Craig Winzer
Burgers. Surely the all-American food. Citywide “best burger” polls are perennially popular. Burgers now come in all varieties, from the prototypical ground beef to bison, turkey, lamb, salmon, ostrich, black bean, beet and walnut, and textured vegetable protein. And there are as many toppings and seasonings to tart up a burger as there are, well, toppings and seasonings.
But all of these can be elements of disguise. How do you make a really, really good simple burger at home?
Tip Top Tavern owner Ben Altschul says the first step to the perfect burger is asking, “Where’s the beef from?”
“If you’re working with lousy meat, you are going to end up with a Salisbury steak,” Altschul says. “You want a really nice balance between fat and lean meat. That’s ultimately going to produce the texture and determine the juiciness.”
Former New York Times food writer and cookbook author Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything, recommends grinding your own meat. “The key is to avoid packaged ground meat,” Bittman wrote in a 2007 column for the Times. “You have no way of knowing whether the meat came from high- or low-quality animals. It could come from dozens of animals, and they could all be poor-quality animals — old dairy cows, for instance, rather than cattle raised for beef. The meat from these animals is ground together in huge quantities.”
Yum.
Bittman recommends grinding your own hamburger meat from a better cut so you know what you have. “Take a nice-looking chuck roast, or well-marbled sirloin steaks or some pork or lamb shoulder. Cut the meat into one- to two-inch cubes, and pulse it with the regular steel blade [of a food processor] until it’s chopped.
In this Blue Apron era, many people are not going to take time to grind their own meat. So next stop: the butcher shop.
The Conscious Carnivore on University Avenue sells two special ground meats for hamburgers, says butcher Sam Price. “We do a 40-day aged chuck that makes a really beefy, hearty burger,” says Price. The other is a 30 percent beef heart, 70 percent ground beef blend that Price terms amazing: “The heart is a muscle, and like any muscle, the more it works, the more marbling, the more flavor it has. And that guy never stops.”
Price cooks burgers simply, with just a little salt and pepper, and will eat them “just like a steak,” without a bun.
Next, the patty itself. While some burger lovers prefer a thick, meaty patty, the folks at Forequarter prefer their burgers thin, crispy and stacked. “We like that because it maximizes the surface area,” says line manager Maggie Roovers. “You get the most of that crispy, browned flavor that you can get.”
At Forequarter, patties are just 2.5 ounces each, making them easy to overcook. Roovers recommends frying the burger in a “blazing hot” cast iron skillet that’s been lubricated with an oil that has a high smoke point, such as grapeseed oil, and cooking it for less than a minute per side. “As long as the oil is hot, you’ll get that sear really fast,” she says. “That’s our secret here, I think.”
The Tip Top’s Altschul recommends cooking the meat with a “mindful approach that engages all the senses.”
“It starts with touch. You must delicately form the patty, you don’t want to overwork it. You’ll know the grill is the right temperature — hot but not too hot — by the sound the burger makes when you catch the perfect sear. When you see just a little bit of blood ooze out, that indicates the burger is a perfect medium-rare,” Altschul says. “The smell of a burger cooking will let you know where the burger is at in the cooking process. It’s important to be in the moment. One with the burger.”
Altschul recommends letting the burger rest for a few minutes after cooking to allow the juices to settle, just as with grilling a steak.
Finishing the burger doesn’t have to be complex. Mark Kroon, the owner of Players Sports Bar and Grill, believes that “appearance is 90 percent” of what makes a great burger. Perhaps his background in the Army informs his military-precise approach to cooking and presentation, but he swears it makes the food taste better, too.
Kroon uses simple, high-quality ingredients like fresh meat from Jenifer Street Market and thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon. Top it off with lettuce, tomato and cheese, and you have a winner.
“We put butter on the bun, and seasoning salts right on the bun,” he says. “That makes it a nice, toasty brown.
The Caribou Tavern, known for its ‘Bou Burger, has been flipping burgers the same way for more than 40 years. Co-owner Julie Schmelzkopf says the ‘Bou’s signature patty is made from one-third pound of ground chunk brought in daily from the Jenifer Street Market.
“We keep it simple. No big secret or anything. We just make sure everything is fresh. The meat is never frozen,” says Schmelzkopf. “I use a little Lawry’s Seasoned Salt when it’s on the grill. Most people like it with a little pink. It has to be a little juicy.”
But the closure of Colonial Bakery a few weeks ago has led to an unexpected change in the preferred bun. Schmelzkopf says finding a good replacement for Colonial has been difficult.
“The bun change has definitely been noticed,” Schmelzkopf says. “We want the meat to be the star. When the bun is too thin or too thick, it makes a big difference. We’re still looking for a bun that complements our burgers like the ones Colonial made all those years.”
For more great burgers citywide, participate in Isthmus’ Madison Burger Week, July 28-August 4, as area restaurants showcase their signature burgers and create new ones. One dollar from every burger sale benefits The River Food Pantry.
