What makes a burger? A good bun. What ruins a burger? Soggy bun.
Good: Maillard reaction. That lovely, savory sear on the meat and juices. This is why a proper slider tastes good.
Bad: Dry cardboard. Usually created by people who don’t know how to grill.
Usually created by people who don’t know how to grill.
The main subcategory of these people are those that cook it from frozen.
Ruins it: When the gimmick of the burger is some “special sauce” or house ketchup (and/or they put pickles on it yuck)
Makes it: When the flavorings, seasonings, ingredients are mixed into the ground beef before grilling
Great: the other comments cover it quite well.
Ruin: too much of any one topping. I want to be able to taste the other ingredients. This is an especially easy mistake to make with onion. Red onions have a very strong flavor which can mask others. A little goes a long way.
i think its important that all the ingredients chosen fit well together (i guess thats the case for all food?) also i will not stand for the egrigious pickle-slander in the comments
I make my own pickles and will NOT have a burger without them.
It’s kind of hard to fuck up a burger. The worst burger is what they have at AM/PM or a school cafeteria. And even that isn’t completely terrible.
The best burger though would have bacon, blue cheese and A1 sauce on it. 🤤
I cooked Oklahoma onion burgers yesterday.
Really simple.
- Season your mince with salt and form into small rounds.
- Smash the burgers topped with really finely sliced onion smashed straight into the burger on a hot griddle (I used a soapstone in my Kamado).
- When the lacey edges of the burger are starting to caremalise, flip and add a slice of cheese.
- Place the top of the bun on top of the cheese and the bottom face down on top of that. This lets the buns steam a little and soften.
Serve.
Five ingredients: beef mince, onion, salt, cheese, bun.
Great burger.
A perfect burger to me is a paddy (rissole size) lettuce on the bottom, then the paddy, then tomato, pineapple, beetroot and onion then cheese on top.
In a bread bun not a fucking brioche thing.
If I’m extra fancy an egg under the cheese but the egg needs to be so close to solid that it runs and cooks solid at the same time. I hate the smell of runny egg.
What ruins a burger for me, fucking sauce I don’t want your drippy shitty BBQ sauce or whatever sogging up my bread.
Make a good paddy and that will carry the burger
It needs something to provide crunch, as a textural counterpoint to the warm softness of the bun and patty. Lettuce, raw onion, potato chips each work, just pick ONE.
It needs acidic elements to cut the fatty richness. Mustard, pickles, fresh tomato, these you can double up on.
It needs a patty that holds together. I love a blackbean burger but most of them fall apart, might as well call it a blackbean sloppy joe.
It needs to fit in my mouth without squirting condiments out the other side.
It needs catsup, independent of all other requirements. You cannot leave off or replace the catsup.
The classic:
Beef: salt and pepper only
Cheese: sharp orange cheddar
Toppings: lettuce tomato
Sauce: classic burger sauce or mayo ketchup and relish but not too much sauce
Buns: brioche, slightly toasted
Alternative:
Cheese: smoky Gouda
Toppings: sautéed mushrooms in butter
Sauce: classic barbecue
What ruins a burger: those vegan fake beef patties. Or when the patty to bun ratio is bad.
Speaking of which, people always forget some good alternative like salmon, turkey or chicken burgers. A salmon burger with a grilled pineapple ring is yummy!
Meat.
Lack of meat.
Cheese makes for a great burger. Almost every hamburger can be good with some cheese on it.
What I do not need on a burger is sauce of any kind. Especially not American hamburger dressing.
American hamburger dressing? What is that?
https://kavli.se/produkt/original/ Don’t know if there’s an English page. But it’s some sort ofof dressing used only for hamburgers
To me a burger is a very simple thing. Few ingredients, cooked properly, simple.
When people just keep stacking sloppy stuff on top it just feels like distractions.
As a non food comparison, it’s Like somebody with toktok going on their phone, a streamer going on twitch on their PC and a show going on tv at the same time with led gamer shit everywhere
Hot take: all burgers are overrated. While the platonic ideal of a burger is great, you never actually get what you envision when you attempt to realise it.
The coverage of the pickles isn’t perfect. Half the burger dressing squirts out the sides and is lost when you bite down the first time. The tomatoes slide around and fall out with half the onions. The melted cheese cools and sets, turning into rubbery unpleasantness.
The perfect bite of a burger where you get a little bit of all the components is lovely. But you only get one or two of those per burger, and that’s just not worth the hassle.
Sometimes, I’ll wedge some ice between two sheets of ice when I’m feeling hot. I call it the iceburger! 🧊🍔
Punny jokes aside, probably a soggy or stale bun.
