Arrrgh, what an utter disaster. The ground beef won’t stick together; it’s falling apart even before I tried to cook it. I only now read that I need fatty beef (no idea how fatty it is) AND it was the wrong thing to do to microwave thaw it. AND it took me almost five minutes to get the feeling of grease off my hands from my futile attempts to shape the stuff. Now I have no dinner, and thawed ground beef that I have nothing to do with. Worst part, the meat is ruined; I know I shouldn’t recool the beef again, because by thawing it, I just introduced bacteria.
Some tips from a guy who makes too many George Foreman burgers:
When forming the burgers, put the meat on a sheet of wax paper, then fold the wax paper over the meat. Now form it. This way you don’t actually touch the meat, and you can more easily flip the patties over and back again as you form them. Keeps your hands clean. (I was forced to do this when I had poison ivy on my hands last summer, and never stopped doing it this way even when I didn’t need to. It rocks.) Also, in general to deal with greasy hands you want to use Dawn.
Thaw the meat for 24 hours (not longer than 48 hours) in the refrigerator or 6-8 hours on the counter. Never in a microwave. (Beef and microwave don’t mix.) Then cook for 6 minutes assuming two 1/4 pound patties. If they’re a little thin, 5.5 minutes is fine, if a little thick 7 minutes is better. I never flip them or bother to check for doneness; I can tell they’re done by sight.
I typically get a 2-pound pack of ground beef once a month or so. I split it into four roughly equal parts. One gets cooked up (split into two burgers) immediately, the other three parts get individually saran wrapped and stuffed into a big ziploc bag for freezing. This makes a total of 8 burgers, which is perfect for one package of buns. Those buns last up to three weeks if you refrigerate them immediately. Lightly toast them in a toaster oven and they’re fine.
I don’t season the meat, but there’s no reason you can’t.
Dice at least half an onion. If you have other veggies, such as garlic, celery, bell pepper, and mushroom, for instance, dice them too. Throw in skillet with some oil (olive oil is the favorite of most people, but I vastly prefer butter). Brown and crumble beef and onion and optional veggies all together. Time for some sauce. Either make a cream or brown sauce, or a marinara sauce, or use a canned cream of something soup, or use canned gravy. Add this to the meat and veggie mix. Serve this over some sort of starch. Egg noodles, some sort of pasta, rice, or even plain white bread (toasted is better, but untoasted is OK too). Or use a white or brown sauce, mix with the egg noodles or other pasta or (cooked) rice, add some peas or mixed vegetables, top with some sort of grated cheese, and put it in the oven until the cheese melts. Now you have a casserole.
I will suggest you purchase preformed patties since you are grossed out by the grease on your hands. They come preformed as fresh hamburger or frozen. You can also throw the frozen patties in the grill without freezing.