I’m going to be 47 this July, I think I am a decent cook, and am always looking to learn new things and improve/perfect the dishes I do know how to cook. My wife loves the big, thick hamburgers, but despite numerous adjustments I’ve not been able to hit that stride with thick burgers. If I frying pan cook them the whole way through, the outside gets burned and I don’t like burned food. If I cook at a lower temp it takes a lot longer and the burgers seem to get tougher.
So a few months ago I was making burgers and didn’t really have time to carmelize the onion first, which takes about 45 minutes. Mom taught me and my sisters how to make the perfect carmelized onion, which only requires onions sliced into cirles or half circles, lots of butter, and a LOT of patience. I decided to just chop the onion into some really small pieces, put some butter in the frying pan, and cook them with the burgers. Small little bits of onion get browned and carmelized a lot faster. I noticed that with the frying pan filled with butter, the burgers still got a little browned, but not blackened like they normally do. So the next few times I made burgers I put a lot of butter in the frying pan, and they came out a lot better and I didn’t have to cut the burned bits off before eating them. Really awesome, and everyone loved them.
But this seems to contradict logic. When you cook most things in butter at a medium temp or higher, they burn/blacken a lot more. Unless you move them around constantly like I do with the carmelized onion. Yet my butter burgers are LESS burned this way.
Anyways I thought I’d share this and see if anyone had any comments.
BTW I made Mattloaf (meatloaf) burgers by mixing the ground meat with egg, beef soup mix, a few pieces of bread sprinkled with water (I know most people use bread crumbs with meat loaf but I use fresh white bread). They turned out awesome and are going on our regular menu…
If I can get the burger to burn just a bit on the outside while still being soft and at least a little pink in the middle, that’s ideal to me. After the burger starts cooking, it’s basically sitting in its own grease, which does not wash that tasty char away. Probably that means it’s not soluable in fat. I fear that maybe the high water content in butter would carry that flavor away in a way that doesn’t happen with other sources of fat. That’s just spitballing a possible action principle involved.
Speaking of butter, I was mentioning to a guy I know that in my opinion, 85% lean in just right for burgers, with the common 93% being for things like taco meat and 73% being basically a trap for the unwary who think of price point first. He said that his mother always bought the leanest meat she could find, so in order to make a decent burger he would knead butter into the meat before forming patties. That would of course also contribute flavor. Probably pretty good.
I found the easiest way to have a burger cooked all the way through without burning the outside is to make sure the burger is thawed out before cooking it.
The 73% meat is fine for burgers, although I tend to prefer the 80-20. I don’t like the 85-15 around here, as it’s usually round, which is not a terribly flavorful or beefy cut. 80-20 chuck rules, although the rare occasion I grind my own, I do brisket at probably something around 65-70% fat if I’m making thin style fast-food burgers that are going to be cooked all the way through (well done.)
As for the OP, if it worked, great! You can actually do caramelized onions in a jiffy (under 15 minutes–about 12 minutes) if you use a high heat technique. (And I mean serious, deep-brown caramelization.) It’s what I do because it works well for me and I don’t usually have the foresight or patience to do it the slower way. But it does require paying attention, so it’s not so much a set-it-and-forget it. You have a technique that works for you and that you like, so please continue using that, but if you or anyone else is interested in getting last-minute caramelized onions on the table see here.
I don’t see 80-20 often, possibly because I’m biased toward burger on sale. But at 85% lean, I find I have a lot of control over the size and moistness of the cooked burger. 73% shrinks a lot, and 93% tends to be quite dry. At 85%, a 200 g patty shaped to a 15 cm round shrinks down in the cooking to barely overlap a 10 cm giant hamburger bun.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Have you tried a lid on the frypan for thick burgers?
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I’ll try that next time, it would cook the burgers faster.
[QUOTE=up_the_junction]
At that level of care, why don’t you just cook regular meat instead of random pieces of unknown provenance?
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What?
This isn’t the “Urban Jungle” days anymore… And I do cook and like a lot of different types of beef. But that’s another thread.
I don’t usually freeze ground meat, and the few times I do I’ll put it in the fridge to thaw the day before I want to cook it. Unless you mean bringing the ground meat to room temp? I usually take it out 15-20 mins before cooking. Not a prob with regular burgers, but the thicker ones still got burned on the outside before the middle was done until I started using the butter.
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
As for the OP, if it worked, great! You can actually do caramelized onions in a jiffy (under 15 minutes–about 12 minutes) if you use a high heat technique. (And I mean serious, deep-brown caramelization.) It’s what I do because it works well for me and I don’t usually have the foresight or patience to do it the slower way. But it does require paying attention, so it’s not so much a set-it-and-forget it. You have a technique that works for you and that you like, so please continue using that, but if you or anyone else is interested in getting last-minute caramelized onions on the table see here.
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I’ve tried this before and every time at least some of the onions were burned. There’s very little room for error at the high temp, so I usually stick to the longer ‘slightly above medium heat’ method. I don’t mind taking the extra time, and I use 3-4 yellow onions to get enough browned onion for 2-3 more meals.
I usually go 80-20 ground meat, which seems to give me the nicest and juiciest burgers. I tried going 93-7 ground beef for a while, but they came out a little too dry.
By the way, you can caramalize onion in about 10 minutes by putting a lid on and deglazing with 1/4 cup of water each time the pan is dry (every 2-3 minutes about 4-5 times).
CairoCarol’s three tips for delicious burgers, whether grilled or pan-fried:
As recommended by Steve Raichlen’s The Barbeque! Bible, make herbed butter (just soften some butter, stir in some fresh chopped herbs, and chill) and put a pat of it in the center of each burger patty as you shape it.
This one’s from the mother of my first boyfriend: before you form the patties, put some cubed bread into the ground beef, and enough water to make the bread soggy, then mix.
My own addition - season the ground beef with Adobo seasoning from Penzey’s. I usually look down on spice mixes, but this one is a winner. (I think it’s cumin, white pepper, garlic, and maybe onion and 1-2 other dried ground spices).
