Burger Thoughts … Food Near Snellville Elaborates

I’ve been chatting with Food Near Snellville with regards to all things burger related. One thing is an undeniable no no in my book: a spatula should touch your burger two times (AT MOST!) … and two times only.  Once to put the burger on your apparatus of choice … and once to remove it from said cooking thingamajigger.

Amongst several emails back and forth … here is something I shot FNS’s way:

Hmmmm….. i am thinking on this …. most places (even my beloved Holeman & Finch) press their burgers…. why does everyone do this? It’s beyond me …. Houston’s does a pretty good job of keeping their meat as it was meant to be…. Vortex most certainly smushes …. I’m heading over to JOEL for lunch next week … am hoping their burger isn’t pressed.  I’ll get back to you on this after i rack my brain – there are some great burgers in town … but I’m pretty sure [most, if not all] are pressed at some point ….

Well, low and behold … a post popped up today on the topic …  Amongst others, FNS talks about Mark Bittman and his take on flame charred meat … and asks the question … “Are they out there?”  I’m a bit disappointed that I was referred to as affable, I do my best to come across as a pompous jack ass as much as possible! 😉

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6 Comments

  1. Don’t you have to flip it? Once to put it on, once to flip, once to remove.

    Three times

  2. @ankur – I have a special little do-hickey that is kind of like one of those grill cages … but setup so as to avoid applying pressure to the burger. I’ll take a picture of it next time I break it out.

    Like I said, I’m not a fan of flipping a burger every 30 seconds. But in this case, we’re kind of comparing apples to oranges. I always grill my burgers and I go for a hardier patty. In addition, I go for true medium rare … therefore, this method will never appeal to me. I cook my meatballs in a pan, and to sear them, I roll them (gently). That’s the closest I go to what they are talking about.

    However, I still see little advantage to the method employed there, even if a nice sear is the ultimate goal. If you don’t have access to a grill, a good pan can certainly do the trick. You can sear a piece of meat just fine using a little bit of oil and high enough heat.

    The more pressure applied to the burger the more fat will get pressed out. there is a difference between cooking a burger with fat and cooking a burger in fat.

    What they have done there is fried their burger … so it’s a pretty different experience. You might have noticed that they used two totally different types of pans … this will definitely change the meat comes out. My one recommendation if you are going to employ that method is to pour off some of the fat as you go along.

    It’s not realistic to call this method “wrong.” It’s just different. There is no right answer. What’s good for me may not be good for you.

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