Cooked over charcoal or a gas flame, popped onto a toasted bun and topped with mustard, relish, tomato, ketchup, onion, lettuce and maybe a dab of mayonnaise, the hamburger is the perfect grill food and an American favorite.
A recent Gallup Poll commissioned by the National Cattlemen’s Association found that 48 percent of all back-yard chefs would rather grill hamburgers than any other food. We consume almost 30 pounds of ground beef per person per year, according to the National Live Stock and Meat Board. And ground beef accounts for 42 to 44 percent of all beef sold in the United States. Away from home, the National Restaurant Association tells us, 5.2 billion burgers were sold just last year-enough burgers, if set side by side, to stretch almost 330,000 miles and circle the Earth at the equator more than 13 times.
We consulted a few experts on how to make the perfect burger, including Marcel Desaulniers, chef/owner of The Trellis in Williamsburg, Va. Desaulniers recently taped a TV show, “The Burger Meisters,” which will start Sept. 26 on The Learning Channel. He also has a cookbook of the same name (Simon & Schuster, $20), featuring burger recipes from Culinary Institute of America graduates.
In addition, we talked by phone with James McNair, who wrote “James McNair’s Burgers” (Chronicle, $11.95) and lives in California’s Napa Valley, and Melanie Barnard, who wrote “The Best Covered and Kettle Grills Cookbook Ever” (HarperCollins, $16.95) and lives in New Canaan, Conn.
Following is a point-by-point look at what they say goes into the perfect burger.
A great grind
The perfect burger begins with the right lean-to-fat ratio in the meat. Ground meat with 15 to 20 percent fat is best, Desaulniers says. More than that and the fat dripping into the fire will cause flare-ups that char the meat. Less and your burger won’t have much taste or juiciness.
He suggests having a butcher grind the meat to order so you can control the fat content and know it’s fresh. Or grind it yourself. Use an attachment to your electric mixer or a meat grinder, not a food processor, which can quickly turn the meat into paste.
Be sure your grinder is impeccably clean to prevent harmful bacteria from getting into the meat. (A good sanitizing solution is 1 tablespoon of bleach per quart of hot water. After cleaning the grinder in soapy water, dip it in this solution and allow it to air dry, Desaulniers says.)
For best flavor, select chuck or sirloin. Trim excess fat, leaving the amount you want to grind with the meat. For example, if you want 1 pound ground beef that is 20 percent fat, you will have to grind about 13 ounces lean meat and 3 ounces fat. Begin by cutting the meat into medium-size chunks. Then chill it in the freezer 15 minutes to prevent stringiness during grinding.
Desaulniers suggests you coarse-grind the meat to make a more tender burger. Texture is a matter of personal preference, though; some people like a more compact patty made from meat that is first coarsely ground, then put through a fine-grind plate.
If you would rather purchase meat already ground at the supermarket, read the label. Packages labeled “ground beef” usually are a blend of different cuts (round, sirloin, chuck) that, by USDA regulation, are mixed with no more than 30 percent fat, says Marlys Bielunski, director of test kitchens and editorial services for the National Live Stock and Meat Board in Chicago.
Because 30 percent exceeds the recommended fat content for the perfect burger, you may want to pay a little more and get ground chuck, which usually contains 20 percent fat. Ground sirloin is the leanest at 10 to 12 percent fat, and ground round is 15 percent fat-a little low for the perfect burger but better for weight-watchers.
When purchasing ground beef, cookbook author Barnard recommends using it fresh instead of freezing and defrosting it. The meat loses moisture when frozen, making it watery when defrosted. “I’ve never had luck making a juicy burger using frozen meat,” she says.
To flavor the meat, finely chop any ingredients so they don’t make the shaped patty fall apart. If you saute ingredients such as onions and green peppers before adding them to the meat mixture, cool them completely. Otherwise, they may cause the meat to spoil or cook from the center out, Desaulniers says. Also, add salt and pepper before shaping the meat mixture so the seasonings are distributed evenly.
Shaping up
“At the restaurant, when we get new grill cooks,” Desaulniers says, “they have the tendency to get mechanical about shaping the burgers, and they compact the meat too tightly. That makes the burger more resistant to the bite and denser-it makes the patty more work to eat.”
The experts find that the perfect patty is 3/4- to 1-inch thick. “If it’s thicker than that, when it cooks it will be raw on the inside and burned on the outside,” Barnard says.
If the burgers include more than 8 ounces of meat, Desaulniers suggests starting them on the grill and finishing them in an oven.
Remember, patties don’t have to be round. You can shape them to fit whatever bread-pita, pumpernickel, sourdough roll-you may be serving them on, McNair says.
Now it’s time to cook those burgers. Begin by spraying the cold grill rack with no-stick cooking spray. Then start the fire. Never spray the rack after starting the fire because aerosol cans are flammable, Barnard says. And the spray hitting a fire can cause a dangerous flare-up.
Be sure your grill rack is “seasoned” like your favorite iron skillet. “I’m not a stickler for scouring the grill grid clean each time I use it,” Barnard says.
If you don’t have a gas grill, McNair suggests using a charcoal chimney or electric starter to get the coals going. That way you needn’t worry about the fire starter flavoring the meat. You can add flavor by placing grape vines or hardwood chips in the coals. There also are special smoke chips available for use with gas grills.
Desaulniers suggests cooking over a medium-hot fire (coals glow through a layer of gray ash and you can comfortably hold the palm of your hand just above the grill grid for 3 seconds).
“You want the fire hot enough to cook the meat as soon as it hits the grill grid, but not so hot it chars the meat,” he says. “If you must err when it comes to cooking your burgers, then err on the side of too cool a fire instead of too hot a one.”
When the fire is ready, lay the burgers on the grill rack over the hot coals. If you have a covered grill, use the cover to turn your grill into an oven and speed-cook the burgers.
Use a long-handled, wide spatula to turn the burgers, but use it sparingly. “Invariably people mash down on a burger while they are cooking it. Unless you want shoe leather, don’t squash the burgers,” Desaulniers says.
There’s no single right way to serve the perfect burger. Desaulniers likes his on a bun with ketchup. “You can’t beat that,” he says. McNair might not agree; he likes his with grilled onions, a slice of “wonderfully fresh tomato,” a little mayonnaise and some mustard. “That’s pretty much the classic.” Barnard admits to being a “cheeseburger person.” She likes hers with Cheddar, a slice of sweet onion and tomato and some lettuce. “But not iceberg; it’s too crunchy,” she says.
