Burgers au Natural
November 27, 2008 by admin
Disclaimer: I want to apologize for the yellowness of the pics. I was making burgers with one hand and snapping photos with the other, trying desperately to avoid cross contamination.
I consider myself to be purist when it comes to burgers. If you must have something other than quality ground meat between two slices of a potato roll, I’ll agree that fresh vegetable toppings and condiments are good eats too. Maybe even cheese, but that’s it. You may be thinking “what else could there be?” but trust me, there’s some crazy stuff out there (foie gras topping anyone?). I don’t agree with adding in chopped garlic or onion or Worcestershire sauce or other stuff into the patty itself either.
For the record, the pics at the end show what my burger looks like 90% of the time.
Despite being a purist with the patty, I still love to play with the combinations of toppings and condiments. Sure there is the lettuce/tomato/ketchup/mustard/onion classic, and who can resist a slice of bacon on there? I also enjoy a burger with pepperjack cheese, guacamole, salsa and jalapenos. Or how about a burger with cheddar cheese, barbecue sauce, and coleslaw? I could go on and on…
One thing that can’t be compromised is the quality of meat. Personally I prefer about a 80% sirloin to 20% brisket mix (of course that isn’t exact, 70/30 is fine too, but I wouldn’t go much more than that). The brisket toughens up the patty a bit and adds a the beefy flavor, whereas the sirloin keeps the patty soft and moist with great texture.
I’m no butcher, but from what I gather there are different cuts of sirloin (as evidenced above). Since I can never find just “sirloin” I usually look for top sirloin or a combo of top sirloin and tenderloin (a combo which I think, on the bone, make up sirloin. No promises there).
As for my burger recipe, it’s very simple. The 80/20 mix above of above cut off the bone…
(I would recommend saving the bones to be roasted later and then boiled for a beef stock)
And for the record, marbling is essential for a good burger. You don’t want huge chunks of fat, you want thin strips all the way throughout. You can see that in this cut there are good sections (towards the top) and not-so-good areas that are too fatty. Hey, it’s the best I could find.
Anyway, the next step is to just cut it into chunks…
and then push them through the grinder to make ground meat…
then season with salt and pepper and that’s it. All you have to do is make them into balls and then patties.
Once grilled to a perfect internal temp of 140 degrees Fahrenheit, this is what you get:
Yum 
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