Flavoring the Burger

A controversy rages over the wisdom of mixing ingredients into the patty. Food Network’s Bobby Flay, author of the cookbook Bobby Flay’s Burgers, Fries & Shakes and owner of several locations of Bobby’s Burger Palace (among other things), once told me his patties are nothing but chuck, sprinkled with salt and pepper on the exterior just before cooking. “I don’t put anything in my burgers like onion, eggs, breadcrumbs, anything. That’s meatloaf.”

My colleague Professor Blonder studied what happens to burger meat when salt is mixed in. Pictured below are three meatballs made from 80% lean ground beef and cooked at 325°F. As you can see, salt helped retain water so there was less weight loss during cooking, but mixing in salt also compacted the meat and it became dense and rubbery. Remember, much of the juciness in ground meat comes from fat. The best burgers have a loose texture with pockets to hold juice. For this reason we recommend salting the exterior just before cooking or even during cooking.

As for mix-ins, I add a few seasonings such as garlic and onion powder, which would burn and get bitter if sprinkled on the surface. Avoid adding wet ingredients like wine and Worcestershire sauce, which require you to work the meat hard to mix them in. They can also retard browning.

Learn to make the same size burgers every time so you can get a sense of how long it takes to cook them properly. An ice cream scoop is a good tool for this. For steakhouse burgers, 6 to 8 ounces of meat is ideal. Make disks ½ to ¾ inch thick, packing them loosely with your hands, so there are air pockets to hold the juices.

It has become fashionable to make indentations in the centers of burgers on the theory that it will keep the burger from puffing out. I don’t, because they don’t puff up much and I want uniform thickness, especially in the center.