Hamburgers
 

A fella on the another forum mentioned burgers, fries and shakes. I thought I’d open up a more specific can of worms here. Something near and dear to me: Hamburgers, recipes, techniques and what do you really like?

I’ll eat a hamburger almost any time or anywhere. It’s rare that I meet one that I don’t like, but some are far better than others. What I really like are ones that I make at home and cook on the grill.

There are so many “burger buffs” out there, all with their own hard and fast, do and don’t rules for building a “superior” burger. Many of them are contradictory—and from noted and competent chefs.

I guess it all boils down to: What do you like? As for me (and I’ve tried a bunch of things), I like a basic burger. 80/20 if I can find it, with some hot sauce and garlic, sometimes minced onion. Salt and (fresh cracked) pepper before it hits the grill. A nice toasted/grilled Pepperidge Farm sesame seed bun or a bakery bun if I’m building them bigger. Some sliced or diced onion on the bottom of the bun with mustard (generally regular yellow, but I have a variety and it changes at whim) and some ketchup or A1 on the top. There you have it. Some times I feel like some mayo, lettuce and tomatos on top and at other times I’ll try some crazy topping/burger recipe, but I have always come back to my standard.

I’m going to experiment with grinding some different cuts of meat here soon—I’m told it makes a world of difference. I wouldn’t know, but I intend to find out and have fun doing it.

So, what is your favorite hamburger recipe?

GASP! Posting this thread the day before Cow Appreciation Day! The horror!;)

Well... that's just it. I appreciate cows. Lots.

Like Foamy, I appreciate cows reasonably well... :rolleyes:

OK, medium and medium well, anyway... :D

Favorite burger joints are "Five Guys" and "Whataburger". Restaurant burgers include "Ruby Tuesday" and "Cracker Barrel"...

I like my burgers as a double-dip: with cheese...

I have been told my burgers are exceptional.

Cooked inside or out, with different techniques. But, I always use Natures Seasoning.
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I haven't had a real burger (as opposed to a fast food restaurant burger, or one of those pre-formed pink slime things) in years.

I should really buy some good quality ground beef and fry one up.

Roll, ketchup, maybe a leaf of lettuce and a slice of real tomato.

ELK Burger that has about 3% fat marinated in Lea&Perrins Worchestershire Sauce, patted THIN so it cooks medium well properly. Seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning, cooked over Kingsford Hickory Charcoal. Topped with a slice of Pepper Jack just before ready to come off the grill.
Served on a large Kaiser Roll, topped with Green Olives, Pickles, and A1 Steak Sauce. Sauteed Mushrooms optional.
Sometimes substitute the A1 with Guldens Mustard and Heinz Ketchup.

NEVER, EVER, any stinkin' onions !
Neither Raw nor cooked onions are allowed on ANY decent burger. Pure fetid nonsense.

My absolute favorite are these: http://originaltommys.com/ I'll get a craving and drive 1500 miles to get it.

Around here, I prefer Fuddrucker's, Whataburger or Carl's Jr.

In-N-Out is another good choice. Tasty, cheap, simple and fast


Bill

Might I suggest your ground beef of choice, mixed with between one and two slices of finely chopped high end (nitrate free) bacon.

Easy to do and quite tasty.

You do realize that Worchestershire sauce has onions in it, don't you?

This is going to be a large post from me. You have been warned.

Homemade Burger. 50% ground beef, 50% ground pork cook medium well over charcoals.
Seasoned with Canadian seasoning(I'll explain) topped with Sharp or Extra Sharp Vermont Chedder Cheese. Large(sandwitch size) Thomas English Muffin for a bun, a little Thousand Island dressing, lettuce, tomato, slice of onion, (white, yellow or Vidalia) and a cold brew, Mich Ultra for me, NO Bud!
Canadian seasoning- Montreal Steak seasoning.

80/20 Angus ground chuck done into 1/3 pound patties, fresh ground pepper, onion salt, garlic powder. Cook over hickory charcoal. Serve after Friday night football games. Go Birds!

Ah, Montreal Steak seasoning. I started with McCormick's Montreal Chicken. It is a very good seasoning and I snagged the Montreal Steak. Good stuff.

I looked up Nature's Seasoning and I think I'll give it a try.

Also, sometimes I'll use A1 or Worcester Sauce in the mix. I find that the more stuff I mix in, the burger starts to lose it's own taste, so nowadays I try and avoid going overboard on the seasoning. I've ruined more than one batch by getting carried away.

Diazaurus, Wallyum, let me know when you're cooking, I'll bring the beer.

Exactly! :cool:

My son had a pool party, so I cooked tonight. He bought 80/20 ground beef, which cooks like it's filled with gasoline because of the particular fat content of that grind. The burgers were probably okay, but I'd rather not attach my reputation to them. Then again, I don't remember being all that picky about free burgers that someone else cooked when I was 21. :rolleyes:

And anchovies!

And lambs and sloths, and carp and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats.

Yeah, you're right in the heart of Whataburger country. Last time we ate in one was coming out of Gulf Shores. Going to give Ocean Isle a shot this year after the "skidmark of '09". I just checked the other day. Closest Whataburger is somewhere in Florida. :mad:

We had Fudd's all over when the kids were little. One by one they disappeared. Too bad. I liked everything about the place.
My daughter just got back from a trip to LA, and tormented me for days before she left because In-N-Out was going to be one of her first stops. She was there a week and never got closer than across the street from one. :D

I make stuffed burgers with bacon and cheese. Haven't done them in a while, so I'll have to thing about that sometime soon. :cool:

Michelob Ultra! You may as well have a glass of water...
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Or a Zima. :chuckle:
( :D I started to say that Mich and Bud were like two ugly sisters, one missing three teeth and the other only missing two, but I stopped myself.)

I recently bought the grinder attachment for my wife's Kitchen-Aid mixer, and followed the BBQ Pit Boys advice and ground up a chuck roast to make burgers. Seasoned only withKosher salt and pepper before grilling. Best burgers I have ever made or eaten. :cool:

I've heard good things about In-N-Out, Whataburger etc., but have never laid eyes on one. A Five guys was just opened on Kent Island over the Winter, but I haven't had an opportunity to stop in. I guess the best burger joint burger around here is Hardee's (Carl Jr.). Anybody remember Jeno's? Their Cheese Sirloner?

Mich Ultra? Not a beer I'd buy, but if that's what's being offered, I'd gratefully drink it. I'm no beer snob. Sure, I enjoy good beers (anything Samuel Smith brews, Nut Brown Ale, Taddy Porter, etc.), but when asked what beer I like, my answer is always "free and cold."

Much like a beer, when offered a burger, free and hot does it for me. I don't care if it started life as a frozen hockey puck—I'll eat it. To be honest, before micro-waves, those Stewart light-bulb burgers (more than half soy, I'd wager), well, I thought they were great. For a quick snack I'll pop a vege burger in the nuker. Not a real burger, but decent in it's own right.


That's what I've heard and am planning on doing. The girlie-girl has her Grandmother's old hand cranked meat grinder that I plan to employ. Did you hard-chill your beef before you ground it?

There's a school of thought that adding anything to fresh ground beef is akin to turning it into meat loaf. That even mixing salt and spices to the mix is altering it's chemical make-up (and truly, cooking is chemistry). The approach you took was exactly what I was planning for my first fresh ground batch. Your endorsement is encouraging.

Yep. Know Worchestershire has onions and anchovies in the mix along with molasses, tamarinds, etc. The combination I like, but NEVER ever like raw or cooked onions by themselves on ANYTHING. Just plain nasty.

In-N-Out, Whattaburger, Fuddruckers, AND Fatburger are all very good and have had them all several times. We used to have Hardees, that in most of the country is now Carl's Jr. Hardees was good but not in the league of those previously listed.
Five Guys has decent burgers at a total ripoff price. A small double cheeseburger with a drink and a mountain of fries goes for around $10 at all the Five Guys in my area. TOTAL RIPOFF.

For a major chain, I like Checkers/Rally's above all other chains, but when they existed, Burger Chef was the best.
For a Michigan-only chain, Halo Burger beats all others. They consistently rate #1 in the state among all chains with more than 4 stores. A Halo Burger 1/2lb supreme on a giant bun topped with Cheese, Green Olives, and Lettuce/Tomato/Mayo or Mustard/Ketchup/Pickle is awesome.

Burger Chef was awesome.

Unless your name was Jeff :)

When they had their "Burger Chef and Jeff" ad campaign, circa 1975, if you lived in our neighborhood, and your name was Jeff, you'd never hear the end of it :)

The one Jeff I remember had great character - it never bothered him. Good on him.

Doug

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What about Mooyah ? One just opened near me. Where did they originate ?

But what Worcestershire sauce DOESN'T have is that "H" after the "C" in Worcester.

I used to feel the same way about onions and quite a few other common ingredients.

When I got my first job (in my career field) back in '79, my two roommates and me ordered cheesesteaks (we lived in Philly). I'd spent my last dollars on it and they screwed up the order. I'd ordered a cheesesteak hoagie—sans onions, which I didn't like. What I got was a typical Philly cheesesteak: Fried steak, cheese, fried onions and mushrooms. We'd had a gallon of cheap'o burgundy and I was feeling no pain and was famished—so I ate it. Incidentally, I didn't like mushrooms either. Turns out, I didn't know what I was missing. It's amazing what you'll eat and like when you're desperate. That, or an invited guest at someone else's table.

Just as an aside, I don't like anchovies. At all. But I love Worcestershire sauce.

Yeah did they place the little pieces into pots. Thus endith the lesson.


And more yummy Burger talk from another favorite movie:

Do you know what they call the Quarter Pounder in Amsterdam?

Is that one of those burgers from the Hawaiian joint down the street? Ummm, that's one tasty burger! . . . Then more made up Byble verse and then BANG, Jules lets him have it.

Agree with you 100%... love worchestershire sauce, but HATE cooked or raw onions on anything... don't mind mixing IN stuff... I love using dried onion flakes in ground beef and green beans and stuff like that... they go GREAT in mac-n-cheese... really wakes it up! Raw onions and cooked onions... not so much... When we get fajitas at a mexican restaurant, I eat the meat and leave some meat and all the onions for my wife... she loves the darn things. I just like the flavor/smell of them, but HATE the taste/consistency of them...

We have Whataburgers on every streetcorner so it seems... I don't see what the big deal is myself... they're "okay" (had a cousin of my mother's that ran a whataburger store for years, and he was always talking bout it being "quick food" not "fast food"... quick food is cooked to order when you order it... fast food is all cooked beforehand and you get what you get.) Course when I was driving the debate team bus for the school, Whataburger was the ONLY joint open at the time of night they would be getting out, (with the lobby actually unlocked-- and it's nigh impossible to take a SCHOOL BUS through a DRIVE-THRU... :chuckle: Most places are SO scared to death of robberies now they lock the doors tight at 11 pm... drive thru only). We ended up eating Whataburger so much I got to LOATHE the d@mn things... They DO have good bacon, egg, and cheese tacos though and now they have a barbeque chicken-strip and cheese burger that is REALLY good... never cared much for anything else there...

Later! OL JR :)

Burgers
 

I think the ultimate Cheese Burger is here in paradise, that is here in South Florida at
Flanagan's, and that would be the Big Daddy Burger 10oz. of grill cooked prime beef.
in so many stiles with different toppings and ingredients to make any mouth water.
It comes with your choice of potato, rice, slaw or veggies and a pickle slice.
and this is like $6.99 on the lunch menu. and best of all Flanagan's has a free lunch club card,
when you buy 10 you get the next lunch free. Beats Five Guy's Hands Down.

I worked for a restaurant supply store here in Mobile around 1986 when the first (local) Checkers opened up. The place I worked for was contracted to set up all the equipment in those little pre-fabs they used. The burgers were decent back then, but over the years they've fallen off the cliff. Last two times I tried them, the burgers made me gag.

I remember a Burger Chef joint back in the '60s, but not the quality or the taste of the food. The "really big name" in Mobile through the '60s and early '70s was "Colonel Dixie", and it was a genuine rival to both BK and McD. Good shakes, and a fruit drink called "Dixie Dew". Best thing on the menu, though, was their "Dixie Dog", which had everything on it. The burgers were good, if just plain, tasty and cheap. I could use a few of those right now... :D

I remember. I had to hear it so many times I was ready to put a gun in my mouth.

Anyway....My favorite homemade HB is made from 1/2 lb of coarse ground sirloin from Prisco's market here in Aurora, grilled rare, topped with crumbled Stilton cheese, raw onion slice, Heinz 57, on a buttered, toasted Kaiser. The Stilton gives it an exotic "stank". Yum!

Favorite restaurant HB (2 categories):

Category 1 (obtained locally): An HB with grilled onions, brown mustard, and a slice of Swiss from Portillo's. Crinkle-cut fries. Chocolate malt.
Category 2 (obtained nationally): Chili's Southern Smokehouse burger, as rare as they're willing to cook it, and with a "Cadillac" on the side--because I hate their fries.

Favorite fries: (no contest), In-N-Out Burger's fresh cut fries. 5 Guys' fries are a distant 2nd.

Opinions vary.

Did the same thing yesterday. Bought a piece of brisket and one of chuck and ground them together. Grey Sea Salt and cracked pepper before grilling—got the same results as you. Deluxe and delightful. I'm sold.

Fresh ground burger (in this case, anyway) looks nothing like the pre-ground variety. I chilled the meat and bowls in the freezer for about twenty minutes (from "A Hamburger Today") then ground it, shaped it and grilled it on natural charcoal.

The possibilities for mixing and matching different cuts and types of meat are very interesting with this method.


Hand-cut some crinkles (my idea of a proper french fry) and fried 'em in the Fry Daddy. Seasoned with a little Old Bay and salt. Yum.

Hey, I lived through "Billy, Don't Be A Hero". I'd trade you in a heartbeat. :D

And I'll raise you one " Basketball Jones!" :rolleyes:

I had to live through looking like 'Opie Taylor', then Danny Partrige, Timothy Busfield and Snowplow Man and finally Adam Savage! Now tell me you had it that hard!

That trumps about anything I got beat up for as a kid...
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