How to make homemade burgers

Homemade burgers! Who is not clear that they are a hundred times better than the ones we can buy? They are because we choose the best meat, without preservatives or additives, and we mix it with the ingredients that we like the most, and also because homemade food always has that extra satisfaction that we are proud of.

Thank you Miriam, author of The Winter Guest , for treating us to these delicious homemade hamburgers!

What a pleasure to prepare some good homemade hamburgers, have you ever done it? In my opinion, it is very worth it, not only because you have more control over the ingredients, but also because you can try all the flavor variations you can think of. And I love chopping meat at home with my own mincer , choosing great cuts and trying different combinations.

I think that when preparing burgers at home you also better appreciate how the different ingredients influence the final flavor, as well as their proportions. One becomes aware that once minced meat oxidizes visibly and loses its healthy pink color to take on unpleasant greyish tints (which is why commercial minced meats contain antioxidants). That is why I recommend you prepare the hamburgers on the same day that you are going to eat them and let the mixture rest just long enough for the flavors to settle.

In any case, a hamburger is something so simple that the essential thing for it to turn out delicious is, as you can suppose, that the quality of the raw material is excellent. Adopt a trusted butcher, I recommend it, of recognized and proven quality, and your hamburgers will be delicious. If you can afford to add something from a top quality cut, such as sirloin, be sure to do so. And we will always add some pork fat in the form of bacon or a similar cut to give the mixture smoothness and then help in browning, when melting on the griddle.

For me, the fundamental ingredients are the ones I give below in the recipe, but there are many variants, from adding beaten egg as in Russian steaks to help the dough mix perfectly, to adding various spices, such as nutmeg, herbs, etc., even mustard. Do not cut yourselves, experiment and let your hair down.

Ingredients

• 500 g beef jerky
• 150 g of beef tenderloin
• 1 thick slice of fresh bacon
• 1 garlic
• ¼ onion
• parsley (optional)
• salt to taste
• some virgin olive oil

Elaboration

1. We cut the steak and sirloin meat into strips or pieces that we can easily insert into the manual mincer (or the KitchenAid mincer if you have the robot).
2. Remove the crust from the bacon. Peel the garlic and mash it well. Finely chop the onion.
3. Chop all the meat in the grinder, interspersing the pieces of bacon with the rest of the meat. Put it in a bowl and mix it with a fork. Add the garlic, onion and parsley if we use it. We mix everything perfectly.
4. We cut little papers of about 10 cm to be able to form the hamburgers on them. We place a plating ring or another type of 10 cm mold on the paper and add between ¼ and 1/5 of the prepared mixture, depending on the thickness of the hamburger that we prefer. We crush the surface with our fingers or a spoon and lift the mold. We form all the hamburgers with this procedure until the mixture is finished. You can also use a hamburger press , with which you will always get the same diameter but also the same thickness, they are easy to unmold and you can mark the characteristic grooves on the hamburgers.
5. We heat a good iron grill over high heat. When it is very hot, brush each hamburger with olive oil and put it on the grill. Cook the burgers until they are well browned, for at least five minutes on each side, although it also depends on the cooking point you prefer.
6. We serve the hamburgers immediately on the buns accompanied by the ingredients that we like the most: lettuce, tomato, onion, caramelized onion, pickles, cheese, etc.