazing, it was caught right before it burned and that's .

It's actually good, it's a good muffin, it's a great muffin and it has a little bit of sweetness, but it's not too much and you don't smell the sweetness, which I appreciate. I think it's borderline, but I give it the thumbs up. It's in our top three moving in biographies, what do you smell sweet like sugar? Yes, what you don't want buttery. I smell like sugar. People say I'm too critical. I like to smell this. I like that that smells good and George says. too sweet, too sweet, when you take a bite of a burger, your nose tastes the burger first and then the meat, hopefully the first thing you taste is the smell of the top of that bun, so taste the look, They look beautiful, have a nice shiny top. bulbous, they are brown, they look like flattened French bread.

Springs in the back, it has a little crack just because it's such a tender crumb of butter, but overall it has a pretty good structure, it actually toasts very well and that's because it has a lot of fat it's too dense it's heavy it's almost like you're eating like the croissant version of a bun that's actually true yeah, which I don't want to have on my hamburger English muffin. I've had a good cheeseburger on an English muffin. They are good in the bar, they have a long shelf life. Quite dense crush test. I would say that English muffins are one of the few muffins that have incredible durability.

I'm glad he didn't fall to the floor and look at that toast. It looks good but doesn't roast evenly because of the kles. I put it in a toaster without butter, it also has a little bit of bitterness and it was removed after the pretzel bun which is very dense, it has a durability of Bounce Off the Wall super yeast, oh. wow it smells like beer, visually I think a pretzel bun looks beautiful but I also think it's very distracting, it's almost like the bun is screaming and then what can take a crush, you really have to toast it, it will be a bun different when you heat it up yes, I mean it's well toasted and evenly it has a good crunch.

I like it. I need mustard. German mustard. The pretzel. I think it will surpass the quality of the burger. I'm going to say it's eliminated. Do you agree? Oh. I agree, yes, it's the potato roll. I haven't smelled the crack yet, what do you smell? I smell yeast, which is really what you should smell first, but also look at the inside, it's so soft and crazy that visually they don't get in the way. From the appearance of the burger, they compliment it and keep it super simple smash proof. You could play the piano on this thing and it would hold its shape.

Bounce back. Good structure. It roasts beautifully. Funny thing about the top every time I toast one of These in butter are toasted all the way through, but you'll notice that the top bun has a ring around it and why? Because we're really afraid to concave this beautiful top here because they have a tendency to deflate a little bit. It tastes wow, they did something, man, there's sugar in there, it's not enough and it tastes like milk bread, it tastes like Brio, it's kind of the perfect balance between all those buns, it's the perfect canvas for a burger. my top three, my best H has an earthy quality, it looks like earth but it's a soft white bun but with a little bit of wheat coloring and then like wheat flakes it smells unique but I don't want that in a burger like sand .

That's going to be a no, yes, now visually move towards the sitting white bun. I love the sesame seeds when your nose touches that bun. Sesame and yeast together, it's a pretty powerful combination. Crush proof can withstand a toasted crush, nice and even toast. The interior is nice and soft. deflating a little when you toast it doesn't bother me, although this is what I love about sesame seeds on a bun, you taste it, but somehow it's such a complementary flavor that it just becomes the bun and not in a way intrusive, it's incredible. I love it, no, it's very subtle.

This concludes our top three with brioche buns, potato rolls, and the white sit bun that I'll choose for my perfect burger. Let's move on to the next component, we have all the different types of ground beef all the way down. Ranging from 60% lean to 90% lean, this is arguably one of the most important elements of the burger. The way we'll judge this is the browning test, the structural integrity test and the taste test, so we'll pick my top three followed by my number one pick, which George Will will judge last, so we'll start with some unusual ones. , these are not commonly used, you won't even find them in the supermarket, oh no, I'll start with the 60%, which is 40% fat.

Wow, yeah, I mean, it's like a grease fire in the oh oh, but we already have a problem. It is glued to the wax paper. It looks like you're trying to make a meat biscuit. You could also season it. so this is only 5% leaner. I saw that your method is paper and all these additional things you don't need. What I like to do is cook a little patch on one side and that little patch actually prevents it from sticking to the spatula. that wow just that little cooking patch helps look at yours look at that thing it's literally all my art there's a little bit more weight to this the 5% alone allows it to stick more like a hamburger so uh test browning good integrity structural taste very bad literally just pure fat tastes good this has a little more integrity why didn't it mash up as fine as you did?

Good structural integrity test, test better, but not perfect, it's much better, but I still think these two don't work, so I'm going to give them both a thumbs up 85% 90% I've always hated lean meat in a burger , but let's try, take that guy down. I'm going to play this stupid role, so stupid, look. Look, look, look, when I first took this off, I immediately drank it in, give it some salt, 90%, that's intense, man, there's no parchment, that's a push-up, that's a push-up, the liquid portion of the lean muscle is bubbling, there's some fat there, but it's not resting.

Peace is not so bad for my art. I can be happy with that, oh gosh, it's stuck because there's no grease to lubricate this Patty, yeah, and you can really see the difference and even just that 5% grease gave it a much better result, so let's get started. at 85%, F wow, it loses a lot of flavor now I'm afraid to try this, it actually tastes like a steak, like a lean sirloin, so if you take this and add butter to it, that would be Fantastic, since they are both lean, they lack of flavor and lack juiciness when you eat a burger and think, oh, that's so juicy it's not just the liquid in the burger but also the fat, so both will be a no- or this is The Sweet Spot 70 75 and 80%, these are already my top three, but we'll try and find my best first.

The 75 sealing test got the best structural integrity test, both 75 and 80% ret beautiful structural integrity, while the 70% shrank a little. I probably could have scraped this area a little better too, but it still shrank quite a bit, so all that's left to do is test the 70%. It's good that you still taste the fat, but it's important to taste the meat when you eat it. a hammer, yes, yes, it still has some structure. I don't think there's a big loss, it's definitely a small loss, although now, for the 75% more meat flavor, um, it only comes with an immediate 5% increase in meat flavor. at maybe 20% more, finally a fantastic 80%, it's a little meatier and less oily, 80% is the territory where it starts to dry down nice and moist at 70, nice and moist 75 with a little more meaty flavor and then 80% good meaty flavor but starting to dry out a little bit yeah I tell people who don't know what they're doing with burgers to go with 8020 because it's a pretty standard balance and you can't really make a mistake there. 80% is good, but my number one choice. it would be 75% now, moving on to the next component, the burger style instead of my top three, this will lead to what is my number one option: we have thin, which would essentially be a killer burger, we have medium, I guess. a Burger King burger that can be grilled and can be seared and then we have a thick one that is seared and a thick one that has just been grilled upwards.

Every time you get a thick burger, you're going to end up with a little bit of medium or medium rare, this is like between medium and medium mirror, I would say another thick that's been seared again, we have a good medium, now we have our medium thick, so really some pink there, a little bit of pink and then of course. our smash, which is well done but has enough fat that it can stand up to being well done, so if we start with maybe grilling, usually when you grill something you'll end up with a pretty significant crust if you grill it long enough strong, the flavor is good, it's a little smoky charcoal in texture, it's nice, thick, juicy, delicious, yes, it's loose inside too.

I like it, it's not bad, the classic seared burger, it doesn't taste charcoal, but I really don't need this is what we call New York. Pub style burger moderately thick burger cooked on a flat top, like a steak, it's a real process eating it medium thick, it's good, but it's my least favorite so far, it's not advertised as thick, it almost wants be Patty smash, something you did at home because you were hungry, that's all I can think of and finally, Patty smash is really good, it's fantastic, much harder, with more crust, obviously, it's a little less appetizing because it's not that thick, but you weigh a lot more than that texture. with tons of flavor from this super flat even contact this is my number one choice for my perfect burger I agree with me every burger is different as long as it tastes like beef that's the only thing I care about they all have their place but not in my perfect cheeseburger, let me make a quick statement that's really important, all of these cheeses can work, they will all melt differently, I should say that, but I have a top three, so I'll start by eliminating the cheeses that don't.

I want through the flavor first smoked goua is tasty but it will have a different flavor. I think when it melts I think it's too overpowering a cheese for my perfect burger, so it's a great melting Swiss cheese, sweet yet nutty, not as creamy. cheese white American cheese you don't see this as often in the Northeast. I personally don't like white American cheese because of its appearance. I want to see an orange slice of cheese, so I reject aged American white cheddar. you can see it's age you see the little cages here look like bathroom tiles they are tasty but if they melt you have to think about how to melt this so we have my top three cheesesyellow Americans, regular non-aged cheddar cheese and provolone.

What do you think of these for the top three of all these cheeses? One of them is really perfect for a burger. I also think one of them is really perfect for a burger. Let's figure out what we're going to try and melt these cheeses. in my Top Choice for mix and style Patty, which will be 75% lean and a spectacular Patty. Now why didn't you cover that you don't really need it exactly or you only have two bowls, but that's a good point, melting ability though. It's so good at this that it doesn't need to be overturned.

I could look at the American cheese and it melts it doesn't have to do much for itself, there you go, you're melting it look just like that you're melting the cheese melting melting melting melting so we have our cheese provolone cheddar and American cheese visually American cheese has the best structure it has the most pleasant shine it has the best smell by far even provolone is one of the cheeses with the least fat here you can see the oil on top it is not bad but it is not excellent no It's wrong the fusion is great, oh yeah I'm not in love with the chewy taste.

The flavor of the gummies is great but funky, which is what I like about provolone, but it's not the flavor I want in a burger. Take away the burger, no, let's move on to the cheddar flavor. The department takes a step in the right direction, but you still have that gummy, chewy and oily, the cheese goes to the roof of your mouth and, as if splashing oil on the back of your throat, last but not least, the cheese American, you first notice that it has twice the sodium. I hadn't even thought about that before until now, much saltier.

I would say maybe even the provolone or cheddar cheese has a deeper flavor, this is a little more one note but somehow the salt in that classic American cheese flavor. Now it's a burger, the texture is creamy and almost turns into a sauce with the fat of the meat in your mouth. My number one for my perfect burger is American cheese. I'm with you. I think American cheese is the way to go now. As for the sauces, this is important to me for a hamburger. How do you like the sauces on a hamburger? I think they are not necessary but I like them, that hurts, we have three simple ones in the middle and then on the outside we have two. completed sauces, one simpler and one more complex, ultimately I think they tend to boil down to these three sauces here, mayonnaise, yellow mustard and ketchup.

I don't even have three main ones. I'm only going to pick one so let's start with just some ketchup very sweet very overwhelming I've always hated straight ketchup on a burger me too for me this is a kids burger I think the second generation of burger lovers in the United States United back in the 40's and 50's they added ketchup to the hamburger To get kids excited about hamburgers I'm not a baby, it's okay, no, now straight mustard is delicious, good on its own, no it's not the answer. If I imagined this on a burger, I'd think it's tangy, it adds some acidity, it's cutting into the richness. and it also adds a new flavor that complements whatever it is, especially the beef and then the last of the simple sauces is a little bit of mayo, it doesn't add much flavor but it does add a greasy, creamy texture.

I like mayonnaise. in a burger, but I don't like it alone, I think it needs another sausage to accompany it. All of these components when combined end up with this, you have a little bit of ketchup, a little bit of mustard, a little bit of mayonnaise and salt. and pepper, now we have something going because ketchup comes with a little bit of sweetness, a little bit of tomato, but it's so far away that it just helps to be a little cover for the real flavor creators, which are the mustard and the mayonnaise and finally a very similar one, it has a little more ketchup, but what makes it different is that we add holy aromatics that taste really good, hey what's really good, man, I'm not a sauce guy, that's really good, man, well, perfect because that's my number one option. for the sauce this better be like my rendition inspired by the In-N-Out spread.

I'm not going to smoke if I put sauce on a burger, that would be the only one. Thanks, we got approval from George Moes. I appreciate that I'm not going to put it on my burger, but I think you should put yours on it now that we have one more component to talk about: the ingredients. I want to set some rules here. Ingredients number one cannot overpower burger number two. We're just sticking to the common burger toppings you see, which are lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles. Is there any no, no, for you here? I think all of these could go on a burger, there really isn't much flavor here.

Just saying that I agree that there isn't much flavor here, it's really just about texture. I think there's some things like, obviously, this is like explosive, well, it has flavor, yeah, onions sometimes, but I actually wash my onions a little bit. We'll talk about that in a second, but basically I'm going to go through a round of quick elimination, let's just talk about lettuce, they're all Iceberg, but sometimes you see the iceberg as a leaf, sometimes you see it shredded, aka shredders, a Sometimes you see it chopped. lazy this is the cook wants to go home and then obviously there's butter lettuce which you'll see like you get a leaf ironically somehow this is the laziest lettuce I'm removing from my perfect burger sometimes it becomes flaccid and the flavor is almost non-existent and I said if I had to choose one I would probably choose shredded this super texture which leaves us with only four ingredients to choose from Tomatoes This is my least favorite ingredient in most burgers.

I think it's good. a thick burger, but my burger is not a thick burger, this does not belong to mine, it is going off, sometimes it can also be a little flabby, we are left with neutral pickles, salty vinegar, dill and thinly sliced ​​onion, it leaves to go on my burger, but not necessarily as a topping, I'm going to include this on my burger through the OKC version of Smash Burger, so that really only leaves us with one option, which is the pickle, which is my only topping. I'd give my perfect burger some acidity and a little crunch, but I think you have an opinion on how it should be cut.

I make it lengthwise for coverage and also less skin, by the way, you get a little bit of pickle in every bite, but there is a bigger problem: they will slide out because of the straight cut, it seems too home

made

, but there is something about that little CR cut, yeah, I think those wrinkles will really allow it to come out, it clings to the burger when you bite into it. The little ridges are like while mine may or may not slide, which we're going to find out because now it's time for the burger scholar to try my perfect burger.

I'm ready. I'm going to start with my rolls just so We're going to use a little bit of softened butter. This is a big Marty muffin. Why do you put butter on the bun? I get better M toast because the butter is a little bit integrated into the bun. In fact, I prefer it the other way around. I think there is something. about adding bread to hot butter, which changes it's almost like you're frying something, you know what's funny. Actually, I normally do that too, but since you're here for some reason I felt competitive, my balls go on the hot griddle making a little bit of thinly sliced ​​onion, I personally like to make a ball so it doesn't spread too much, okay , put a little more, a little salty salt, let them cook, look at my rolls, they look good, they are turning out well, yes. give it a little Flip Flip, what's going on, toast the other side, toast the sesame seeds, add my American shei, transfer this guy on top of this guy like this, we have our sauce.

I get pretty heavy with the sauce. I like it a lot. I got my three pickles that were cut lengthwise and then my cheeseburgers go straight in, they look great thank you and just for extra measure I add a touch of sauce on the top bun and then it goes on, it's juicy, it's loose. Goosey, I'm not eating this, I'm leaving and Georgia I want you to smash this burger as deep and crazy as you want, give me a thumbs up or thumbs down visually, it's beautiful, this is a beautiful thing and it's also the right thing to do.

The size of the burger shouldn't be too big, so if you had 2 and 2 oz burgers, which is 5 ounces of well-done meat, they'd probably be like 4 and 1/2 4 and 1/4 ounces of meat, which It's actually the perfect size for the burger. four sides of my art because it's two burgers, so we know there's fat in there and the fat will create the juice, the liquid, the flavor. The downside to the first thing I smell is the sauce because the sauce is cooking in there. I think it might be too much sauce because now, star, I see it slide like that, that's my pickle, baby, my face is fine, to be totally honest, there's too much pickle, there's too much sauce plus the onions were cooked perfectly the Perfect meat balance, of course, as we know the perfect cheese, a great bread that is excellent.

I give it a thumbs up, I'm sure you got it right, so we tried my perfect burger, but it seems one-sided, which one is yours? perfect burger, you should try this one, oh it's not very complicated. I'm just a steward of history, this is a very historic burger, two American cheeseburgers and I give the bun just three things, which is mustard, pickle, onion and that's it, those three things together. create a flavor profile that will help the burger move forward wow okay here we go cheers you know what that is by the way that's usually my biggest compliment towards food so nope I ordered a burger and got it at the highest level it's basically there is no confusion, you don't need to have a conversation about the different ingredients and that all speaks for itself immediately, you're right, I mean the first thing I smell is yeast and beef and that's it, and then the type of American cheese.

It comes a little at the end. Now I understand why you're not a sauce guy, American cheese, like we said before, kind of emulsifies with the fat in the burger and creates its own nice, creamy sauce. I have to worry about the lack of acidity because it comes with the mustard, it comes with the pickles and a little bit of sweetness from the onion. I mean, I don't even know if I want mine anymore. This is a perfect burger. I'm confused now I don't even know what my original statement was when we started this, this is the perfect burger, so George, thank you for this.

I tried yours and it

made

me realize that there are many ways to make a burger perfect. That's exactly why we appreciate your cookbook and more specifically this burger because now you have the knowledge to make your perfect burger. Bye, I love you, subscribe.