The Daily Grind

Jeffrey Steingarten appears regularly as a judge on Iron Chef, and seems to love to give the impression that he is an egocentric bore. He probably is, but give him credit - he considers it important in life to find the perfect hamburger. And he can write, which I'm in favor of as well.

In his quest, he summarized beautifully the criteria for evaluating a burger:

"What do we demand of the perfect hamburger? That the meat patty be profoundly beefy in flavor, mouthwateringly browned on the outside, and succulent (a combination of juicy and tender) on the inside. The bread or bun should not interfere with any of these virtues. It should be soft, mild and unassertive; its job is to absorb every last drop of savory juice trickling down from the meat while keeping the burger more or less in one place and your hands dry. Mouthwatering, beefy, juicy and tender - not too much to ask from life, but entirely elusive, at least to me. It's not as though I haven't tried. God knows, I've tried."

I've been hinting I'm fascinated with the combination of meats going into hamburgers as I think this may be one of the great secrets of the perfect burger. I've started playing around, and as you see from my reviews, I'm asking around about it. In my study of this I found a couple of useful articles on the internet, one about Steingarten's search and the other picking up where Steingarten left off. Highly recommended, and linked here:

Here is the article on Steingarten.

And here is the followup article.

From my experiments, short ribs is in. I think I like a little brisket, though it's hard to buy a little brisket, so plan on buying a whole brisket and cooking the 85% you don't use in your hamburger for another meal. I'm goofing around with chuck, hanger, which work well, but I want to move on to some loin cuts. Bobby Flay likes some sirloin in his burger grind.