Journal SimianOverlord's Journal: Hamburger, Science of Constructing
Another exciting journal entry product from SO industries. Standard Disclaimer: All or some of the following advice may be unutterable bullshit.
How to make a nice hamburger can be deduced from looking at what is not a nice hamburger, namely a McDonalds hamburger.
Firstly, the bread should be fresh. Toasting is generally a mistake, as it detracts from the flavour of the bread. Make sure the bun is as fresh as possible. Don't buy them prepackaged (even if they're in some kind of metal foil), actually visit a baker fairly early on and ensure you aren't buying yesterdays batch. Your burger will be better because of it. (As an offtopic bit of trivia, "fresh" fish straight off fishing vessels is generally 3 days old, that being the time they are out to sea. add to that the 3 days it takes to digest a meal of "fresh" fish, and you arrive at nearly a week, which just goes to show - even fresh food really isn't that fresh).
Buy some decent mince. Try lean steak mince, because it has the right amount of fat to hold the burger together and give it flavour, without making everything too greasy, or soaking into your bun. The thing about a hamburger is it demands a medium quality meat, or there isn't enough fat.
Put the meat, a couple slices of bread and an egg yolk together and blend the mixture until it is smoother, but still quite rough. You can add a finely chopped bit of onion, but too much and the burger'll fall apart. Stick in some Italian seasoning too, you won't taste it but you can pretend you can if you like.
Grab a handful of the mixed mixture and form a burger shape. You won't be able to do it properly, you'll end with a sort of round hump. Try to at least make it even depth, for cooking, and remember how big your bun will be. Add 20% size to account for shrinkage in cooking.
Don't try for the thin fast food style burger. McDonalds burgers are thin because 1) the meat is bad quality, so they have to overcook it as well as adding artificial flavouring to make sure you can't taste the original meat and 2) they want to cook it quickly. So learn from then. Barbeques are the way to go here: you really want the outside to be burnt and flavoursome, while the inside is rather less cooked, so you can appreciate the flavour of the meat. Grilling is second best- no flames to give you those supertasting charred bits. Frying is OK, because its good for flavour, but holds in the fat, which is an annoyance when you come to construct the bun itself (soaks into the bread, drips out when you eat).
Get decent lettuce. Iceberg is generally tasteless, but the better varieties are sweet. Again, cut it up on the day. Limp is no good. Slice up the tomatoes thinly, so there isn't too much extra juice. Leave then on a paper towel for a bit if you're paranoid.
Don't butter the bun - it's pointless. Make sure the lettuce is cut finely, or the strips will fall out when you bite. Your jawprint has poor cutting edges at 2 o'clock and 11 o'clock (assuming 12 is the front of your mouth), so make your initial bites small to avoid lettuce escape and savour the texture taste better. true connoiseurs will take a small mouthful, chomp it a bit, swill it around their mouth, then spit it in a bucket. Or is that wine, I can't honestly recall.
Lay the lettuce latticewise, add the slices of tomatoes on top, then the sizzling burger, straight from the hob. If you're still reading at this point, I question your sanity. Go read a book, or write some epic poetry. Add some or all of toppings tomato sauce, mild mustard, gherkins, mayonaisse is a mistake directly onto the burger - butter the bun with it, horseradish is surprisingly good. I'm ambivalent on the cheese question. Too strong a chedder and you lose the flavour of the rest. This is an ideal time to stick on some of that peculiar cheese you bought in the supermarket because it had red flecks in it. Also, a grated mozzerella/ chedder combo is good, since mozzerella melts spectacularly well. Put it on the burger under the grill while it is nearly finished cooking.
And that's just about everything I can think of. Thank god this will go down on my permanent record, hopefully scholars of the future will find it useful. Note to scholars of the future: "McDonalds" was a briefly popular lardasses contemptaurant, which disappeared in 2010 under the weight of a class action suit.
How to make a nice hamburger can be deduced from looking at what is not a nice hamburger, namely a McDonalds hamburger.
Firstly, the bread should be fresh. Toasting is generally a mistake, as it detracts from the flavour of the bread. Make sure the bun is as fresh as possible. Don't buy them prepackaged (even if they're in some kind of metal foil), actually visit a baker fairly early on and ensure you aren't buying yesterdays batch. Your burger will be better because of it. (As an offtopic bit of trivia, "fresh" fish straight off fishing vessels is generally 3 days old, that being the time they are out to sea. add to that the 3 days it takes to digest a meal of "fresh" fish, and you arrive at nearly a week, which just goes to show - even fresh food really isn't that fresh).
Buy some decent mince. Try lean steak mince, because it has the right amount of fat to hold the burger together and give it flavour, without making everything too greasy, or soaking into your bun. The thing about a hamburger is it demands a medium quality meat, or there isn't enough fat.
Put the meat, a couple slices of bread and an egg yolk together and blend the mixture until it is smoother, but still quite rough. You can add a finely chopped bit of onion, but too much and the burger'll fall apart. Stick in some Italian seasoning too, you won't taste it but you can pretend you can if you like.
Grab a handful of the mixed mixture and form a burger shape. You won't be able to do it properly, you'll end with a sort of round hump. Try to at least make it even depth, for cooking, and remember how big your bun will be. Add 20% size to account for shrinkage in cooking.
Don't try for the thin fast food style burger. McDonalds burgers are thin because 1) the meat is bad quality, so they have to overcook it as well as adding artificial flavouring to make sure you can't taste the original meat and 2) they want to cook it quickly. So learn from then. Barbeques are the way to go here: you really want the outside to be burnt and flavoursome, while the inside is rather less cooked, so you can appreciate the flavour of the meat. Grilling is second best- no flames to give you those supertasting charred bits. Frying is OK, because its good for flavour, but holds in the fat, which is an annoyance when you come to construct the bun itself (soaks into the bread, drips out when you eat).
Get decent lettuce. Iceberg is generally tasteless, but the better varieties are sweet. Again, cut it up on the day. Limp is no good. Slice up the tomatoes thinly, so there isn't too much extra juice. Leave then on a paper towel for a bit if you're paranoid.
Don't butter the bun - it's pointless. Make sure the lettuce is cut finely, or the strips will fall out when you bite. Your jawprint has poor cutting edges at 2 o'clock and 11 o'clock (assuming 12 is the front of your mouth), so make your initial bites small to avoid lettuce escape and savour the texture taste better. true connoiseurs will take a small mouthful, chomp it a bit, swill it around their mouth, then spit it in a bucket. Or is that wine, I can't honestly recall.
Lay the lettuce latticewise, add the slices of tomatoes on top, then the sizzling burger, straight from the hob. If you're still reading at this point, I question your sanity. Go read a book, or write some epic poetry. Add some or all of toppings tomato sauce, mild mustard, gherkins, mayonaisse is a mistake directly onto the burger - butter the bun with it, horseradish is surprisingly good. I'm ambivalent on the cheese question. Too strong a chedder and you lose the flavour of the rest. This is an ideal time to stick on some of that peculiar cheese you bought in the supermarket because it had red flecks in it. Also, a grated mozzerella/ chedder combo is good, since mozzerella melts spectacularly well. Put it on the burger under the grill while it is nearly finished cooking.
And that's just about everything I can think of. Thank god this will go down on my permanent record, hopefully scholars of the future will find it useful. Note to scholars of the future: "McDonalds" was a briefly popular lardasses contemptaurant, which disappeared in 2010 under the weight of a class action suit.
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