Tuesday, April 29, 2008

With burgers, less is more

I am ashamed to say that despite my enthusiasm for grilling and my skill with steaks, vegetables, deserts and pork on the grill and smoker I have never been able to make a good hamburger ... until this weekend.

The last time I made (crumbly) burgers I talked with Laura about them and she theorized that I was doing to much. As is turn out, I was. I had been taking the ground beef and mashing it up with spices and rubs and BBQ sauce and then watching the burgers fall apart or morph into meatballs over the fire.

This time, after her motivational talk, I took the 90-percent-lean beef in the tray (a little over a pound) and broke it into four sections. I then gingerly patted the beef into round patties, hit them with a few shakes of pepper, a shake of BBQ spice and a few drops of liquid smoke. When I cooked them I put them on the bottom rack for one flip and them moved them to the top rack while I grilled the corn, cooked the beans and grilled steak strips for fajitas.
BAM! Perfect hamburgers. I was way over-doing it all along.

The moral of the story: Less is more, and Laura knows all.

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