The Grand Burger Challenge - Round One - The Homemade Burger
*Trumpet fanfare*
That’s right folks; Round 1 of The Grand Burger Challenge is complete.
The first contender for the crown is my own homemade beef burger. I decided to go with my own first as I was in a burgery kind of mood, had all the stuff sitting there ready to go and I love making them. I like the tactile side of it, all the chopping and mixing and then shaping. It’s fun. The quality of the end result usually rises proportionally to how much effort you put into it and you can bung in pretty much whatever you fancy and see how it goes.
Obviously this time it was deadly serious though so I stuck with the following;
The Burger Mix:
- Roughly 500g beef mince from the local butcher
- Onion – finely chopped
- Parsley – coarsely chopped
- Between ¼ and ½ a teaspoon of ground cumin and coriander
- A generous pinch of chilli flakes
- A couple of pinches of salt
- A few twists of black pepper
I quite often put a teaspoon of mustard and chopped gherkin into the mix, but I left it out this time.
No great shakes or tricks here, it’s just a case of getting the lot in a bowl, mixing it by hand and squashing it into patties about an inch think and the size of a coaster.
I fired up the barbecue (gas grill really) and left it to heat up to about 275°C, which is pretty much as hot as it gets, the idea being to try and sear the outside of the patty as quickly as possible to keep the inside all juicy. The temperature drops pretty fast when you lift the lid so you gotta be quick!
While the barbecue/grill was heating up I prepped the buns. Now I can see you shaking your head at the fact that I chose to use brown wholemeal buns and not traditional burger buns. I like both, but I find the wholemeal buns add a nice malty flavour and really soak up the juice from the burgers, so I tend to prefer them.
The bun base was spread with mayo and a few layers of lettuce (crunchy and floppy stuff) and some gherkins sliced length ways were added. The top of the bun got a generous squirt of ketchup.
As soon as the barbecue was hot enough the burgers and some sliced onions went on the grill, the lid was shut and the fantastic smells started to build up. I must have left them for about 3-4 minutes each side as they were pretty thick. The smell really was incredible; a thick meaty aroma spiced with cumin and roasted onion.
The smell is neither here nor there if the burger is useless though, right? So how did they turn out?
First the good; I managed to get the seasoning really well balanced, better than I ever have before. The cumin wasn’t overpowering and brought a real depth of flavour to the meat, and there was a very slight build of chilli as we ate. The pickles were nice and tart and the onions sweet, sticky and slightly burnt. The buns were indeed malty and held together well. The burnt bits on the outside of the burger were glorious.
Unfortunately the burgers were slightly over done. They were very slightly pink in the middle but I usually like my burgers medium and they definitely lost some of their juiciness. It’s a damn shame, but these things happen. The parsley didn’t really add much with all those other flavours around but it does look nice.
So overall it was a good burger experience but it didn’t change my life or anything. I was secretly hoping for burger juice dripping off my chin and a ‘perfect hamburger’ moment, but it was not meant to be.
Not sure if it’ll be enough to win but it’s set a reasonably high bench mark.
