{"id":3882,"date":"2010-04-09T11:56:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T16:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=3882"},"modified":"2010-04-09T17:41:24","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T22:41:24","slug":"five-steps-to-the-perfect-grilled-hamburger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2010\/04\/09\/five-steps-to-the-perfect-grilled-hamburger\/","title":{"rendered":"Five steps to the perfect grilled hamburger"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>t’s true, not that long ago I considered “cooking” to be preheating the oven and opening the box. It’s also true that while I’m a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to the wholesome food movement, I’ve embraced it with my whole heart. When I was blogging the other day about my 5-ingredient chicken fingers, it got me thinking about some of the other culinary skills I’ve acquired over the last couple of years. <\/p>\n

You know what I cook really well? Hamburgers. Grilled hamburgers. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! And so with a weekend pending and BBQ season upon us, I thought I’d share five tips to hamburger perfection. (No, my entire cooking repertoire does not revolve around the number 5. I don’t think.)<\/p>\n

1. Start with ground meat.<\/strong> What I mean here is forget the frozen pucks, and skip the pre-formed fresh patties, too. Did you know you pay more just for them to make little circles out of your ground beef? Take off your rings and get your hands dirty, it’s worth it! (I haven’t tried ground chicken or turkey yet, but more power to you if you can get away with it. My persistently low iron likes a little red meat a couple of times a week! And while extra lean is best for you health-wise, the extra fat in lean pretty much burns off on the grill, so you can save a few more pennies there.)<\/p>\n

2. Don’t overhandle the meat. <\/strong> Break it up with a fork in a big bowl. Dump some breadcrumbs or oats on top, and either a whole egg or just the yolk. Add a little salt and pepper, and if you’re like that, chop up 1\/4 cup or so worth of onions and throw that in there. A splash of Worcestershire sauce gives it a little zing, too! Stir it up just enough to combine the ingredients, but try not to overmix it.<\/p>\n

3. Make perfect patties. <\/strong>I finally figured out how to keep my burgers from bulging in the middle. I take roughly enough hamburger so that I can close my hands around it, and rather than making a ball and then squishing it into a patty, I form it directly into a disk. A fine distinction, ’tis true, but it makes the difference in a burger you can get your jaws around!<\/p>\n

4. Only flip it once<\/em>. <\/strong> This is key!! On a hot grill, cook for about six minutes, flip, and cook for another five. Baste with bbq sauce if you must — I often forget. If you’re making cheeseburgers, add cheese and cook for one more minute… just enough to make it melty but not runny. Again, it’s a fine distinction!<\/p>\n

5. Use the new skinny buns. <\/strong>Have you tried them? A nice crusty kaiser bun is nice, too, but we love those new thin whole-wheat buns. A little bit of a chewy compliment to the burger itself, and just perfect!<\/p>\n

Creatures of habit that we are, we usually have baked beans and a nice leafy salad with hamburgers. What do you think? At the very least, now I know what I’m making for dinner tonight!
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\nEdited to add: <\/strong> as I was typing this up, I knew I was forgetting something! Bonus tip<\/em>: do not, under any circumstance, squish the patties on the grill!! All the yummy juicy moisture will run out, and your burgers will be dry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s true, not that long ago I considered “cooking” to be preheating the oven and opening the box. It’s also true that while I’m a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to the wholesome food movement, I’ve embraced it with my whole heart. When I was blogging the other day about my 5-ingredient chicken fingers, it got … Continue reading “Five steps to the perfect grilled hamburger”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-things","category-feed-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3882"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3887,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions\/3887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}