Here are some tips to grilling juicy, meaty burgers. You can ground your own meat, purchase patties, or make your own burgers with ground meat and other ingredients. That's what we're going to do in this recipe. If you're going to ground your own meat, choose steak tips, grind it coarsely. By adding a bit of salt before shaping adds flavor throughout the entire burger patty. Shape the burgers with a dimple in the middle. This helps prevent bulging. If you have the time, freeze the patties for an hour. That will help hold the meat together as it cooks and provides a little more time to cook the meat on the grill just as you like it. Premade patties are easy, but if you want to learn how to grill a beefy, juicy burger, cook like your grandmother did. Start with a few pounds of ground chuck beef from your butcher. Stir in salt and pepper and a couple egg yokes. Shape the patties. Don't shape the patties too much, because that will make them a denser than necessary. Serve with toppings, like sauteed mushrooms, and some veggies. Ingredients
Freeze for 30 After cutting the meat into pieces, you could freeze it. After 30 minutes, the meat should feel firm and pliable. Grind Then, grind the meat and butter all together. You can use a grinder or food processor. Salt and Pepper Add salt and pepper into the ground meat and combine. Balls This amount of meat could yield about 5 balls, formed by your hands. Give each ball a light squeeze. That's Alicia's grandmother forming the meat balls in her hands. Patties Then, shape each ball into a patty that's no more than 1-inch thick. Feel free to make the patties into any shape and size. My girls enjoy eating lots of little burgers. Dimple With your thumb, dimple the middle about half-way into the thickness of the patty. If you want to freeze the meat patties, do it now for about 30 minutes. Hot Grill Turn all burners on high. Scrape, brush, and oil the grill. Add more salt and pepper to season both sides of the patties. Throw the meat on the hot grill. Cook for about 4 minutes. This will achieve a good char mark and they shouldn't stick. Don't move them until the time is up. Then, use a spatula to flip. Grill patties. Again, don't move them. The patties should releases from grill in about 4 minutes. Grill the meat until it reaches your desired temperature. If it's not quite done to where I want them, I'll leave the patties on the grill, but adjust the burners. So, I'll turn off the front burners, slide the patties to the front, and leave the back burner on high. This will allow the meat to cook slower, without flame flares and excessive charring. Plate Spatula the patties to a nice big, white plate. Let them rest for a few minutes. While they're resting, you could toast the buns a bit on the grill. Careful not to burn them. I eat burgers on romaine lettuce. Don't laugh. Buns make me fluffy. I love paleo. Serve. Don't forget the veggies, or at least a tomato salad. Avoid Store Meat
Avoid buying ready-made burger patties from the store. We tested many types of ground meat, hundreds of pounds, and already-made patties, many dozens, from several organic grocery stores and good butchers. This meat will usually cook tough and dense, because it's ground fine and then tightly packed, which causes the protein myosin glue the meat together. Ideally, you want to grind your own meat and gently form it into juicy, tender patties. Avoid Too Much Salt Avoid adding too much salt into the meat mix. That'll make the burger tough. Just a bit of salt will help the meat hold its juiciness. Grilling sausage on a gas grill can be challenging. But every man should be able to do it well. Here are some quick tips on gas-grilling sausage. After many attempts at our test grill, we came up with a good method to achieving a:
First brown the exterior on high heat to seal and mark the exterior of the sausage. The gas is on high. All burners. Throw down the sausages. Sear 'em. Look for the marks. Nice! Flip them. It's only a few minutes on each side. You'll start to see the sausages spitting juice. This juice causes flare ups to happen. So, watch it. I control the flames with a clean, fresh water spray bottle. Searing and marking takes only a couple minutes on each side. Reduce the temperature of the burners to medium. Turn off the front burner completely. Slide the meat to the front burner area. The heat will now circulate around. This adjustment placement and burner adjustment help also reduce flare ups. But you can't stop them. The flames will come! Cook until you achieve your desired temperature. The sausages have been sitting at room temperature for a bit before you threw them on the grill. Right? It's very difficult to properly cook very cold or frozen meat on a grill. So, start off on the right foot by allowing the meat to achieve room temperature. Keep the temperature-probing of the meat to a minimum. I prefer to cook the sausages until they are well done. The initial searing and minimal probing of the temperature gauge will help the sausages retain moisture and juice. Yum. Dig in. Who said veggies? How about some mayo-based salad? We made and tested our own potato salads, coleslaw salads, and lettuce salads. They all win! Be sure to get yourself a big jar of sauerkraut. Our recommendation is Bubbies. Sausage and kraut. Look out! We tested and paired a few wines and whiskey to match the spicy sausages. We found a nice whiskey from Colorado Springs, Colorado, that is produced by a new company called Distillery 291. They are distilling their own whiskey, but keeping the aging to a minimum. Distillery 291 Colorado Bourbon Whiskey is a sour mash corn whiskey that has been aged less than 2 years in American White Oak barrels that have been charred. It's powerful. Good kick on the first and then smoother sips afterward. You'll smell notes of cherry tobacco. If you want, drop a small chunk of ice and let the water calm this powerful youngster.
Enjoy, fellas. What you're in a tight jam, here's something to throw together to make your kid's school lunch.
Wrap up some good-quality lunch meat (turkey, ham, beef) and sliced cheese. Dab a little organic mayo inside the wrap. Grab some grapes (wash them a bit). Add. Done. Looks lame? Maybe. But whatcha gonna do in a pinch? It's a quick school lunch idea. |
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