Most burgers I make are made of beef. Different cuts = different flavor. The chuck and brisket burgers from Wegmans are also good, and our local supermarket carries rib-eye burgers/sliders.
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Sure made complex a simple thing. By the article, he wants burgers that look like they’re from a frozen box/bag. Yeo, 'bout age ten for many of us. Swear he was making a fancy burger terrine.
I deal with quite a few folks who suffer OCD. This dude’s got a case of FBS (full of bullsht.)
I go 75/25, I make 'em a little bigger than 80/20. Good beef, ball, smash, season, hot CI or grill, don’t let ‘em dry out. Settin’ forms for burgers is foolishness.
I’m sure he did his research; but he ended up in the Twilight Zone of silly deets.
Might not be OCD, but he does obsess. I’m sure he’s a pizza guru. FBS with burgers. I’m afraid I’ll do without this wanna-be elevated burger. I get great beef; the important part of the equation. Reminds me of the Food Network genius with the “you’re eating it wrong” shorts.
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Thank you. The beef is the key. Had no idea you had to wear gloves to make them. Maybe I’ll try nitrile gloves next time to see what difference they make. C’mon!
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I’ve been through a similar experience with good bread. Frickin’ WalMart is the best Italian where I live. Gotta make your own. Same with pizza crusts. Tried the sourdough from the local IGA last year. My rating was one finger up.
I’m sure there’s a place for this fellah, but reading him harkens me back to my stereophile days and the pretentious writings in The Absolute Sound. Squiggly details that mean little to me, mean the world to others. I’ll enjoy my Thoreau-like simplicity. Maybe if what he wrote about were souffles and such, I’d read more. Burgers and hoagies I can swing sans much help.
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Every time some wants to “improve” on a classic or overthink good home cooking. (and I’m also looking at YOU, Cook’s Illustrated). I’ve been making hamburgers since I was a kid with my dad on a charcoal grill, and with my mom on the stove. No fancy meat blends, just make sure there’s enough fat in the grind - and this wasn’t a problem when I was a kid.
Sometimes after reading overly-precious cooking manifestos, I just want to pop open a can of Vienna Sausage. Or make a PBJ or a hot dog and drink a pedestrian beer.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t swoon over haute cuisine in a restaurant- but that’s their job and they’d better be good at it. A well-fed Meekah is a happy and appreciative Meekah.
I wish someone could come up with a Strunk and White for cooking.
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Wouldn’t it boring to use always the same recipe ? At least for us part of the fun of cooking is to constantly use new recipes, make changes to them etc. and read about others “playing” around with recipes. I can’t remember when we used the same recipe twice for any kind of dish
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Playing around with a recipe is one thing. Everyone - I hope - does this from time to time. Turning a recipe into a self indulgent obstacle course for the minions - no thanks.
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Especially in some countries in Asia, e.g. Japan, there are often chefs who dedicate their whole career to optimize single dishes, e.g. sushi, pizza etc. by continuously changing different parameters etc. Similarly there are people like in the US like Chris Bianco - do you think they do something useless ?
No. Of course not. You want a fight? Not interested.
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No, I don’t want to fight but found the comments around people optimizing recipes interesting and didn’t agree with them but wanted to understand why you and others are so negative about those people but not about chefs who do pretty much the same
Even a hamburger? You’ve never made the same burger twice?
Well, you got my ass whooped in the kitchen.
I’ve tried other little techniques, but I sure as sheeyit ain’t gonna don a pair of pretty gloves and find a burger mold pressing it with a little weight. I’m 215 lbs. I think I got the “beef” to press a well pressed burger. I’ve done the dimple in the middle of the burger, smashing the burger hard when it hits the pan, OK onion burgers ( LOVE them). Even tried to steam them to mimic Louis Lunch. Yeah, I’ll try some tips out; but this sht was silly, IMHO. Hey, it’s our personalities: I’m safe, and you’re a wild man! Different burger every time. It’d be an interesting concept for a resto: same menu every day, different dish every time.
I love experimenting on my own and taking advice from others. I just doubt this dude is a burger expert by virtue of the fact his research is good. I don’t jump on here to read a Capstone paper; I like to cook good food.
Have you gotten your special gloves on and tried this technique? Am I missing something?
From my perspective, there are certain recipes I do not mess with. My mom’s Polish chop suey I make pretty exact to hers. That’s my intent, anyway. My grandma’s stroganoff recipe is another. Then, there are things I’ve worked at for a while like a good fried rice, different breads, bibimbap, yada yada yada. There are also things I’m very fledgling with, and wide open to. Matzo ball soup is one I just tried in May. Why matzo ball soup? It’s new to me, and I’ve had it from a Jewish grandmother who really won me over (not just the soup, she was just the nicest woman.) So, that’s where I stand.
If you never make the same recipe twice, I’m sure it’s an adventure; but some things, to me, are perfect without any change. Other’s, though, I open the floodgates. I’ve made many burgers differently. But, here it is: I have no faith that this man’s advice/ideas will make a burger better than I can make with my local beef, on my little grill, or in my CI. I have no faith that the details he suggests will lead to the promised burger. Since you’re an agent for change, please tell me this man’s advice on burgers is special. I’ll take your word for it that it is a better burger. But, the real variable for me, at least with burgers, is the quality of beef; not some tinkly-dinkly little deets. Think I have a burger mold, burger weight, cutesy little gloves in my kitchen? I sure don’t plan on going out and buying that stuff in hopes of it all making my burgers better, because I have no faith that those things will do jack. But, I hope you try it. I haven’t seen if you posted that you tried this? I’ll reread after I hit “reply.” If you feel this man’s advice will make a better burger, then please let us know that is the case and why you feel so.
I wish you luck.
I should add that my favorite burger has no beef, but lamb. I usually make beef bc my beloved isn’t a lamb fan.
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This was the line that screamed bullshit: “Most burgers are garbage.” “Most” is very relative, depending on who/where/when you are. Maybe most burgers by him suck, I dunno. MOST that I put in my yap are pretty frickin’ good. Not bragging, I’m being inclusive of my friends’ cooking for me, too. How odd I’d have friends who also love to cook. Look how he names the basic decent burger after himself, as if he thought of those obvious, common sense things most of us know and respect out of experience. How arrogant.
"The Richard Eaglespoon burger is known for its well-salted and intensely seared beef patty. The meat is juicy, and the cheese is always melted—it’s butter basted. The burger rests once it’s done searing so it can continue to cook through without drying out, and a relatively fatty beef blend is used to further that end.
The fat contributes toward a more flavorful burger, but fat isn’t flavor: fat is potential flavor. Without salt, that potential flavor is unrealized. Salting the beef patty is critical for this burger.
A pile of thinly sliced pickles helps balance out the fattiness of the burger, and there’s usually a secret sauce, the details of which aren’t critical, but it ought to not be ketchup."
I agree 100%, but this is all common sense to most on here, I’d assume.
Did you see the burger he made? That’s American cheese, and not many where I live would go American.
He needs a scale to shape his patties? Mkay. After stating the obvious he goes into detail on to his own genius with all that equipment. He must be living in the wrong place or something. Burgers most make here are as he describes, but attributes the deliciousness to his pretty name and the most basic techniques. To me he is condescending to me the reader. The voice I get when reading this sounds like he’s quite arrogant. I like to think, when he gets home at night, he eats a frickin bologna/butter samich on white bread over the kitchen sink.
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I haven’t read his burger guide (I don’t make burgers often at home, maybe I’ll give it a try the next time I make a burger) but I want to echo your point on Eaglespoon/Rosenthal’s NY pizza article. Its a great guide and also totally accessible by a novice home pizza maker like myself.
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+1 and he writes like a condescending arsehole.
From hoagie “If you do not want to deal with food scales or a spray bottle of water, you can find a hoagie roll recipe that doesn’t require much of that, and you can bake a hoagie roll on parchment paper with an egg wash. I don’t care—I’m not the one who has to eat that garbage.”
Oh, so any way that’s not his ends up being garbage. So, now the hoagie and burger, if any good, will be called eagle spoons. Superior. I’m sure he knows pizza and bread top to bottom. He’s not the only one; but he sure seems to think he’s sumfin special.
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Yes - even hamburger we really made twice. There are just too many recipes/variables and too little time in life. We think it is fun to constantly playing around with recipes and never “settle” on one (but we also fully understand if others like to focus on one and don’t want to move on (and just to be clear, we also don’t think it is helpful if some people are condescending in their way how they write in their recipes)
“There are just too many recipes/variables and too little time in life.”
-This is why Eaglespoon’s article bothered me. The variables he offers for improvement, I have no faith offer such improvement. Plus his written voice, to me, is condescending. Like I said: I play, too. Some things I play with less, others I’m all in for trying this or that variable. If reason tells me this might be a great idea, I’ll sure as heck try it. There’s a reason my refried beans are much better now than my first batch: I got good advice and I practiced. I’m sure you’re the same. But his variables (weight, gloves, mold, scale) are bull. That’s why I’d like to hear if someone tried it and if there’s any discernible improvement. He may be well-researched. He writes like an arrogant, self-absorbed dink. I’m sure he has vast bread/crust knowledge. I know others who are expert, as well. They’re not king shit, though. Normal people who’ll just tell you their knowledge without bowing before the great one.
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My buddy Rob, a fellow Roadfood alumnus, won the Sutter Home burger competition in 1991, with a lamb burger.
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I can’t remember the last time I used any particular recipe for a dish 
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Perhaps he means well, teaching the unwashed masses what a “real” burger is, i.e. not the hot garbage we usually consume 
But he comes off as pompous and a bit out of touch IYAM. I don’t care, nor do I have the patience for an entire manifesto dedicated to… a cheeseburger.
No, really. I’m good.
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To bring this back to the patty discussion, I find it interesting that Eaglespoon put out this treatise on burger preparation yet neglected to address what (IMO) is the most important aspect of great burgering - meat cut/grind/mixing/seasoning and patty construction. The mere mention of using pre-shaped patties means he doesn’t feel it is necessary to control what cut is used or how the meat is ground or handled pre- or during shaping. Yes, he mentions buying high-quality beef (highly subjective terminology) and specifies a 75/25 blend, but doesn’t dive much deeper than that. A glaring omission and missed opportunity for someone who has covered other foods (such as pizza) so exhaustively.
Anyway, I’ll add my two cents on meat cut/grind/mixing/seasoning and patty construction here. I’m a firm believer that hamburgers (thick hamburgers, that is - smash burgers are a different story) need salt inside and out. Any minimal improvement in crust development that can be achieved by eliminating interior salt is far outweighed by the flavor improvement you get by having the interior of your burger properly seasoned.
Furthermore, I have discovered that with fattier blends (and thick patties - again, thin smash burgers require a different approach), kneading the meat a bit during the patty shaping process helps the burger retain its juices (similar to the way sausages are kneaded to the primary bind stage to avoid the fat leaking out and leaving behind mealy, dry meat). Yes, I know this bucks the conventional wisdom of handling your burger meat as minimally as possible when shaping, but I urge anyone who uses a 75/25 blend to try it and see for yourself. You don’t have to go all the way to primary bind, but you do want to knead until the meat develops a smoothness and sheen on the surface.
Finally, cut/grind is HUGELY important when you are dealing with fattier blends. Eaglespoon’s dislike of the texture of SRF’s wagyu blend is probably due to the texture of the grind - wagyu is so tender and soft on its own, it is almost impossible to get anything but mush when you grind it. Wagyu’s flavor and fattiness is excellent in a burger, though. I get around the texture by mixing ground wagyu (from Costco) half and half with a coarser grind of a firmer cut of beef (either Costco’s 85/15 organic ground beef or self-ground flap steak (which is around 85/15 naturally after trimming).
In my experience, if you get the above right, you can cook it and dress it any way you want and still end up with a truly superior burger. Though I do agree with Eaglespoon that I want my cheese melted (I accomplish this by covering my burger briefly rather than basting with butter, however). And also, f*ck those Martin’s guys.
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