Perfect Burgers ? (pt2)

Time to take the logs of meat from the fridge & turn them into burgers. They ought to be approx the same diametre as the buns and about 2 fingers thick, the cold & the cling film combine to make this step a bit easier. then roughly shape them into burgers

There they are, if you have more burgers than people, wrap them in baking paper and then freeze them, they should be good for 3 months, but I doubt they'll get a chance to last that long.

So to cook them, get a skillet very hot (5-10 mins on full heat) and oil it lightly.

Then put the burgers in.

Now the instructions say turn every 30s, this allows a crust to form on the outside, but keeps the centre moist. I don't think I'd managed to get the pan hot enough, because after 2 mins they were more blue than rare/medium rare, so more flipping and more cooking.

Hot hot hot, flipping every 30s there is almost bound to be a casualty or two, in this case it was light flaking of the burgers.

Since I'd skipped out on doing the whole job, I'd got some buns, cheese & Mr Hienz's ketchup. Instead of going to the chip-shop I made some wedges, the healthy alternative.

That's making me hungry to look at now.

So are they perfect burgers ?

I honestly don't know, they are very good, but this is the first time I've made burgers from scratch, and having traceable meat meant I could eat them much rarer than I would dare with store burgers.

The texture is very good, does aligning the mince make it so ? Probably.

Am I going to do it again ? well not for a while, I've still 10-12 burgers in the freezer, and they are reasonably expensive (Figure about £1:50 per burger, obviously it depends on the cost of the meat though, if you are going to do the whole thing, its going to be closer to £5 per burger.

Its shown me a couple of bugbears with the book, that I'm more prepared for now. Kitchen organization is an absolute must, because the odds are you are working in a family kitchen, complete with all the things competing for that space. Several of the recipes call for long processes, 6 hours in the fridge is nothing compared to making a pre-ferment 24hrs early (thats if you want to use the HB buns) or the amount of cooking the Chili uses, that said, its not exactly arduous and with a bit of experience I'm sure you can adapt the recipes to be even more usable in an average home.

I don't know if the burgers are served at the "hinds head" in bray, but I'd not be suprised to see them on the menu at around £15 which doesn't seem that unreasonable, especially if they come with triple cooked chips.

I did notice the mincer has a sausage nozzle, the book has a bangers & mash recipe and it appears that Heston & I share a taste in sausages (Pork, a little spicing, no herbs or that kind of nonsense) so I could try that next.