Finding Burger! (Part 2)

In my mind, all the secrets to the perfect burger were supposed to be locked up in the patty. It had to be packed with flavour from corner to corner. Afterall if you were a real burger snob, it would just be the burger and the bun.

I put this to the team, and we got to work.

The thing is, you’re tempted to add the whole pantry to the mixture in the hope of getting it right. But the more ingredients we threw in, the more binding agents we needed and the further we drifted from the idea of a 100% beef burger.

Then came the dietary and allergen nightmare:

“I’m allergic to garlic.”

“No onion in my food, thanks.”

And so on.

So we started stripping it back, first the garlic, then the onion, then the mixed herbs. We held on to the idea that we needed eggs for binding, but even that slowly started to fall away as we reduced the quantity. Still, it nagged at us: we didn’t have full control over what was going into the patty.

The solution was right in front of us. We needed to take full control of the meat itself.

At first, we used whatever trimmings were available, aiming for an approximate 70/30 beef-to-fat ratio. But the results were inconsistent, some patties were rich and juicy, others dry and forgettable.

Finally, in late 2012, we decided enough was enough.

We set specific criteria for our burger. We sat down as a team and carefully selected the beef cuts we thought would taste best in a burger. It had to be about purity. It had to be about 100% beef.