They Came, I Ground, We Ate: Which Cuts Make for the Best Burger?

The first question was what cuts were best to grind.  Which led me to another question: what exactly are we looking for in a hamburger?  Jeffrey Steingarten wrote a piece in Vogue (thank goodness Ed Levine recorded the results on A Hamburger Today, or we'd all be in the darkness that is food life without a subscription to Vogue, a magazine that refuses to share Steingarten on the Internet) asking just that question, and settled on the following important qualities: "...that the meat patty be profoundly beefy in flavor, mouthwateringly browned on the outside, and succulent (a combination of juicy and tender) on the inside."  This seems like as simple and good a definition as will ever be written.

Arriving at a burger with all three of those elements is elusive.  The cooking process is one part of it--whether the patty is grilled over open flame or seared on a griddle, how long, at what temperature--and the combination of cuts from the cow is another.  Most restaurants use a large quantity of chuck and combine it with cuts like brisket, sirloin, or flank steak.  Steingarten eventually decides--after attaching his mad-scientist mind to a series of inquiries and carrying out sundry experiments--that a combination of chuck, boneless short rib, and brisket is best.  I did some of my own research and found some intelligence about what the Shake Shack uses in their burgers, including the scoop on Danny Meyer's Blue Smoke burger, which may be the same grind as Shake Shack, as he owns both restaurants. 

I set off to the butcher (Los Paisanos on Smith St. in Brooklyn) the morning of the aforementioned burger party.  Unfortunately, they have a limited quantity of grass-fed beef available, but all their beef is of good quality, free of any antibiotics and optionally organic.  Though I would have preferred grass-fed, this was at least coming from a high-quality, experienced butcher shop.

Once inside, I ordered a random assortment of meats with the butcher's gruff Brooklyn advice, which is to say clipped and unsmiling but ultimately helpful.  I ended up with a couple pounds of stew meat (chuck), a couple pounds of sirloin, a pound and a half of untrimmed brisket (the untrimmed part is important, because the fat is important), and a pound and a half of short ribs (boned).

Brisket on the left, sirloin in the front, short ribs in the upper right corner, chuck in the top middle.

A couple hours before grinding, I put all the essential moving parts of my grinder into the freezer so they would be as cold as possible.  Then, I cut the meat into reasonably chunks, trimming off any overly grisly parts that would clog the grinder, and separated it into three different burger combinations:

The Shake Shack

The Steingarten

The Classic (i.e., whatever cuts i had left, mostly chuck and sirloin plus fat from the brisket)

I put the various chunks of beef into the freezer; they grind best if partially frozen.  The reason everything goes into the freezer is that cold temperatures are paramount--grinding generates heat, and heat melts fat.  If this starts to happen, the ratios will be all off and the burgers can get mealy.

Once ground, I formed them into loose patties--working the meat as little as possible is important so that the end result doesn't get too tough--and seasoned with salt. Each round of sliders were cooked on a medium-hot griddle until medium or so.

For toppings, we had homemade mayonnaise, caramelized onions, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and a wonderful selection of cheeses from our friend Tory: goat cheese infused with garlic and coated in peppercorns, Danish Blue, other melty things I can't remember.  For buns, we chose Martin's potato rolls, which are readily available in most grocery stores.  They have a good sweetness and are a good balance of sturdiness and softness--the bun should not go soggy under the meat's juices, but not be so hard that the patty or any toppings squeeze out when bites are taken.

Elin, queen of potato duty, boiled some red spuds for a cider vinegar and dill potato salad, and cut innumerable potatoes with Tory into matchsticks to make shoestring potatoes--the same ones the Spotted Pig serves with  their massive burger.  The recipe, from Jamie Oliver's latest, is fantastic; you only have to fry the sticks once because they're so thin, making them far less cumbersome than traditional French fries.  They come out airy and golden.

The results of the taste test?  Almost everyone liked the first burger, the Shake Shack, sirloin and brisket, the best.  It was the most straightforward beefy, juicy option.  The Steingarten came in second, as it was certainly beefy but almost had too much going on, lacking a clean taste.  The final burger nobody mentioned because they were all too full and drunk to say anything.  Though I liked it.

The results of this survey are quite unscientific: a couple of problems present themselves.  First, cooking 36 burgers does not allow much control over the delicate texture and doneness of each; it's unlikely that the burgers were cooked the same from round to round.  And second, sliders are not the best way to bite into a burger and taste that juicy beefiness; they're too insubstantial.

In the end, though, all the burgers were better than they would have been with pre-ground beef, and the process was both novel and delicious.  If you don't have a meat grinder, perhaps you have a food processor--that is another tool that works well.  Instead of grinding the meat, you'll be chopping it, which is actually the way they used to do it, by hand.  Just put the cuts in and pulse it one pulse at a time until the texture is right.  Some chefs even prefer this method.

Whatever further adventures my meat grinder holds, I know quite certainly that my mixer will not be gathering dust.  Not with summer coming and all those burgers to eat.