How To Make The Most Flavorful Burger, According To Andrew Zimmern
As long as you keep one eye on the grill and flip evenly and periodically, it's hard to mess up a burger. That being said, making a perfectly seasoned hamburger is a whole other ball game. It takes a true grill and beef master to create a mouthwatering burger packed with flavor. "Family Dinner" host and renowned chef Andrew Zimmern would argue making a flavorful burger is a science within itself. It all comes down to how you prep the meat, time on the grill, and as you probably already guessed, the method and type of seasoning.
Luckily for meat lovers, Zimmern and his staff took the liberty of breaking the whole process down, from the kind of meat you should be buying to the exact amount of minutes the patty should spend on the heat (via Andrew Zimmern). They spoke with New Jersey butcher Pat LaFrieda to get the inside scoop on grinding beef at home, and what seasons you should and shouldn't be adding to your burger.
You have to ground the meat twice, according to Zimmern
First things first, you need to know how much beef to get, Pat LaFrieda said in the interview. For five pounds of ground beef, you'll need to order about 2.7 pounds chuck, 1.3 pounds clod, .7 pounds brisket, and .3 pounds short rib (via Andrew Zimmern's blog). Five pounds is enough for about 20 hamburgers, depending on how thick you roll them, according to One Pot Dish.
Prepare and cut all the beef as if you're going to feed it through the meat grinder. Then, organize the beef on a baking sheet and pop it in the freezer until it's stiff to the touch. Doing so will help speed up the grinding process as colder meats tend to grind faster. Once the beef is stiff, proceed with grinding the meat using the attachment with the larger holes. If it feels like the machine is working overtime or meat is coming out more slowly, it could be "clogged." This is an easy fix, just remove any excess meat that may be blocking the grinder.
After grinding the meat, use your hands to mix all the beef together. You want a harmonious mixture so the flavors are evenly balanced. Once incorporated, run that mixture through the grinder one more time using the disk with the smaller holes.
Salt before grilling, add pepper after
Many may think that the trick to creating the perfectly seasoned burger is rubbing a wild mix of seasonings to the raw hamburger patty, but Pat LaFrieda and Zimmern warn that is not the case (via Andrew Zimmern's blog). However, before you even get to the flavor stage, you have to form your patties. The best way to do this is by weighing six ounces of ground beef using a kitchen scale and shaping it into a loosely formed patty. Try not to over handle the meat.
Onto the seasoning. Prior to throwing the burgers on the grill, add salt. If you enjoy your hamburgers medium-rare, aim to grill each side of the patty for about three to four minutes. In the meantime, prep your toppings like lettuce, tomatoes, onion, sauce, etc. Upon taking the burgers off the grill, grind fresh black pepper over each patty. That's it! Andrew Zimmern stands in agreement that grinding your own beef and keeping the seasonings simple is the best way to make a flavorful burger. "It's not just the flavor that impresses, the texture is far and away superior to anything you can buy at the store," he wrote on Instagram.