My whole life I’ve always hated burgers that you get from fast food/restaurants. It’s just a bland beef patty with a bunch of toppings that make it a pain to eat. These places advertise their burgers as being “100% Angus Beef!” or whatever, like that makes it appetizing… Why is this the norm? Do people just not know any better?
I learned how to make burgers from my dad and our approach is completely different. It’s all about the patty, not about the mountain of toppings. We throw onions, garlic, bell peppers, egg, worcestershire, salt and pepper (anything you want really) into a blender. Blend it all up and incorporate it directly into the beef. Then you shape your patties. This method makes the actual burger patty delicious, you could eat it as is if you wanted (which we sometimes do).
I’ve yet to meet anyone who didn’t prefer our burgers. Try it and you’ll never go back to those bland meat disks.
The 100% beef isn’t about the added flavors, it is about not including meat from other animals or other parts of the same animal as filler. For example, 100% angus beef means all of the beef came from the muscles of angus cows, not other types of cows or other parts of the angus cow.
The implication is that the meat is higher quality, not that is tastes better or is unflavored.
It is of course still marketing to increase the amount of meat sold.
That’s a good point and I never even thought about it that way.
The 100% beef is really just about it not having fillers added. Fast food seasons with at least salt.
Personally I think there’s a line between what you add to a burger and it still being a burger. I draw the line at more than dry seasonings. Better beef, or a better blend of cuts will have a bigger impact on taste. The other toppings are meant to be separate to provide contrasting textures and enhance the flavor.
Yeah I was gonna say McDicks at least seasons their burgers with salt and pepper. You can see the pepper if you look at the bare patty. I don’t think seasoning the burger takes away from the “100% beef”. McDongles burgers are garbage because they’re frozen, low quality meat, cooked by a guy sweating his ass off making minimum wage with nothing to potentially make it better assuming if they wanted to.
Man I have some real hate for the good ol’ McCrongles beef burgers since I know and love how to cook my own burger. And I don’t even get the good beef, it’s just the regular stuff. And even if my patties were frozen, they still taste 85/90% of the way to fresh to me. I’m no purist or connaisseur, but darn even a fresh patty @ McHongles has to be pretty gnarly already.
Good thing they have breaded chicken!
The freezing and low quality beef are big problems. You also want a bit more fat than what a McDonald’s burger generally has.
Surprisingly large amount to unpack here. First is just marketing techniques, which are not really intended to speak to people’s rational minds. More often its about influencing people’s feelings by taking advantage of people’s looser impressions, in this case the one of purity = good. This isn’t strictly rational, it’s just a feeling, and the marketing is designed to target this subconscious impression with a quick and easy hook.
Next, from a culinary perspective, a pure ground beef patty does need to be cooked properly, and that’s harder than it sounds. You want high heat and a quick sear to get a good crust on it, these Maillard reactions are what you’re going for to develop a robust and complex flavor in your beef. Also need a generous salting. Most places fuck some part of this technique up, but when done well it gives the straight beef a certain degree of depth that many find appealing. It’s actually counter-productive to this process to add anything with water content, as the extra water will inhibit the beef from quickly reaching the necessary temps along its exterior to get these crusty bits, just by virtue of water’s low boiling point.
But, in the event you want complex flavor without having to muck around with very specific cooking technique, you can add complex flavors in other ways. Onion can provide sweetness, Worchestershire can add depth, something like smoked paprika, chipolte or liquid smoke can add a smokey component etc, all of which can add deliciousness. This all has the added benefit of extra nutrition and stretching the more expensive meat into more patties as well. This method is far more certain in its results, since the extra flavor components are already there, making the whole thing much more forgiving when it comes to the actually cooking process. All this really costs you is a few minutes of extra prep work and having to deal with burger purists potentially talking about meat loaf sandwiches.
So, at the end of the day, several viable techniques exist that can produce solid results, and have their own subtle pros and cons. This more elaborate understanding does not fit well from a marketing perspective, however, where the advertiser just wants the quickest and cheapest way to create an impression in your brain, accurate or not.
Thus, ultimately, I fully agree with you.
There used to be a lot of rumors that some fast food chains used soy or meat from some other animal to stretch the beef to be able sell the burgers so cheap.
The chains advertising 100% beef are probably still reacting to these rumors.
So… you are making sausage.
My secret to enhancing beef flavor without changing it is to use Tsuru Bishio, Worcestershire, salt, and MSG. As soon as you add something like egg, garlic, or anything else into the ground meat, you’ve made sausage and it tastes like sausage. It’s not a burger any more.
Here are my tricks, which I use on steak as well as burgers:
Add a small amount of Tsuru Bishio (a thick, dark, deeply umami, barrel aged soy sauce) and Worcestershire to the ground meat (or rub on the surface of the steak). Mix well.
Form the meat into balls and preheat your pan/griddle. Dust the balls with salt and msg.
Slice an onion paper-thin. Using a mandolin is strongly recommended. Toss with a tiny bit of high-heat oil and salt.
Throw all the onions on the griddle and then throw the meatballs on top. Cover and let look for a minute or two (depending on your heat).
Make sure your griddle is draining. Pour out grease if needed.
Move the onions around a bit and then roll the meatballs over and smash them hard into the onions. Cover and cook another minute or two, then flip one more time. Now is the time to add cheese if you want.
The goal here is to try and elevate the umami without changing the flavor of the beef. You want it to taste like the “beefiest” thing you’ve ever eaten. The Tsuru Bishio and Worcestershire help give the beef an “aged” flavor while the salt and msg draw out more of the beefs natural “beefiness”. Onion fried in beef fat (rendered from the patties themselves) adds a very deep, caramelized umami flavor (like french onion soup) that complements and elevates the beef without overpowering or conflicting with it. It absorbs and captures the beef-fat flavor that otherwise would have been wasted. It also helps keep the mouthfeel “juicy”.
OP probably makes a delicious sandwich, but once you add too much to the pattie it stops being a hamburger. If you want to try something new instead of the Oklahoma smash (which yeah, is a fucking OG burger) make some onion and mustard jam. Shit is fucking tight on burgers.
The difference between good burgers and fast food burgers is all in the fat content, the grind, the seasoning and the chef. Fast food burgers are too processed, underseasoned and next to impossible to fuck up cooking unless your a 15yo working for peanuts and dont give a fuck. IMO for a classic burger all you need is 80/20 coarse grind beef (2 patties), salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder. 2 slices of American cheese (I dont care how fake it is, I’m not American and its what needs to go on a burger) a few pickles, American mustard and some diced raw onions. Oh… and a bun.
Im sorry but i draw the line at blending onions. Eviscersting an onion like that would just make it pungent as fuck. Carmelize the onions while you cook the patty, or just raw on top is plenty fine.
You put it in a blender? I make my burgers just like you said, but usually put everything together and then mix it with the beef. You put it all in the blender? Doesn’t it break?
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