As you well know for several years, the hamburger is no longer just a fast food dish, but has also become a delicious dish. The meat of which it is composed comes from selected minced meat, as well as the products used as a side dish.

No longer just simple salads and cherry tomatoes, but also other types of vegetables, up to the most sought-after products such as caviar and truffles .

For these reasons you hear more and more often about artisanal and gourmet burgers and sandwiches.

Throughout this short guide, we’ll give you 5 tips or rules to follow on how to cook the perfect burger.

Choose the Meat

If you want to make tasty burgers, with the right level of succulence and flavor you have to remember that the main element is the meat.

First, focus on the choice of meat, then indulge in the other ingredients, which are very important to complete and enhance the taste, but not essential.

You can opt for the ready-made and assembled Swiss or alternatively you can buy cuts of meat, mince them and customize them according to the tastes of your customers.

Whatever decision you make, you cannot fail to:

• Check the organoleptic and nutritional properties: the former are determined by the sensory perceptions of sight and smell, while the latter are indicated in the technical data sheet or on the package label and concern the composition
• Learn how to best cook burgers

When we talk about meat burgers we usually refer to beef, so let’s see which are the best cuts for minced meat:

• They don’t have to be excessively lean but, to avoid getting a burger that’s too dry and stringy, they must contain 15% to 30% fat. You must therefore check that the ground or Swiss have characteristic white spots on the surface
• Among the most suitable cuts are the royal, the brisket, the sirloin and the belly pulp
• Another important point is the grain of the ground, or whether it must be chopped finely or coarsely. This aspect depends on how you want to cook the burger. If you use a pan or the plate, the coarse grain is more suitable, which facilitates the formation of water and other liquids or juices that come out, but still remain in contact with the meat. This allows for a soft and tasty meat. Conversely, the fine grain retains more liquids inside the piece of meat, so it is more suitable for grilling

If you want to offer more variety to your customers, you could also opt for pork and sheep meat.

For the minced pork you can easily choose the cuts you prefer and satisfy the different tastes, because it contains more fat than beef. A particularly delicious and tasty meat is then that of the Iberian pig.

The same goes for sheep, in this case we advise you to focus on lamb meat, which is softer and less tasty than the adult animal. It is therefore easier to cook and to combine.

Preparation of the Ground

Compared to buying a ready-made hamburger, minced meat requires preparation before cooking, therefore more time. However, it has the advantage of being able to be customized by introducing spices, smells, other types of meat and vegetables.

If you buy it fresh you must remember to remove it from the refrigerator only when you decide to prepare it. This is because it is much more reactive to room temperature, the fat melts more easily and is more exposed to bacterial attacks than steaks.

If, on the other hand, you buy frozen ground it is advisable to take it out of the cold storage a few hours before and prepare it at the time of defrosting.

Regarding the processing of the ground there are some precautions to follow:

• Do not salt the mince while you prepare it, but only before putting the ready-made hamburger in the pan or on the grill. The salt causes the protein component to dissolve, the meat becomes more compact and sticky
• The size of the burgers depends on the sandwiches you bought (also called bun) and the function they have: for example mini burgers as a starter or burgers as a main course. In the first case they are usually portions of 40-60 grams, while in the second from 100 to 300 grams. The thickness varies from 1.5-2 cm, while the diameter should be slightly larger than the sandwich, to be able to protrude and facilitate panic taking with the hands. Much also depends on the type of restaurant you have and the type of portions you normally offer
• As for the preparation you can decide to do it by hand or to form the burgers with the help of presses and molds. The important thing is that the processing is done quickly to prevent fat from settling on your hands. Another trick is to slightly squeeze the central part of one of the two faces of the Swiss, to make it concave. This is to prevent the burger from swelling during cooking, taking the shape of a meatball
• When you assemble the dough you can choose to add spices (pepper, paprika, chilli, ginger) and aromatic herbs (basil, mint, sage), being careful not to overdo it, so as not to cover the flavor of the meat. An alternative are vegetables such as mushrooms and asparagus or the addition of very tasty meats such as sausage or cotechino.
• If the quality of the chosen ground is good, it is not necessary to add the egg when mixing.

Cook the Hamburger

After choosing the meat and packing the burgers, it’s time to cook them. Swiss is a very versatile type of meat and can be cooked in different ways.

Before proceeding with the details of the methods listed, we want to give you some indication on the principles common to all.

First, if the burger is beef, it can theoretically be served rare, medium or well done. We have written theoretically because on the one hand, if it is undercooked, blood can escape, which wets the side foods and moistens the bread, on the other hand when well cooked risks making the meat stringy and without juices.

It follows that the best way to present the hamburger is medium cooking which is reached at a core temperature of 60-62 degrees. You can use food thermometers to measure it.

Another precaution is to not crush the meat during cooking, otherwise you risk to leak the liquids.

As for turning the burger only once or doing it several times, the final result is similar, if you pay attention to the internal temperature and the cooking state. The only substantial difference is in the times, if you turn the patty (the name given to the hamburger “meatball”) several times it cooks first.

3.1 Cooking in a Pan and on the Plate

We have merged these two methods because they are very similar.

Cooking in a pan is practical and fast. Just heat the pan and then place the burger on it.

You can decide whether to add a little oil or a knob of butter, but it is not mandatory, as the meat can already be soft and juicy on its own.

The only trick to be implemented is to leave some space between the burgers, in this way they will be cooked evenly on all sides.

Alternatively you could, following the same procedure, decide to use the plate.

If you are afraid that the patty will stick together and risk breaking them when you turn them, you can cover the plate with parchment paper.

3.2 Grilling

Grilling is also one of the most used for hamburgers. The best way to cook them is to leave a part of the grill without embers. An area that has a lower temperature than the rest of the grill and therefore receives indirect heat.

The first thing to do is light the barbecue, wait for the flames to go out and the embers to form. Only at this moment can you add the patty. The indirect heat zone is used to prevent the outside from browning due to the flames generated by the fat that drips during cooking. If this happens, move the burgers to the no-embers area.

3.3 Baking in the Oven

One of the risks of baking is that they become too dry and stringy. To prevent this from happening just follow a few simple steps:

Preheat the oven to a temperature of 100-110 degrees and in the meantime wet, squeeze and put the parchment paper on the pan

After these preliminary operations you can place the patty on the pan covered with an aluminum foil that serves to retain fat and liquids

Side Dishes and Sauces

As you cook the meat, you may be thinking about preparing the vegetables you want to put in the sandwich.

Regardless of whether you want to add grilled side dishes, dried tomatoes, mushrooms or a simple salad, it is good to season them, even if only lightly to make them tastier.

Another very important aspect is the choice of sauces, which you can buy or prepare yourself. In any case, the important aspect is to try to combine them and dose them in the best possible way. Ketchup, for example, as you well know is quite sweet so it is to be used carefully in the presence of caramelized onions that are sweet and sour. Mustard and mustard, on the other hand, have a strong taste, you have to be careful not to cover the meat and side dishes.

The Most Suitable Bread

To finish off your perfect burger, you need bread, another very important element.

The bread or bun you choose should not be too hard, but soft enough for easy gripping and chewing.

Another important point is to lightly toast the buns to prevent them from getting wet from the liquids that come out of the meat.