Holy ****, that was a good burger! (The Burger Chronicles, Chpt. XIX)

tiger roach

Urban Bovine Knievel
Well, I'm officially back to grillin' 'em.

Any of you who have read my previous burger posts may recall that I've been on a Quest for the perfect burger for a while now. I have learned to bake my own buns, grind my own meat. And in recent months, I have been questioning my Christian upbringing and the wisdom of grilling over cooking them on a flattop.

I blame it on watching too much food porn - flattop frying over grilling is all the rage these days, and sure, it does produce a juicy burger and an intimate connection between the diner and the cattlebeef.

But you give up the flame-broiled, backyard flavor of our forefathers. And frying on the stovetop creates a huge, wife-displeasing, greasy mess, and a smoky house. And there is no reason a grilled burger needs to be dry (as they, admittedly, usually are). More on that later.

So today is my work Friday, but I decided to take a PTO day and enjoy the amazing fall weather. Slept in, hit a bucket of golf balls, had a great run. And decided lunch would be a good time to renew my Quest.

The idea was to take the Big Green Egg up into 700 deg.-plus, steak-searing temperatures. Cook it fast & hot, get a good sear to seal in the juices. I got two half-pound patties from the deli section at HEB - I wanted them to be approximately steak-sized, since they would be cooked using proven steak technology. I thawed out some of my home-baked buns that I had in the freezer.

It worked. Like a good steak, the patty had a good sear and retained plenty of juice. It was just a hair past medium-rare, red inside but still hot. And enough grilled flavor to put any flattop to shame. It was added to the delicious bread with deli mustard, a dab of unsugared ketchup, red onion, and heirloom tomato.

Thank God I decided not to work today...

Next weekend I will do it this way for a group, with fresh-ground meat and fresh-out-of-the-oven buns. Pics to follow! :)
 
Have to admit I've been fascinated by the Big Green Egg since I saw one when buying a washer and dryer. However, the prices are :run:
 
Yeah they are a little costy. But they do last a lot longer than an inexpensive metal grill. And they make the most out of small amounts of charcoal.
 
Never heard of Big Green Egg before, I'll have to look in to them further.

Oh, and make my burger medium at least. I don't want to hear any mooing when I bite into it :embarrassed:
 
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