The Hamburger Trail : Not So Round, Not So Firm, Not So Fully Packed

A good hamburger is a simple and glorious thing: well browned and crusty on the outside, soft and juicy-to-bursting within. And yet, if the pleasures of hamburgers are so simple, why are they so difficult to cook?

Why is it that hand-made, home-cooked burgers are well done before they get that great crust? Why does the juice flow out of the burger and into the pan, so that what winds up in the bun is as flavorless and dry as a potholder? Why does all the good stuff drip out onto the charcoal in a back-yard grill, causing countless flare-ups and leaving shrunken, charred meat cakes as mealy and interesting as bricks?

“The most important thing is the quality of the meat you start with,” says chef Bill Bracken, who serves a great hamburger poolside at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. “We get really good meat--Angus beef--and have it ground specially.”

Peninsula hamburgers have a 15% fat content. The eight-ounce patties are formed and then “cryo-packed” in airtight packages and kept very cold until cooked on the restaurant’s open broiler. Just before cooking, patties are lightly dusted with Bracken’s own seasoning mix, which contains “a little of everything”: fresh pepper, salt, cayenne, onion powder.

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Mark Peel’s hamburgers at Campanile have more meat flavor than most. He uses good, fresh chuck and grinds it himself--twice, coarsely. The ideal fat content, he says, is 22%, “not taking into consideration health factors.” (Most of us grew up eating hamburger meat that was around 33% fat.) The trick, says Peel, is to keep the meat really cold while grinding so that meat and fat are actually cut and not just “smeared.”

He then very gently forms the ground meat into a loosely packed, six-ounce ball-like patty. No squeezing is allowed: the less the meat is handled, the better it is. At the restaurant, Peel tucks about a half-ounce of Gorgonzola cheese in the middle of each patty and salts the meat lightly on both sides before putting it on the mesquite grill.

“It takes a while to cook, because it’s loosely packed and not skinny,” says Peel. “I like them crusty on the outside and rare on the inside, which means cooking them about 10 minutes, with one flip.”

Home cooks, however, do not have access to powerful open broilers or mesquite grills, let alone prime Angus beef. Instead, most of us supermarket shoppers face a cold case with a confusing assortment of packaged ground beef ranging from extra lean, 7% fat, to 25% fat.

Now, hamburger needs to be lightly handled. In order for a burger to be juicy, there need to be air pockets in the meat where, during cooking, juices can accumulate--otherwise, the juices all run out into the pan.

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But before reaching the cold case, the average packaged hamburger has been ground coarsely, mixed in a machine, ground again (more finely this time), then packed into trays, sealed, labeled and put on display, often in stacks two or three packages deep. At this point, commercially ground beef may already have had all the handling it can take. At the very least, it’s necessary to treat packaged hamburger meat extremely gently, using fingertips only--never the palms--to form patties.

Butcher shops and meat counters give the consumer more options.

Dave De Rosa at Marconda’s Meat at the Farmers Market says good hamburgers start with good meat. Choice or Prime meat are the best, because these grades have more fat in them. And even if they’re trimmed a little closer, these grades still have more flavor.

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Different parts of the whole beef are better when ground: In general, the lower down on the animal, the better the flavor. The lower part of the leg, the shank, is better than the upper part of the leg or the rump because there’s more muscle lower and, therefore, more flavor. Also, the chuck and the front of the animal are quite tasty.

Unfortunately, the best meat for grinding is rarely the easiest to grind: Before the meat can be ground, all gristle, tendon and sinew must be removed, or the cooked burger will be stringy, tough or gristly. The heel of the round, the shank and the chuck that’s closest to the neck all have excellent flavor, but they require a certain amount of prep work with a sharp knife--you’d have to have the patience of Job to trim a shank.

Butchers, says De Rosa, like sirloin because it’s the easiest and the quickest to grind: There’s not much gristle, and sirloin is the leanest and the best-looking (although the flavor can’t compare with good ground chuck).

After a full day of flipping burgers in The Times Test Kitchen and an evening at the barbecue grill, we can add a few more hints:

* The higher the fat content, the juicier and tastier the burger.

* Ground beef bought loose and wrapped by the butcher is usually superior to packaged beef. Not only has it been handled less, it often tastes fresher.

* Beef (preferably chuck steak) ground to order by the butcher is even better than the loose ground beef in the butcher case. Have the meat ground coarsely, twice, as for “chili” beef. (Finely ground beef has fewer of those precious air pockets.) A well-trimmed boneless chuck roast, ground with all its attached fat, yields ground beef with about a 12% fat content. (If the butcher doesn’t have any fat on hand to add, don’t be dismayed. This still makes an excellent burger.)

* Beef ground at home (twice, coarsely) is superior even to butcher-ground beef: It’s fresher, you can take the time to remove all the membranes and gristle and you can adjust the fat content to your own specifications.

* While both sirloin and chuck ground at home produce good, juicy burgers, chuck, with either 15% or 22% fat content, makes by far the tastiest burger. Chuck with 7% fat, while not as moist, is still pretty darn flavorful.

* During and after grinding, it is absolutely crucial to handle the beef as little as possible. Mix and form, using only your fingertips. Pressed or well-patted patties, while smoother and rounder, turn into dry, dense meat bricks. Better to have your uncooked patties a bit “bristly-looking,” at least an inch thick, and not perfectly round.

* Remember to keep the meat as cold as possible during grinding and handling.

* Frying in a hot pan over medium to medium-high heat produces the best home-cooked burger. The meat (even that with a 7% fat content) sputters in its own melted fat to create the desired crust.

* Pan-grilling and barbecuing outdoors create pretty grill marks and somewhat juicy burgers, but grilled burgers lack the crust and all-out juiciness of frying.

* Broiling under the average home broiler is the least satisfactory cooking method; not only is there no crust on a broiled burger, much of the juice runs out to the bottom of the pan. Even the best meat cooked under the broiler can acquire a “sweated,” “liverish,” “boiled” taste.

* Hands off! No matter what method of cooking is used, never poke, prod or, worst of all, press on the burger while cooking. One flip should be sufficient.

* The ideal four-ounce hamburger should be approximately three inches in diameter and one inch thick. For a juicy, medium-rare burger, cook approximately 4 1/2 minutes on each side on medium-high heat. For medium-well to well, cook 5 1/2 to 6 minutes on each side.

* The best burger? Chuck steak, ground at home (twice, coarsely) with a 15% to 22% fat content, very gently formed, lightly salted, and fried in a hot pan over medium to medium-high heat.