I like burgers. I love burgers. But I don’t like soggy burgers. I dislike even more those with too many extenders, a trick becoming so popular among restaurants. So, I prefer making burgers at home. I use ground sirloin so that I get meat instead of fat. And I grill my burgers instead of frying them. And in a world obsessed with up-sizing everything, I down-size my burgers. See, my doctor recommends eating five to six small meals a day rather than the usual three regular-sized meals. So, instead of the usual hamburger buns, I use the smaller pan de sal which I toast before assembling my sandwich.
Making burgers might seem like the simplest kitchen project and maybe it is but here are a few tricks to enjoy better-tasting and less fattening burgers. Start with good-quality meat. Commercial burger patties are convenient but you don’t know what’s in them. From experience, they taste terrible, the texture even more so. It isn’t so hard making burgers from scratch so why settle for something inferior?
To make 12 burgers to fit into a pan de sal, you will need 550 grams of ground sirloin, a large onion, 4 cloves of garlic, a teaspoonful of salt, half a teaspoonful of pepper, and a teaspoonful of your favorite herb. I recommend Tarragon. Peel and finely chop the onion, peel and grate the garlic then mix all the ingredients. Divide into 12 equal portions and, with your hands, form each portion into a ball. Flatten the meatball between the palms of your hands, pushing the sides in to make the patty more compact. Keep at it until the patty is less than half an inch thick.
Preheat the grill then arrange the patties so that they aren’t too close to each other. This will help them brown more evenly because the amount of hot air circulating between each is uniform. Why grill them? You already chose sirloin because it is low in fat; why defeat the purpose by adding more fat during cooking? For best results, choose a ribbed grill instead of a flat skillet (the kind used in fat food joints which are coated with oil before cooking). A ribbed grill means the burgers do not touch the fat that drips off during cooking.
Toast the bread on the grill
For really good burger sandwiches, toast the bread too. If you opt to do this on the same grill where you cook the burgers, arrange the grill so that it is slightly tilted to make sure that the fat from the patties goes to one side. That way, when you place your bread on the grill, it will not absorb the fat that you got rid of the meat.