How Michael Symon Prevents Hamburgers From Puffing On The Grill
If you're looking for sage burger wisdom, it's hard to do better than Michael Symon as a source of that knowledge. As Food Network explains, bon appétit magazine included his B Spot restaurant in its list of the top 10 best new burger joints in 2010, and that same year, B Spot's Fat Doug Burger earned the People's Choice Award given at the SoBe Wine & Food Festival.
Through the years, Symon has shared an ultimate bacon cheddar burger recipe with Good Morning America and his take on a classic burger with The Chew. The Iron Chef has also starred in a "Burgers, Brew & 'Que" series on Food Network, further expounding upon his burger expertise. Through all those opportunities, he has shared a lot of burger tips, like how he prefers a 90/10 fat ratio of ground beef for his beef and chorizo stuffed burger recipe, per Food Network.
One home cook sought out Symon's advice on how to keep burgers in shape on the grill and Symon shared his easy solution for doing exactly that.
Symon's trick for beautiful patties
To avoid burger patties losing their shape as they cook on a grill, Symon recommends using the simplest of cooking tools at your disposal — a thumb. One Twitter user tweeted at Symon, asking, "Hi Chef, when I form hamburgers from ground beef and grill them, they tend to puff up or expand as they cook. How can I avoid this? Thanks." Symon responded, "thumb print in middle of burger before you put on .. im guessing you have brisket in your blend as brisket tends to puff."
This strategy isn't a Michael Symon exclusive, however. The Kitchn reports that Bobby Flay made the same recommendation in 2011. Flay also gave the advice of pressing your thumb into the center of the patty to avoid the burgers bulging as they cook. In addition, Flay said that can help you avoid another one of the 14 mistakes everyone makes when cooking burgers. The Reluctant Gourmet elaborated on the same point of resisting the urge to use your spatula to push down on a burger patty as it is cooking. Among the reasons to avoid doing so are because putting pressure on the patties expunges their juices and that can make your burgers less flavorful.
The trick to resisting that urge and keeping your patties in top form is literally at your fingertips. If you put it into practice, you can make patties that Symon himself might give a thumbs up to.