In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto demonstrates how to make the best hamburger at home. From choosing the best ground beef to toasting the bun just right, your homemade burgers are about to level up.
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00:00I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor,
00:03and today I'm gonna show you how to make
00:04the best burgers at home, Frank style.
00:09We're gonna go over techniques the pros use
00:11to make perfect burgers at home.
00:13This is Burgers 101.
00:16Making a burger is a simple task with a few techniques.
00:20You don't need to go crazy.
00:21For me, that makes the perfect burger.
00:23Most people think of grilling season
00:24and that's when they make burgers,
00:26but I make them all year round.
00:27As long as you have a saute pan,
00:29you can make a delicious burger.
00:31If you only watch one video on how to make a burger,
00:34it's gonna be this one,
00:35and you will make a perfect burger every time.
00:40In front of me, I have some 80-20 ground beef.
00:42Chef, what is 80-20 ground beef?
00:45It's 80% meat, 20% fat,
00:48which is a really, really perfect ratio
00:50for a delicious burger.
00:51A lot of people are afraid of fat,
00:53but in the case of hamburgers, fat is key.
00:57If you get something that's too lean,
00:58your burger is a little crumbly and dry.
01:01If you get something with too much fat,
01:02you end up with a greasy burger.
01:04I do not buy pre-made patties
01:05because I have no idea what's going in them.
01:07I have a pound of beef,
01:08and what I'm gonna do is quarter pound patties.
01:10I think a quarter pound patty
01:12for a regular grilled burger is the perfect amount.
01:15So all you really have to do
01:16is break this into four separate lumps.
01:18It doesn't have to be perfect.
01:20If you wanna be more precise, grab yourself a scale,
01:22get it into a ball, and I'm gonna just start working it.
01:25And basically, I have a ball,
01:26and I'm slapping it into my hand.
01:28You don't have to go for a long time.
01:29It doesn't take a lot to kind of work this,
01:31but I'm just gonna kind of slap it together.
01:34And you can see that when I press down on it,
01:36it forms a nice patty.
01:38If I do this, looks what happens.
01:39I'm not working it, and I'm forming it into a patty,
01:42but once I put this on the grill,
01:43it's just gonna kind of fall apart.
01:45And then what I'm gonna do
01:46is I'm really gonna flatten it out into a nice patty.
01:49I like my patties to be fairly thin.
01:51It's gonna shrink a little.
01:52So I go a little bit bigger than I think I'm gonna need
01:55so that it fits on my bun.
01:56So I'm just gonna pat it out.
01:58What I like to do is work the meat
01:59because the meat fibers kind of mess with each other,
02:01and that mesh is gonna hold in your juices and your fat.
02:04The meat is cold.
02:05It should always be cold.
02:06It's not gonna stick to your hands if your meat is cold.
02:08I'm not seasoning my meat beforehand.
02:10I am not making meatloaf.
02:11I'm making burgers.
02:12The other thing is is that
02:13when you season ground beef like this,
02:15it tends to get a little rubbery.
02:17So I like to season right before I put it on the grill
02:19and not before.
02:21Patties are formed.
02:22Let's prep our toppings.
02:23Let's get into the toppings.
02:27The first thing I'm gonna talk about is an onion.
02:29You can do raw onion on burgers.
02:31I do like raw onion on hamburgers,
02:33but for this one, I'm going to put it on my burger
02:36and cook it with the burger.
02:37The onion cooks in the meat juices,
02:38gets a little caramelized.
02:40It's a little sweet.
02:41It just accents that beef so well.
02:44When I slice onions,
02:44I like to take the top and the bottom off.
02:46People are like, oh, why do you do that?
02:48I'm a chef in restaurants,
02:49and I pretty much do everything for speed.
02:51The top and the bottom of the onion,
02:53I can use for stock if I want to.
02:55I like to take my onion and cut it in half moons.
03:00I feel when you cut the onions in half moons,
03:02you're basically cutting across the grain of the onion,
03:05and the onion kind of is a little easier to eat.
03:07It just kind of melts away when you bite into it.
03:09So I'm gonna slice my onions fairly thin.
03:15And I do use American cheese.
03:16I have white American here.
03:18And you'll also notice that it's not wrapped in plastic.
03:20When I get white American cheese,
03:22I go to the deli section and I have them slice it for me.
03:24It melts really nice.
03:25It has good flavor,
03:27and it's a great accent to our burger.
03:29One thing I do agree with is lettuce on a burger.
03:31I like lettuce.
03:32I like the crunch.
03:33It adds a little contrast and temperature.
03:35Tomatoes are a whole other story for me.
03:37A lot of people might disagree with me,
03:38but I do not like tomatoes on my burger in this form.
03:42Tomatoes in ketchup form, good.
03:43Tomatoes in this form, too slippery,
03:46a little slimy as far as I'm concerned.
03:48And when you take that bite, the bun tends to slip a lot.
03:51I also have ketchup and mayonnaise.
03:53And what I like to do with this, actually,
03:55is I get my ketchup and mayonnaise
03:57and I make a little sauce out of it.
03:59Equal amounts ketchup and mayo.
04:02To me, this is a really nice burger sauce.
04:04Straight ketchup is good, but I think ketchup and mayo,
04:06like there's something about the combination of these two
04:09that just make it so much better.
04:11It's kind of like my secret sauce,
04:13but there's really not much secret there.
04:14If you like a little spice,
04:16put a little hot sauce of Sriracha in there.
04:18One of the other toppings that I think are necessary
04:20on a burger are dill pickles.
04:21These to me are the perfect dill pickles for a burger.
04:24I do not like big slices of dill pickles.
04:27It kind of goes back to the whole tomato thing.
04:29They slip, they slide.
04:31I also think they're a little watery.
04:32So I buy these and they are mini dill pickles.
04:35I want you to look at this, right?
04:37Look at that pickle.
04:38It's not only adorable,
04:40it's the perfect size pickle for my burger.
04:42So you take your pickles
04:43and you slice them into little coins.
04:45This way, when you take that bite of your burger,
04:49you're getting a little bite of pickle
04:50in every single bite.
04:51This is one of my favorite things to do.
04:53I do this whenever I do bacon on a burger,
04:55I cut it small so that I'm not biting my burger
04:59and everything's sliding out.
05:00With these little mini dills,
05:01it gives you a great pop of dill pickle flavor
05:03in every single bite.
05:05If you look at the center of these,
05:07there's not a lot of seeds in there.
05:09And that's the thing that always threw me off
05:10with dill pickles is that the seeds
05:12are kind of mushy and slimy and I don't like it.
05:15But these little pickles do not have those seeds in there
05:18and I love it.
05:21It's time to cook our burger.
05:23Now, there's a couple of things I wanna talk about
05:25before we start.
05:25I'm cooking in a stainless steel pan.
05:27You can use whatever pan you have.
05:29I feel like stainless steel is perfect for this.
05:31We get good caramelization
05:32and it's a pan that most people will have.
05:34A couple of things you gotta think about
05:36is that if you're cooking in a pan,
05:38you want to have a good fan.
05:39Whether you have a vent hood
05:41or what I used to do when I lived in a small apartment,
05:44I would open the window,
05:45put a fan in the window and exhaust it out.
05:47First thing I wanna do is get my pan hot.
05:49So I'm gonna start on high heat
05:51and I'm gonna preheat my pan.
05:53If I throw stuff in here now and it's not preheated,
05:56everything's gonna stick and it's gonna be a mess.
05:58My pan is getting hot.
06:00I'm using a neutral oil.
06:01You can use whatever oil you're comfortable with.
06:03I tend to use a neutral vegetable oil.
06:05If I have chicken fat or beef fat, even better.
06:08I'm not gonna put a lot of oil in
06:10because my burgers have some fat.
06:11I'm just gonna coat.
06:12If you look at the pan,
06:14the pan is just coated on the bottom.
06:15The oil starts to get ripply
06:16when it's getting to the right temperature.
06:18And I'm gonna look for small wisps of smoke.
06:21I'm gonna season my burgers
06:22and this pan will fit two burgers.
06:25Season up high so we get a good dispersion
06:27because when you bite into the burger,
06:28you're gonna get that saltiness
06:30and then you're gonna get the tender meat inside.
06:32And when I put my burgers in,
06:33I'm gonna drop them away from me towards the camera
06:36so that if I get any oil splash,
06:39it's splashing away from me and not on me.
06:42So we're still on that medium high heat.
06:45And I think we're good.
06:46We're getting a little smoky.
06:47It's okay.
06:48While my burgers are sitting there,
06:50I'm gonna take my onions
06:52and put them on top of my burger.
06:54So they start to cook.
06:55When I flip them, they will start to caramelize
06:58and that's where we're gonna get
06:59that nice, delicious oniony flavor.
07:01So don't be shy with those.
07:03And literally just a little pinch of salt
07:05on my onions so they're seasoned.
07:07Seasoning is so important
07:09and I season throughout my process.
07:11Burgers need salt.
07:12That crust on the outside is super important.
07:15So don't be afraid to liberally season.
07:17One of the things that people tend to do here
07:19is start pressing down on things.
07:21Don't press down on things.
07:22All you're doing with the burgers
07:23when you press down on them
07:24is starting to squeeze the juices out.
07:27I have a metal spatula.
07:28I'm gonna get under my burger
07:30and I'm gonna give it a nice flip.
07:32And all I'm gonna do is do a light press
07:34to make sure that my onions stay on the burger.
07:37I'm not squeezing it.
07:38A light press just to press my onions into my burger.
07:42How I assure that it's not overcooked
07:43and undercooked on the inside
07:44is that I start to see juice come out,
07:45which means my burger is cooking on the inside.
07:47You don't want all the juice to come out.
07:49They're not super red and bloody.
07:51They're gonna get a little more on the clear side.
07:53But for the most part,
07:54this burger should only take less than seven minutes.
07:56It should probably take about six to eight minutes.
07:58I'm gonna add my cheese right now on top of the burger.
08:01I want my cheese to melt and I like two slices.
08:06My cheese goes on.
08:07And what I'm gonna do here
08:09is I'm gonna basically steam my bun at this time.
08:12I take the top bun and the bottom bun
08:14and I put them on top of my burger.
08:16So I'm gonna get some of that steam heating my bun up.
08:19I think potato buns are the best.
08:21They're tender.
08:22They're slightly sweet
08:23and they don't crumble under the pressure
08:25of eating the burger.
08:26My wife is a big toasted bun person.
08:28I don't like toasted buns.
08:29I do kind of like them a little steamy and warm.
08:31So this is gonna do that.
08:33If you've ever been to a place called White Castle,
08:35this is what they do and that's where I got the idea.
08:37But I want the cheese to melt
08:38and my buns to get nice and warm.
08:40I'm aiming for a medium burger.
08:42I do not like rare burgers.
08:44I feel like they're like steak tartare
08:45and I don't really want that.
08:47So I'm aiming for a medium.
08:48I think we're good.
08:49I'm gonna take it off.
08:50I kind of feel this is medium.
08:52I'm using timing.
08:53I'm using my senses.
08:54If you're really nervous about your burger
08:56being the right temperature, get a thermometer.
08:58But for the most part, I'm just going on pure instinct.
09:00I'm gonna take my burgers out, flip it over.
09:03I'm gonna just put it on this over here to rest
09:05while we get things to plate this up.
09:09Our onions are nice and caramelized.
09:10Our bun has gotten nice and steamy
09:12and now we can plate it up.
09:14["When You Wish Upon A Star"]
09:16Time to assemble the burger
09:18and as with everything as a chef, you think things through.
09:21And I always think about how is my guest
09:23or the people I'm serving,
09:24how are they gonna eat this burger
09:26and how is it gonna be the best experience for them?
09:28At home, normally everyone makes their own toppings
09:30but if I'm cooking for you, I'm putting the toppings on.
09:33So basically, I don't want anything sliding around.
09:35So when I open my burger, I want to put the ketchup
09:39and mayonnaise mixture onto the bun.
09:40Not only will this mixture kind of protect the bun a little
09:43from getting soggy,
09:44it's also gonna kind of hold things together.
09:46If I put that ketchup and mayonnaise mixture here,
09:48it makes everything slick and slidey and I don't want that.
09:51And I'm gonna use my pickles as anchors too.
09:53If I put my pickles on here,
09:55it's almost like little speed bumps
09:56that are gonna hold my burger together.
09:58I'm gonna use lettuce.
09:59Usually with lettuce, I try and use one really nice leaf
10:03just to add some crunch, throw that on top
10:05and then we can put this all together.
10:07If you like tomatoes, that's totally up to you.
10:09Put it on your burger.
10:10I usually put them on the table
10:12because I know there's a lot of people that like them
10:14but I keep them aside.
10:16What I would actually probably do is put some salt on them
10:18and eat them just like that and not eat them on my burger.
10:20And this is how I make the perfect burger at home.
10:23After all this talk and all this cooking,
10:25it is time to taste.
10:26I like to get a good stance on this, right?
10:28You don't want to get it all over you.
10:29So I like to kind of like get in there, get the burger.
10:32You have to squeeze it together just a little
10:34and get a good bite in there.
10:37Mm.
10:39The thing I love about this burger
10:41is you get a little bit of everything in every bite.
10:43It's delicious.
10:44You get a little bit of the burger.
10:46You get the cheese.
10:46You get it all over your face.
10:48You get some of those pickles, the lettuce
10:50and it's gonna be probably one of the most enjoyable burgers
10:52you've ever had.
10:53You'll notice that when I took that big bite,
10:55it didn't fall apart.
10:56It held together.
10:57This burger is definitely better than a restaurant burger
10:59because not only did you make it with your own hands,
11:02with love, you had control over the ingredients.
11:05You chose the ingredients, all the best ingredients
11:08and you put a little love in it.
11:09You had it in your pocket here.
11:10You sprinkled a little on.
11:11It makes it that much better.
11:14Today, I'm gonna show you how to make the best burgers
11:16at home, Frank style.
11:20Frank style.
11:21Ha ha ha ha ha.