# Jeffrey Steingarten's 8 steps to hamburger perfection



## baking fool (Nov 15, 2007)

I didn't know about any of these. Looks tasty  



> 1. Chill Out: "Before grinding chunks of beef, before forming a hamburger, and before cooking a hamburger, make sure that the beef is ice cold. Otherwise, the fat may melt and separate from the lean."
> 2. Grind or Else: Steingarten concludes you must either grind your own meat or have a trusted butcher grind it for you, for reasons of taste and safety (or, perish the thought, be sentenced to a life of consuming well-done burgers). "Never buy supermarket ground beef unless the butcher there grinds it specially for you." He explains in painstaking detail all of the ways supermarket ground beef can be contaminated. His solution, if you have any questions about the chopped meat you've just bought: "Drop the meat into a pot of boiling water for a minute, fish it out, and pat it dry. Yes, it'll turn gray, but only on the outside, and this will get ground into the rest of the meat and vanish."
> 3. Fluff that Stuff: "When forming a hamburger, don't compress the meat. The fluffier, the better. A raw burger should be airy and full of tiny holes that can hold the juices released during cooking, when the fat melts and water is squeezed out from between the proteins."
> Steingarten quotes Harold McGee on this issue: "The gently gathered ground beef in a good hamburger has a delicate quality quite unlike even a tender steak." Steingarten decides that one of the many reasons much of his hamburger experiments had gone awry is that "I don't think I had ever gently gathered!"
> ...


 
*Vogue's 8 Steps to Hamburger Perfection - A Hamburger Today on Yahoo! Food*


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## GrillingFool (Nov 15, 2007)

Hey fool, thanks! 
These will be great fun to try out!


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## jennyema (Nov 15, 2007)

I love Jeffrey Steingarten.

I was by myself one day at La Bonne Soupe in NYC and I was eating fondue and reading one of his books.

He walked in!  When he saw I was reading one of his books he winked at me


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 15, 2007)

Jennyema said:
			
		

> He walked in! When he saw I was reading one of his books he winked at me


 
And did you wink back????????


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## Cajun Cook (Nov 15, 2007)

Inquirying minds want to know!



Uncle Bob said:


> And did you wink back????????


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## jennyema (Nov 16, 2007)

NO!  I was too stunned.  I just smiled at him ....


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## buckytom (Nov 16, 2007)

lots of good info, baking fool. thanks.

i like jeffrey steingarten, so long as i don't have to look at him. the guy definitely knows his stuff about food, but i cannot stand to watch him eat.
i feel like wiping his mouth for him, or telling him not to speak with a mouth full of food.


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