For the Grill, Burgers Beyond the Basic

[elleng]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/dining/26mini.html?ref=dining

[MajorChode]

1. That's a great article

The art of making a good burger is pretty much lost. Few restaurants do it any more. Most of them simply use pre-made frozen patties and you're lucky if they even add salt and pepper. I grind my own meat and I usually just use chuck because it contains the right amount of fat. What I like to do is roll out the ground beef with a rolling pin, put various spices and aeromatics on the meat, and then fold it over so everything is inside. Then I cut out square patties.

[Duer 157099]

2. That is so weird, I did exactly that a few days ago

Had never done it before and just suddenly, instead of hand-forming the burger patties, I used a rolling pin, sprinkled the spices on it, folded it and rolled again, and then cut it into squares! (because I didn't have buns but had regular bread).

We must be in sync in some bizarre way or something.

[tigereye]

3. the Splendid Table had a guy on a while back who said you should never

smush them with the spatula the way people seem to do, since you lose all the good juices and fat that make them tasty.

[MrMickeysMom]

4. I thought it was a good article, too...

I'm without a grinder, but I could always have ground pork and just throw in fennel and pepper. That really looks great.