Burger pattys..
- Thread starter rogan
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Man of Honour
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Agreed. The one time I bothered to do this the results were really really awesome.
I actually go against what is said about about using high fat content mince. I usually use supermarket 'lean steak mince' because it's got a softer texture when cooked than the cheaper ones with the higher fat content. I add quite a lot of salt and squeeze it all together with a small sprinkle of dried white breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs soak up a lot of juice and stop it coming out the burger when you cook it. Cook it hot and fast to get a bit of char on the outside and don't overcook it or it'll dry out.
D.P.'s suggestion about pressing the patty: I saw an awesome method on DDD - place the patty between two sheets of greaseproof paper and give it a good hard smash with the bottom of a heavy saucepan. It works brilliantly
You reminded me I need to buy a meat mincer.
I guess your point about the quality of the mince (if true - and I think it probably is) is the reason that the higher fat minces, which also tend to be cheaper, will often have the less good cuts and more sinew/etc. I still think that higher fat content is a good thing but perhaps a better approach is to add some (e.g.) bacon fat minced up to your higher quality steak mince? Just a random idea.
Man of Honour
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I may try some from Turner and George next time I place an order actually.
Soldato
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I emailed them and asked them to stop sending mail spam, I said I didn't mind all the email spam but postal spam was destroying the Earth haha they soon stopped.
Because when you cook on a BBQ a lot of fat will be removed, or have you never BBQ'ed a burger before?
Moderate amount of fat are an important part of your diet, and animal fats are much healthier than highly processed hydrogenated trans-fats.
A big mistake people have making burgers is they use 95% + fat-free beef and end up with dry tastey burgers that fall apart and so they try to bind it with egg and bread crumbs making even more tasteless dry burgers.
You need a reasonable fat content in burgers, as you do in steaks, nice a mount of marbling.
Frying pepper (e.g. seasoning outside of the burger steak) can turn the pepper slightly bitter according to some chefs. So putting pepper inside the burger rather than outside helps. The salt within the mince also seems to help form a coherent patty in my experience.
I think you're right. Supermarket mince does seem to have a lot of sinew minced into it and it appears to be minced to the bare minimum they can get away with and it makes a tough burger. They don't actually specify what cut is used even when they describe it as 'lean steak mince' but I'd suspect it's something like a mix of belly (brisket) and other 'stewing steak' cuts that they otherwise don't sell enough of. Even if you were to mince you're own out of cheap cuts, I suspect you'd do a better job yourself and it would taste better.
I actually go against what is said about about using high fat content mince. I usually use supermarket 'lean steak mince' because it's got a softer texture when cooked than the cheaper ones with the higher fat content. I add quite a lot of salt and squeeze it all together with a small sprinkle of dried white breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs soak up a lot of juice and stop it coming out the burger when you cook it. Cook it hot and fast to get a bit of char on the outside and don't overcook it or it'll dry out.
D.P.'s suggestion about pressing the patty: I saw an awesome method on DDD - place the patty between two sheets of greaseproof paper and give it a good hard smash with the bottom of a heavy saucepan. It works brilliantly
You reminded me I need to buy a meat mincer.
You might b right in a correlation between mince quality and fat content. Ideally you want some of the fat with a high quality steak mince.
I don't use cheap mince but do get the 80-20 for burgers.
I have made buffalo burgers (bison mince is easy to buy in US supermarkets) and the taste is fantastic, the fat content lower (like 92-8) and the quality far higher but it costs 3x that of beef mince.
their prices are just farcical though, not just high but utterly stupid
Soldato
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I find my burgers hold and are moist etc, the problem I have is they always just taste like mince, if that makes sense? I'm pretty sure it's down to seasoning though?
But when the mince is half price, it costs the same as supermarket mince.
Just buy decent meat, like turner and george, http://www.devonrose.com or a hole bunch of others. If you buy Tesco finest or organic you are a fool, as thats the same price as decent, slow grown, properly cared for and properly hung meat. Pay the extra and taste the difference, chicken and pork being the biggest difference. Although some dislike the strong flavour, as people are so used to chicken and pork being tasteless.
So many ways yo make them, but you don't need to add anything other than seasoning.
I really like the onion burgers seen on DDD & man vs food. Half onion half mince. Just take a small ball of mince, pop into a hot ban, take a small handful of very finely sliced onion, place on top and squash the whole thing down to a very thin patty. Just use more of them if you want it thick.
Thick and thin burgers are good. Thats the great thin g with burgers, just so versatile. The flavours in the burger, the size of the burger, the toppings. The carrier (ie roll) can all be played with and nearly any combo os great.
So many ways yo make them, but you don't need to add anything other than seasoning.
I really like the onion burgers seen on DDD & man vs food. Half onion half mince. Just take a small ball of mince, pop into a hot ban, take a small handful of very finely sliced onion, place on top and squash the whole thing down to a very thin patty. Just use more of them if you want it thick.
Thick and thin burgers are good. Thats the great thin g with burgers, just so versatile. The flavours in the burger, the size of the burger, the toppings. The carrier (ie roll) can all be played with and nearly any combo os great.
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i went out to a local butchers and got some high fat steaks minced as recommended by the butcher,
was so so so much nicer (nothing added other than salt/ground chili's) just really squashing them down
the dimpling the center worked very well too!
thanks all!
I will be trying some supermarket minces again if i can get some nice looking branded ones as the butchers was really out of the way
was so so so much nicer (nothing added other than salt/ground chili's) just really squashing them down
the dimpling the center worked very well too!
thanks all!
I will be trying some supermarket minces again if i can get some nice looking branded ones as the butchers was really out of the way