Hello everyone!
I´m stuck inside for 30 days on a national quarantine down here in El Salvador. While at first I was extremely frustrated, I have decided to use this time to catch up on my outdoor cooking, and my time in the Pit. Work has been crazy, and I've been doing some BBQ/burger popups in my free time, and I haven't had much time to be online.
So today I logged in and saw my membership had been cancelled because I changed my credit card and the renewal hadn't gone through. It made me realize that I'm going into my third year being a member of the Pit, and it has been a great source of information and motivation. For me, this is where it all started. So, to give back to the community, I am sharing this burger recipe I have come up with, which I personally love and would like others to try to see if I am not biased!
I originally cooked the Steakhouse Burger recipe here on AR, following this recipe:
1. I would buy picanha and beef fat. I would separate the fat cap in the picanha from the meat itself, weigh them separately and then make a 75/25 meat/fat mixture.
2. Grind it up, spread it across the table and season it with garlic powder, coarse ground black pepper, paprika, a little chili powder.
3. Make 8oz patties
4. Salt the patties, and cook them on the smoker at 250-275f until 120 internal, then sear them on a very hot griddle/cast iron pan.
5. Top with sharp cheddar, and home-cured maple bacon.
While I really liked this burger, I felt something was missing. The insides were usually bland, as salt does not penetrate to the center of the burger. And I once tried salting the patties before, but the texture was not good at all, as one of the articles on the site stated it would be.
So for a while, I switched to smash burgers, which I also love. I did several pop-up events using the smash burgers, and people really liked them. But I always had this nagging thought in the back of my head of how I could improve on the Steakhouse burger, because who doesn't love a fat juicy burger?
And I SWEAR this is true: the idea came to me in a dream. I woke up and called my girlfriend "I just had this idea of how I can improve on the original burger, I don't know if it will work". So I tried... and I LOVE IT. Please, someone else try and let me know if this also works for you, keeping the texture loose, while making the inside taste salty, delicious. My dream idea:
DRY BRINE THE MEAT FOR 12-24 HOURS BEFORE YOU GRIND IT!
That's all it took! Now salt was everywhere on the patty, not just on the outside. It sears great, it tastes awesome all the way through. Like I said: I don't know if its bias, but I am really loving this burger. I also made the following changes to my original recipe:
1. Using brisket and some lean meat now, fat content is probably higher.
2. Dry-brining the meat with lots of salt at least 12 hours beforehand.
3. No other ingredient other than black pepper on the outside.
And since I'm in a good mood, I'm gonna share another little trick I use! I use an offset to cook these burgers, then sear them on a very hot griddle. Since the patties are never over direct fire, they lack that fat-falling-in-fire-smoke flavor. So I came up with a little trick. My offset has a little deflector plate over the opening between the firebox and cooking chamber, where it gets extremely hot. I put a little wire rack on this plate, and place several chunks of beef fat. When it starts melting from the heat, it drips onto the hot deflector plate, evaporating and replicating that delicious fat-falling-in-fire flavor! Try it!
I cooked 65 of them for a burger pop-up about a month ago and the feedback was extremely positive. Please let me know if any of you guys try it, and your results with this recipe!
Cheers!
I´m stuck inside for 30 days on a national quarantine down here in El Salvador. While at first I was extremely frustrated, I have decided to use this time to catch up on my outdoor cooking, and my time in the Pit. Work has been crazy, and I've been doing some BBQ/burger popups in my free time, and I haven't had much time to be online.
So today I logged in and saw my membership had been cancelled because I changed my credit card and the renewal hadn't gone through. It made me realize that I'm going into my third year being a member of the Pit, and it has been a great source of information and motivation. For me, this is where it all started. So, to give back to the community, I am sharing this burger recipe I have come up with, which I personally love and would like others to try to see if I am not biased!
I originally cooked the Steakhouse Burger recipe here on AR, following this recipe:
1. I would buy picanha and beef fat. I would separate the fat cap in the picanha from the meat itself, weigh them separately and then make a 75/25 meat/fat mixture.
2. Grind it up, spread it across the table and season it with garlic powder, coarse ground black pepper, paprika, a little chili powder.
3. Make 8oz patties
4. Salt the patties, and cook them on the smoker at 250-275f until 120 internal, then sear them on a very hot griddle/cast iron pan.
5. Top with sharp cheddar, and home-cured maple bacon.
While I really liked this burger, I felt something was missing. The insides were usually bland, as salt does not penetrate to the center of the burger. And I once tried salting the patties before, but the texture was not good at all, as one of the articles on the site stated it would be.
So for a while, I switched to smash burgers, which I also love. I did several pop-up events using the smash burgers, and people really liked them. But I always had this nagging thought in the back of my head of how I could improve on the Steakhouse burger, because who doesn't love a fat juicy burger?
And I SWEAR this is true: the idea came to me in a dream. I woke up and called my girlfriend "I just had this idea of how I can improve on the original burger, I don't know if it will work". So I tried... and I LOVE IT. Please, someone else try and let me know if this also works for you, keeping the texture loose, while making the inside taste salty, delicious. My dream idea:
DRY BRINE THE MEAT FOR 12-24 HOURS BEFORE YOU GRIND IT!
That's all it took! Now salt was everywhere on the patty, not just on the outside. It sears great, it tastes awesome all the way through. Like I said: I don't know if its bias, but I am really loving this burger. I also made the following changes to my original recipe:
1. Using brisket and some lean meat now, fat content is probably higher.
2. Dry-brining the meat with lots of salt at least 12 hours beforehand.
3. No other ingredient other than black pepper on the outside.
And since I'm in a good mood, I'm gonna share another little trick I use! I use an offset to cook these burgers, then sear them on a very hot griddle. Since the patties are never over direct fire, they lack that fat-falling-in-fire-smoke flavor. So I came up with a little trick. My offset has a little deflector plate over the opening between the firebox and cooking chamber, where it gets extremely hot. I put a little wire rack on this plate, and place several chunks of beef fat. When it starts melting from the heat, it drips onto the hot deflector plate, evaporating and replicating that delicious fat-falling-in-fire flavor! Try it!
I cooked 65 of them for a burger pop-up about a month ago and the feedback was extremely positive. Please let me know if any of you guys try it, and your results with this recipe!
Cheers!
Comment