I’m actually a little surprised by all the distaste or lack of preference for cheese here (assuming non-religious reasons in most cases.) To me, there’s just something missing without that lovely gooeyness and saltiness melted cheese offers. While I mentioned American cheese above, I’ve been known to like to slather on some nice Merkt’s cheddar spread on a burger, too! I’ve tried going the purist route of hamburgers without cheese (which are, I guess, just “hamburgers”), but I always feel like I’m being cheated. (Though, on the other hand, I don’t like cheese with my roast beef sandwiches, so go figure.)
Swiss is the proper cheese of choice for a burger. Chedder is acceptable. I’ll still eat american if it is already on there, but I sure as hell won’t order it that way.
Where are the sensible ones? Put something as alien as ketsup, mayonaisse, or mustard on a burger and it stops tasting like cooked ground beef. Adding anything else just takes the good beef taste farther away.
I don’t like the chewy, slimy texture of fat. When I eat a steak, I’ll cut off and leave the fat. But once it is ground up into a patty, I’m fine with it.
Since first reading your burger recipe, I have tinkered with it just a little. I changed the ratio to 2/3rds ground chuck and 1/3 ground Italian sausage. I grill it over charcoal mixed with a few apple wood chunks for some smoke flavor, then add some provolone cheese a minute or two before pulling it off the grill. I put it on a lightly toasted bun and garnish it with Mancini Tangy Peppers and Sauce
There was one old lady who used to make a toad-in-the-hole. Just a meatball of ground pork and chopped bacon embedded into the beef patty. That’s when we really enjoyed eating the patty on its own, with some slices of bread.
This is a common sentiment. But, yes, like silenus, I pretty much find them the perfect hamburger. If I were limited to eating one hamburger for the rest of my life, it would be one from there.
I don’t care a bit about calories. I do not like the taste/texture/concept of fat. I love the taste of rare filet mignon, and prefer it to a NewYork Strip, where I have to trim off and throw away fat. To each his own!
Definitely not religious for me. In the abstract I like the idea: burgers are a decadent treat, and adding a bunch more fat to it oughtta make it even better, right? So bacon, cheese, onions grilled in beef fat should be bonus.
Except they’re not. I think it just tips the balance too far for me, or something. The burger’s delicious greasy heaviness needs lots of vegetables and acid condiments to offset it; add more greasy heaviness and it just isn’t as delicious to me.
I get what you’re saying and of course you should eat what works for you. When I want to get my beef bliss though, I want a steak. Either on or off a bun. Just last night, I had a wonderful grilled, thin cut ribeye on a toasted kaiser with just a touch or horseradish mayo.
Burgers and burger bliss are different though. It’s not about the beef. It’s about the combined whole. Beef plus cheese plus toasted bun plus fixins definitely equals something greater than the sum of its parts.
