Today I am thankful for great burgers. I do not eat red meat that often, and that choice is not necessarily a conscious one that I make, though I do know that limiting the amount of red meat that is in one’s diet can be a good thing. It is just something that I naturally happen to do.
However, on occasion I do find myself wanting a burger, but not just any burger, a great burger. Throughout the years I have discovered that burgers are apparently among some of the easiest and most challenging food items to prepare, or at least it can seem that way when you visit different restaurants and order whatever specialty burger it is that they sell, or even a simple hamburger or cheeseburger if you are really trying to play it safe, only to be disappointed by the lackluster burger with which you are presented.
When you think about it, burgers really are not that complicated in the sense that at their foundation they consist of some pretty basic ingredients – some type of meat (generally ground beef), some herbs and seasonings, some sort of a binder (often eggs & breadcrumbs), and the actual buns that surround the meat. Simple, right?
Well, apparently the challenging nature of burgers comes into play when one seeks to make adjustments to the basic makeup of the burger, and then again when it concerns the actual cooking of the burger – if you cook it for too long the meat can dry out, if you do not cook it long enough the rawness can make you sick and then some.
So, see, preparing and cooking burgers apparently can be a pretty slippery slope if one is not careful. Okay, I will definitely concede that. However, I do not know about you, but as places that are run by professionals I tend to hold restaurants to a higher standard when it concerns the preparation of food. So when I go to a restaurant and order a burger, I expect it to be much better than anything that non-professional chefs prepare. Unfortunately, the burgers that I receive when I dine at restaurants are often disappointing, which compounds the whole experience for me since I rarely eat red meat. So when I reach the point when I want some red meat, I really want it to be good. Now you see my dilemma.
One thing that I have noticed about the disappointing burgers that I have eaten that were prepared by restaurants is that the recipes call for too many ingredients; the more ingredients that you continue to add to a burger, the greater the chance that those ingredients will not work well together, and the burger will either be lackluster or entirely inedible.
What would my advice to restaurants who are determined to offer burgers on their menus be? Keep it simple. And if you insist on varying the ingredients, find a way to keep the number of ingredients small. Remember the age old adage that a person who successfully handles small things first will then be ready to handle larger tasks.
With all of this said, my guess is that you now understand why I have such an appreciation for great burgers, as they seem to be very few and far between. So when I do encounter a great burger, I make sure to make a note, whether mental or otherwise, so that when the craving for a burger hits I know exactly where to go to have it satisfied. #lovebythedrop
love by the drop 