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!
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!