Cooking: Hamburgers!
Jun. 16th, 2009 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserI've never cooked a hamburger. It's probably been twenty or so years since I had anything other than a fast food burger. However, after making meat loaf with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tersa, we had a good deal of meat left. I tossed it into the freezer to wait until I could buy buns so I could try making burgers.
Buns in hand, I was ready to cook!
...that statement sounds more wrong than it was.
How hard could cooking a burger be? Shape it into a patty, toss it... um... into a broiler pan? Frying pan? Save me, Google! Okay, frying pan it is! Most sites said medium-high heat, four minutes on one side, two to four on the other. Sounds simple!
How the heck are burgers supposed to stay together? I patted and shaped and pressed my meat (oh baby!), but I couldn't make nice round patties that would stay together. Oh well! Once the frying pan was hot, I tossed the misshapen things in.
The fire department arrived soon after.
Okay, not really, but it was a mad scramble to get the battery out of my smoke alarm.
All sites said to cook it until it was 160 in the center, but I'm starting to wonder how accurate my meat thermometer is. At the eight minute mark (four per side) they were only 100 degrees inside. I checked them every two minutes, but they never got over 130. By the sixteen minute mark (double the time needed for thicker burgers!) I just took them out.
My first thought, before tasting them, was that it was totally not worth it. My apartment was full of greasy smoke. Corner to corner, all rooms, all the laundry I had just washed and hung up to dry, covered in greasy smoke. (I swear, my floors feel slick!) Then I tried one.
Oh. My. God. So good! They were a little (or a lot) burned on the outside and not pink at all in the middle, so I'm guessing they were cooked. So good! I inhaled them. And, unlike fast food burgers, I didn't need to set them swimming in condiments -- just a small dab of mayo and a squeeze of ketchup.
My apartment is still an issue. I think I can only do this when I can have all the windows open (it's hot today, so I have the AC on and everything closed up), and I need to bring my big box fans in and set them up. I can't believe how much smoke these things made! And my poor pan is going to need a scrubbin'.
Still: Best burgers I've eaten in twenty or so years! :D
tersa, we had a good deal of meat left. I tossed it into the freezer to wait until I could buy buns so I could try making burgers.Buns in hand, I was ready to cook!
...that statement sounds more wrong than it was.
How hard could cooking a burger be? Shape it into a patty, toss it... um... into a broiler pan? Frying pan? Save me, Google! Okay, frying pan it is! Most sites said medium-high heat, four minutes on one side, two to four on the other. Sounds simple!
How the heck are burgers supposed to stay together? I patted and shaped and pressed my meat (oh baby!), but I couldn't make nice round patties that would stay together. Oh well! Once the frying pan was hot, I tossed the misshapen things in.
The fire department arrived soon after.
Okay, not really, but it was a mad scramble to get the battery out of my smoke alarm.
All sites said to cook it until it was 160 in the center, but I'm starting to wonder how accurate my meat thermometer is. At the eight minute mark (four per side) they were only 100 degrees inside. I checked them every two minutes, but they never got over 130. By the sixteen minute mark (double the time needed for thicker burgers!) I just took them out.
My first thought, before tasting them, was that it was totally not worth it. My apartment was full of greasy smoke. Corner to corner, all rooms, all the laundry I had just washed and hung up to dry, covered in greasy smoke. (I swear, my floors feel slick!) Then I tried one.
Oh. My. God. So good! They were a little (or a lot) burned on the outside and not pink at all in the middle, so I'm guessing they were cooked. So good! I inhaled them. And, unlike fast food burgers, I didn't need to set them swimming in condiments -- just a small dab of mayo and a squeeze of ketchup.
My apartment is still an issue. I think I can only do this when I can have all the windows open (it's hot today, so I have the AC on and everything closed up), and I need to bring my big box fans in and set them up. I can't believe how much smoke these things made! And my poor pan is going to need a scrubbin'.
Still: Best burgers I've eaten in twenty or so years! :D
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 02:12 am (UTC)We use a burger press and parchment paper to make round patties, but it took a few different tries to find a press that worked well. But lumpy burgers taste perfectly fine too!
I toss an egg into the mix to help the meat stick together, and season it with garlic salt. Good quality ground beef tend not to need too much seasoning.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 02:26 am (UTC)Yes! They were oddly shaped and falling apart, but still tasted great!
And oh, an egg would have been a good idea! I even have one, which is rare! (I haven't figured out how to get my cat to lay them yet...)