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A hamburger is a type of sandwich consisting of two buns and a chopped fried cutlet. Cooks add sauces and fillings to the dish: ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, tomatoes, lettuce leaves, and pickled cucumbers.
Hamburger has become an integral part of a fast-food restaurant’s menu. Every fast food restaurant comes up with new recipes and variations of the dish, trying to attract customers.
Marketers change the color and shape of buns, add unusual ingredients and experiment with serving. But can you make a popular dish at home and will it be difficult?
Hamburgers: pros and cons
Hamburger is a controversial dish. It consists of meat saturated with well-digested protein. If cooks fry a meat patty in a large amount of vegetable oil, the product will become more harmful and high-calorie. The sauce is also part of the burger.
Most often it is mayonnaise or ketchup, which are dangerous to the human body. The bun also increases the calorie content of the dish. However, let’s not forget about lettuce leaves, tomatoes, and cucumbers, which are beneficial for any organism.
Experts identify the main disadvantages of hamburgers:
- Using cheap and unfrozen products as a base.
- The high-calorie content of the dish.
- Hamburger ingredients are addictive. A person becomes dependent on them.
However, the list of advantages is also long:
- Fast cooking speed.
- Affordable price.
- The ability to change the composition and choose new variations.
If you sometimes indulge yourself with a burger, your health will not get worse. However, do not make purchased hamburgers a permanent part of your diet.
How do you season and form hamburger patties?
The main part of the hamburger is a cutlet. You should be able to give the cutlet the right shape and pick up spices that will make the taste of meat more saturated.
Professional chefs recommend making a hamburger patty thin so that it does not increase the size of the dish. To make the perfect option, prepare the necessary ingredients:
- beef – 500 grams
- breadcrumbs – 5 tablespoons
- egg — 1 piece
- salt – 1 pinch
- pepper – 1 pinch
- spices – 1 pinch (oregano, coriander, cumin)
Step-by-step cooking technology:
- Create minced meat. Rinse and dry the beef. Cut the meat into pieces and pass through a meat grinder. Add egg, spices, breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper.
- Mix the minced meat and start making cutlet shapes. The thickness is less than 1 centimeter.
- Fry the cutlets in a well-heated frying pan for about 10 minutes.
How does Gordon Ramsay make a burger?
Popular chef Gordon Ramsay has developed his recipe for making a hamburger. Following this recipe, you can prepare a dish in 10 minutes. Prepare the necessary ingredients:
- chicken egg – 1 piece
- ground beef – 190 g
- tomato – 1 piece
- chili pepper – 1 piece
- butter – 1 tablespoon
- mayonnaise – 1 tablespoon
- onion – 1 pc .
- bacon – 200 g
- cheddar – 50 g
- lettuce leaves – 1 pc.
- sriracha sauce – 2 tbsp.
- burger bun – 2 pcs.
- grapeseed oil – 1 tbsp.
Step-by-step cooking technology:
- Heat the grill pan in a frying pan.
- Prepare the minced meat. Add egg yolk, salt, pepper, and grated frozen pepper to it.
- Grease the pan with grapeseed oil.
- Make minced meat patties. Thickness – less than 2.5 cm.
- Chop the onion and place it in the pan with the cutlet.
- Cut the bacon, brush it with grapeseed oil and add it to the pan.
- Make the sauce – add salt, pepper, and sriracha sauce to the mayonnaise.
- Turn over all the ingredients in the pan.
- Fry the burger buns in a frying pan for a few minutes. So they will become crispy.
- Place the cheese on the hot patty and assemble the burger.
When should you season burgers?
Spices and sauces are a significant part of any burger. You can improve the product in the following ways:
Wet seasoning. The base is olive oil and soy sauce. As additional ingredients – flavor or odor enhancers. Professional chefs advise adding wet seasoning to the cutlet to enhance its taste.
Dry seasoning. Herbs and spices will help to improve the taste of the cutlet. The options are black pepper, dry salt, ground red pepper, paprika, ground ginger, and dry mustard. These classic seasonings will not block the taste of meat but will enhance it.
Sauces. You should use them as a layer between the patty and the bun. They add juiciness to the dish. The best options are barbecue, ranch, and honey mustard sauces.
What can I add to ground beef for flavor?
Meat can reveal flavors under the influence of additional ingredients. Professional chefs advise adding pork fat or butter to the minced meat. So the meat will be able to reveal its taste and aroma. However, vegetables and fruits can also improve the taste of your minced meat.
Apple and minced meat. The ratio is 1 fruit per 600 grams of meat. The apple can give the meat juiciness, improve its structure and add additional flavor.
Tomato juice and ground beef. The cutlet should be fragrant and have an average density. Tomato juice gives the meat sharpness and juiciness. The ratio is 50 ml of juice per 500 grams of meat.
Potatoes and minced meat. This ingredient will allow you to replace the egg, which is responsible for how easily you will be able to make cutlets. Also, the vegetable will reveal the taste of meat. The ratio is 1 grated potato per 500 grams of minced meat.
Lemon juice and ground beef. To make the cutlet reveal all its taste qualities, pour a little lemon juice and water into it. This stuffing is suitable for everything.
Vegetables are also good exposers of meat flavor: onions, sweet peppers, and carrots.
When should you season meat?
You decide when to add the necessary spices and seasonings. If you are cooking a cutlet, then add dry spices directly to the minced meat. During the heat treatment, the seasonings will give their aromatic and taste qualities. If we are talking about sauces, add them last when all the ingredients are ready for assembly.
Fuddruckers burger seasoning
Fuddruckers is a chain of fast-food restaurants specializing in hamburgers. They came up with their unique sauce, which can give a unique taste to any burger.
Over 25 years of work, Fuddruckers has made sure that this sauce is the best option for their products. To cook it, prepare the right ingredients:
- smoked paprika – 1 teaspoon
- ground black pepper – 1/2 teaspoons
- salt – 1/4 teaspoons
- dark brown sugar – 1/2 teaspoon
- garlic powder – 1/4 teaspoon
- onion powder – 1/4 teaspoon
- ground cayenne pepper – 1/4 teaspoon
Mix all these ingredients in the right proportion to get an excellent sauce of medium density. Use it as a layer between the patty and the bun.
The best seasoning for burgers on the stove
If you decide to make a burger at home, then the kitchen stove is your best assistant. On it, you can fry cutlets and make buns crispy. But what kind of sauce is suitable for a burger cooked this way?
Professional chefs recommend making tomato ketchup. Prepare the following ingredients:
- tomatoes – 500 grams
- apple – 1 pc.
- onion – 1 pc.
- 9% vinegar
Cooking technology:
- Finely chop the tomatoes. Put them to boil in boiling water. Rub the tomato mass through a sieve.
- Finely chop the onion. Peel the apple and grate it on a fine grater.
- Add the ingredients to the tomato mass and continue to cook over medium heat. Add salt, 30 grams of sugar, a pinch of black pepper, ground cinnamon to it.
- The cooking time of tomato ketchup is 1.5 hours. Add 1 tablespoon of 9% vinegar five minutes before the end of cooking.
The best seasoning for burgers on the grill
Another option to cook a burger at home is to use a grill. This will help bring the cooking process closer to real conditions in professional burger restaurants.
You can make a burger seasoning mix, but it is best to give preference to a specific seasoning. Professional chefs recommend natural yogurt sauce. Prepare the necessary ingredients:
- fresh round parsley
- fresh basil
- fresh mint
- salt
- olive oil – 2 teaspoons
- natural yogurt – 300 ml per pound of meat
Cooking technology:
- Wash the greens, dry with a towel, and then finely chop or chop in a blender.
- Yogurt should be chilled. Add chopped herbs, olive oil, salt, and mix well.
This sauce will help make a good 5-star burger. This hamburger seasoning recipe is appreciated by professionals all over the world. You can make a lot of this burger sauce in advance and store it in an airtight container.
Hamburger seasoning with Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a county in England, after which a local chef named a burger. To repeat the famous recipe, prepare the following ingredients:
- ground beef – 400 g
- onion – 1 g
- Worcestershire sauce – 1 g ground
- black pepper
- salt hamburger
- buns
- bacon
- cheddar cheese
Cooking technology:
- Mix the minced meat, onion, ground black pepper, salt, and Worcestershire sauce.
- Make 4 round balls, put them on a wet cutting board, and flatten them to make burger patties.
- Fry the cutlets on medium heat on each side.
- Fry the bacon and add it to the burger.
- Fry the buns on both sides. Put a minced meat patty, cheese, bacon, two circles of red onion, a slice of tomato, and 2 pickled cucumbers on one half of the bun. Cover with the other half and quickly fry the hamburger on both sides.
Best Way To Season Hamburgers (my opinion)
The sauce can make any hamburger juicy and delicious. However, you should choose the best option so that it does not overlap, but complements the taste of the dish.
I personally consider Ranch sauce as the best sauce for a burger. To prepare it, prepare the necessary ingredients:
- sour cream – 1 tbsp
- light mayonnaise – 1 tbsp
- fat cream – 1 tbsp
- hot mustard – 1 tbsp
- lime juice – 1 tsp
- paprika – 1 tsp
- dill, parsley
- salt and pepper
Step-by-step cooking technology:
- Take a small bowl and place mayonnaise with sour cream in it.
- Pour in a spoonful of cream and mix the ingredients.
- Add mustard and lime juice.
- Chop the herbs and add to the sauce.
- Add salt, pepper, and chili.
The secret ingredient of Ranch sauce is paprika. Just 1 tablespoon of paprika will give the sauce a unique taste.
Spices to put on burgers
Without sauce and spices, a hamburger is just a bun, a cutlet, and vegetables. Seasonings give the bulk of the flavor and juiciness. Salt and pepper are the main spices for the burger.
Professional chefs recommend adding salt and pepper to the minced meat before frying. They will provide an elastic texture for the dish. Sauces are also significant: tabasco, barbecue, and cheese.
Common mistakes
Beginners quite often make mistakes in the preparation of hamburgers. Here are the most common ones:
- The ground meat is too thick, it the burger is too tall and uncomfortable to eat.
- The use of unroasted bread, which does not give the desired crunch.
- Adding bread rolls to cutlets. The ideal option for a hamburger is 99 percent meat.
- Using cold or frozen vegetables.
To make your dish turn out the same as in a restaurant – try to avoid the mistakes of beginners.
Final
A hamburger is a perfect snack for those who are constantly in a hurry. This famous dish is spread all over the world. You can cook it at home if you choose the right spices and seasonings and follow the recommendations of professional chefs.
Spices should not overlap the taste of meat, the cutlet should be thin, and the buns toasted. Choose an affordable recipe and experiment!