Hey y'all, I couldna' stand it any longer and I've been dying to eat a real honest to GOD burger. And I don't mean no salmon or trout or crabcake chingaderra. I mean BEEF! As in a big fat honkin'hunk of BEEF CHUCK, freshly ground and smashed right into the pan!
If you haven't checked out the earlier video I posted of George Motz a few posts ago, you need to really go and watch it to really see and understand what I'm talkin' 'bout.
I did up sliders tonight in the classic slider manner. I'm talkin' thin sliced onions pressed into a flattened ball of ground chuck in the skillet. Sliders are more technique than size therefore if it isn't done this way then its NOT A SLIDER! Its just another small burger but a slider it is not.
I bought this baby yesterday and brought it out tonight. That's a 6" french knife for size perspective. About 4 pounds.
Cut into about 1/2" or less there about chunks ready for the grinder. I only used about 1/3 of the roast and ratholed the rest for later.
You want to grind it twice to make sure the fat is thoroughly incorporated.
The final grind should yield a look like this and very close to an 80/20 meat to fat ratio. Note: Less fat = less flavor.
After the grind you don't want to really touch the meat. I used a small ice cream scoop to loosely grab some of the meat, and then dropped it into a medium heat cast iron pan and then seasoned the ball of meat with kosher salt and topped it with some thin sliced onions and jalapeno's I had prepped earlier.
After only about ten seconds, I smashed that down with a stiff metal spatula. Note: this goes quickly now and you only need about 45 seconds and then flip it.
See the brown spots on the meat? That's NOT caramelization. It's called the maillard reaction. Wiki that sheeit!
Before you drop the meat in the pan, on another burner, lightly brown some soft squishy slider buns. These are Pepperidge Farm. Take note the lack of cheese or other toppings and condiments. More on that shortly.
Because they cook quickly, as they are so thin, you won't see much color. Rest assured though that there's plenty of juice all up in there.
You want this.
Trust.
As per George Motz, I followed his advice and went with no condiments and toppings. Just meat, bread, salt, onions and jalapeno's. And lemme' 'splain y'all what I think of it.
IT WAS THE BEST DAMN BURGER I EVER ATE.
It needed nothing. It was absolute perfection and the fresh beefy flavor was glorious.
Maybe subconsciously because I went through all the trouble to do it this way I had preprogrammed my mind to think the outcome would be no less awesome than it was. Then again, maybe not. I will say this....
I dare any of y'all to try this and take the pepsi challenge and see for your own damn bad 'sef's.
For me it was hella' fun and eating it was pure sex on a plate.
I would call it CHINGON but that would be an insult.
True story.