The Cheeseburger Trilogy, Part 2, Continued: The Burger Blueprint
If you haven’t yet, read The Cheeseburger Trilogy Part 2 to bring yourself up to speed. And if you fancy it, read Part 1 and the interlude.
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Now, on with the show.
SECTION 3: THE BURGER BLUEPRINT
Imagine, if you will, the perfect burger. It may differ from my perfect burger in both major and minor ways, but I’d wager it shares basically the same general flavor profile and eating experience. When a burger is bad, it’s not usually because it’s bad on a conceptual level – it’s usually because the execution is wrong. But there are also things which should be avoided because they will doom you to failure from the get-go. Let’s get these “burger don’ts” out of the way first.
Point A: Banned Burger Practices
Most bad burger ideas have to do with toppings. For the most part, you can add whatever the hell you want to a burger, provided they are deployed thoughtfully and don’t sabotage the fundamental “burger-ness” of the burger or cause it to fall apart (see Basic Burger Parameters, below). But there are a few toppings that are categorically forbidden:
Rocket, spinach, or any other tender salad leaves: Lettuce in a burger is primarily for provide textural contrast, and secondarily to act as a barrier that helps prevent the bottom bun from becoming too soggy. Rocket and spinach do neither of these, becoming withered and papery under the heat of the hot patty. Even the thought of them repulses me. The peppery flavor of rocket may be amenable to beef, but if that’s what you’re after, you’re better off using watercress, and even this would be better chopped up and worked through a sauce.
No rocket. No spinach.Cheeses with poor melting quality: Hard, mature cheeses such as well-aged Cheddars, Parmesan, Manchego, and Comte, or cheeses with edible but un-melting rinds such as Brie are not allowed on burgers. Admittedly, this is frustrating, because many of these cheeses do taste good with beef. But they can also be overpowering, and more importantly, they split into pools of fat and blobs of grainy protein when they melt – no good on a burger. In 99% of cases, the only choice is American.
American cheese is often maligned for various reasons (some of which may be valid), but this is ultimately another prejudice that needs to be exorcized. Now, some readers may be shaking their heads and rolling their eyes, thinking, “Oh, look at this poor, silly Yank and the plasticky goo he calls cheese, as orange as his president, ho ho! He can come around to mine and I’ll show him how a nice slice of Kirkham’s Lancashire matches beautifully with some dry-aged Angus cooked on the Aga!”
But if that’s your attitude then all I have to say to you is: you will never know true burger happiness, and I feel sorry for you. However! There is a best-of-both worlds approach: homemade burger cheese emulsified with sodium citrate, which I discuss in more detail in Point D, Item 1-7 below.Truffle, foie gras, lobster, gold leaf, or other ‘luxury’ ingredients: Not only do these generally not taste good on a burger, they are also fundamentally at odds with what a burger should be: cheap. And if it can’t be actually cheap, it should still be cheap in spirit: humble, unpretentious, unrefined. Burgers have no dress code.
Anything in the patty besides beef: Burger patties are not meatballs. They shouldn’t contain onions, garlic, breadcrumbs, eggs, dried herbs, or any other nonsense.1 Additions like these ruin the delightfully knobbly texture of ground beef, interrupt its pure beefy flavour, and require the beef to be well-done in order to fully cook the inclusions. This rule also extends to stuffing cheese into patties, “Juicy Lucy” style.
That said, there is no problem – at least in theory – with patty adjuncts that maintain or at least complement the beefiness of the patty. For example, I have always been intrigued by the patties at Roy Choi’s now-defunct LocoL, which were made predominantly of beef but incorporated a mixture of tofu and whole grains such as farro and quinoa, which have a similar texture to bits of ground meat. (More alternatives are discussed below in Point C.)
In addition to these additions, there are a few common burger-ruining mistakes to be mindful of from the outset. These are due to ingredients that aren’t inherently bad, but may present problems due to quality, storage, and handling:
Dry meat: In terms of quality and flavor, there is, in my opinion, no such thing as “bad” beef to use in burgers – even cheap, nothing-special meat can be made into something very tasty if you season, cook, and dress it properly. But be wary of beef that’s very lean. Even cooked rare, it won’t provide the “dripping” quality inherent to good burgers, and forget about cooking them medium-well or well, as you’d often do in a “smash burger” style. You’ll end up with grim, grey pucks of meat – whatever the opposite of “mouthwatering” is. (Mouth-drying, I guess?) Choose meat that has a decent amount of fat (20% minimum), and cook it carefully. And remember that an undercooked patty can always be cooked more. An overcooked one cannot be salvaged.
Bun-related textural problems: The big thing to avoid here are buns that are stale, so whatever you choose, make sure they’re fresh. Buns that are too soft, too chewy, or too light are also issues to watch out for.
Topping-related quality problems: Perhaps the most egregious offender here is tomatoes, which are so often just plain bad. Don’t put tomatoes on your burger at all unless you’ve tried them, and you know they’re actually good (or have been adequately pre-seasoned in order to make them good – see Point D, Item 2-5 below). Wilted or floppy lettuce, soft pickles, off-brand or regionally incorrect condiments, and un-melted cheese are also common problems that may negatively affect burger outcomes.
Point B: Basic Burger Parameters
The banned practices outlined above may seem harsh, and perhaps at odds with the idea that the best burger is the one that’s perfectly matched to your particular tastes. But think of them as enabling constraints, which not only protect us from bad burgers, but prompt us to think critically about every component and what it contributes to (or detracts from) the final product. Rules like these are also there to help preserve the essence of what a burger is: the simple but irresistible combination of ground beef and a soft bun. You can build upon this foundation however you like, but only to the extent that it doesn’t ruin its structural integrity or obscure the flavors at its core.
Burgers can be relatively neat or quite messy (but not sloppy) and never so large that they must be disassembled or cut in half to fit comfortably in your mouth.2 As a rule of thumb, burgers should not be taller than about 3cm when compressed. This means that burgers can be significantly taller when prepared and served, so long as they collapse to 3cm in height when squeezed or bitten, without anything being forced out when you do so.3 If a slice of tomato or, god forbid, an entire patty comes flopping out the backside of your burger when you bite into it, you need to go back to the drawing board.
Diameter is less important than height, but 12cm is a good maximum size to have in mind before the burger starts to become unwieldy.4 Usually, diameter is limited by the size of the bun anyway; the patty or other toppings should not protrude more than 1cm.
Point C: Patty and Bun Considerations
Because the patty and bun form the basis of any good burger, they must be well made. Again, this is not to say they need to be “gourmet” – the buns don’t have to be from some artisanal bakery and the beef doesn’t have to be dry-aged or rare-breed (though these are nice, of course, if you can afford them). This is also not to say that the patty and bun need to be the focal point of the burger. A burger is a sandwich, and like any good sandwich, the eating experience is mostly about contrast. The brain loves contrast because it keeps us on our toes, so burgers should offer something tangy, something crunchy, something sweet, something a little bit different in each bite to ensure an engaging eating experience from start to finish. Toppings matter. But ultimately, without a good bun and good beef, you won’t have a good burger. You’ll have a toppings sandwich.
As for the qualities of the beef and bun, the beef should have an interesting texture of its own, which means the grind should be coarse, and never pre-seasoned – salt breaks down proteins in the beef, which causes the mince to develop an overly processed, uniform texture. The cooking matters too. You’ll always want to use a high heat, which will of course develop flavor in the form of the Maillard reaction but also texture from crisp and chewy bits along the edges. If you want a lot of this texture, go the smash burger route; if you want a generally softer patty, keep the browning to a minimum, or cook over charcoal rather than on a griddle or in a pan. It is a fallacy that burgers must be cooked pink to be good; while there’s certainly nothing wrong with a medium-rare or even rare burger, well-fatted mince will retain plenty of moisture even when thoroughly cooked, and you’ll have sauces for additional lubrication as well. But perhaps it goes without saying that burgers can still be overcooked, rendering them chewy, burnt, or dry – so always err on the side of rare.
The patty’s flavor should be strong and sufficiently beefy, which can be derived from the cow itself, the aging process, and/or the cuts chosen. Kewpee, my favorite burger restaurant in Wisconsin uses a mix of 90% chuck, 7% cheek, and 3% liver. This is an incredible combination because you get a great balance of lean and fat from the chuck, a massive beefy flavor and a touch of chew from the cheek, and just the right amount of bloody richness from the liver, while also being incredibly economical. Prime cuts have no place in a burger, and I’m skeptical of prolonged dry-aging as well, because of the added cost involved. Save the primo stuff for steaks.
If you have little or no control over cuts and aging – for example, if you’re buying mince from a supermarket, like most of us do – you can enhance it with a little bit of fish sauce, either gently worked through the mince, or splashed onto the patties’ surface. Used judiciously, it doesn’t make the burger taste fishy – it just adds additional umami and a rich, earthy aroma which mimics the smell of well-aged beef.
The patty size should generally be no more than a quarter pound (or around 110-115g) and usually about 1cm thick or less after cooking – remember the 3cm rule, especially if you are making a double or triple burger. For me, 100g is always about right: not too small on its own, but not too large to double up. Patties should be formed as close to cooking as possible to preserve their loose texture, or formed during cooking by smashing them onto the griddle with a sturdy spatula or chef’s press. Season the patties well with a generous amount of fine salt, and a less generous amount of pepper.
So far, so beefy. But is there any burger hope for people who don’t partake in cow at all? The hardliner in me says: no, not really. At least not if you want the particular sensory experience of a true classic American burger. But I also think that good burgers aren’t just about beef, and I have had many good burgers that don’t use it. Venison, buffalo, and ostrich are all good “second-best” alternatives to beef in terms of flavor, but as these all tend to be leaner than beef, they can be challenging to cook. Turkey, pork,5 and lamb are more forgiving, but flavour-wise, they diverge pretty sharply from beef. And of course, all of these options present their own concerns regarding ethics and sustainability, and if that’s why you’re avoiding beef in the first place, you are probably better off going straight to the veggie options.
The bean burgers of the 90s are… well, they are what they are, and what they are ain’t burgers. They aren’t even trying. This is not to say they aren’t good – they’re just a tremendously poor facsimile for beef. Supermarkets now stock a range of much better “mock meats,” such as Impossible and Beyond, although they present problems of their own. While I’m not that convinced by critiques that these products aren’t very good for you, rely on industrial monoculture farming, and qualify as “ultra-processed” (whatever the fuck that means), I’m also not that convinced by their flavor. They taste alright, especially when dressed up in classic burger accoutrements, but they also have a too-uniform texture and fall into an uncanny valley of flavor. If you are in the UK you may want to seek out the veggie patties by Symplicity, which offer solutions to all of these issues. They are so good, so at home in a burger that I can just about forgive them their sanctimonious marketing.
Thankfully, sourcing burgers’ second key component – the bun – is less fraught, both in terms of ethics and flavor. Do not bother making your own; shop-bought buns are more than adequate. To find the best one for you, you’ll just have to shop around a bit. The ideal burger bun should be soft, with virtually no chew. If the bun has any resistance at all it will be hard to bite through, ruining the eating experience. More often than not, the perfect bun can be found among the most basic pre-sliced supermarket white buns. However, sometimes these are far too light. The bun needs to have a certain density to it, and enough of a gluten structure that will allow it to support the weight of the fillings, and hold its form even when it starts to absorb moisture from them. This is why you have to shop around. Not all white bread is equal. And yes, it really should be plain white – whole grains are weird in a burger. Brioche or milk bread is kind of okay, sometimes, but the added sweetness usually makes the burger too rich and cloying. Buns should never be floury or crusty. And as for sesame seeds, I think they are a nice touch, with little pops of nutty flavor – but on the other hand, I’ve never once thought to myself, “You know what this burger really needs? Sesame seeds.” Use them if you wish.
Finally, buns almost always benefit from a secondary cook while the burger is being made, by toasting, steaming, or both. I typically toast the buns by laying them on the griddle (never toast the outside of the bun), then briefly steam the upper bun under a cloche with a splash of water, once they have been set on top of the cooked burger.
With these basic precepts in mind, you can begin to build your perfect burger. What follows is a rough guide, so you can choose your own burger adventure. I have also included a graph which plots internationally famous burgers according to size, complexity, and relative messiness, to act as visual reference points to guide and inspire you.
Point D: The Dirty Dozen
For simplicity, I have based this blueprint on just twelve burger toppings. These are either things which you’d commonly expect to find on a burger, or things which bring a particular something that enhances burgers in a unique way without going beyond the realm of burger normalcy. In my opinion, good burgers don’t require anything more than these toppings, but they are ultimately just examples. Feel free to be imaginative – but bear in mind that if you take toppings too far, using too many, too much, or ones that are too weird, you will end up in the DANGER ZONE. This is the point of no return, where burgers collapse – sometimes literally, sometimes conceptually – under the weight of their toppings.
All of these toppings will be familiar to you, but some brief notes accompany each one. Once your burger formula is complete, remember Coco Chanel and consider taking one thing away. For example: if you have enough fat from the meat and cheese, and vinegar from pickles, ketchup, and/or mustard, do you really need mayonnaise?
Important note: In this schematic, cheese is classed as a sauce, because for all intents and purposes, that’s what it is. Cheese on a burger should be very nearly liquefied during the cooking, which helps it act not only as a moisturizer and enricher, but also a thick glue which brings added stability and density to the burger.
Point D, Item 1: Sauces and Spreads
Ketchup: Heinz or die. There is no point in making your own, or in buying any other brand. If you want a richer or more tomato-y flavor, consider stirring in some tomato paste, or deploying an actual tomato. If you want more sweetness and complexity, consider barbecue sauce instead.
Mustard: American yellow mustard has the correct balance, but it may be too mild for some. French or Polish mustards can also work, as can English mustard, in small amounts. Whole grain mustard is odd on a burger.
Mayonnaise: Usually not necessary, but if you like additional richness, by all means, use it. There is no need to be fancy (save the Kewpie for your egg sandos), but flavored mayo is sometimes acceptable – a little bit of anchovy or garlic, for example, can be a nice addition.
Barbecue sauce: I have mixed feelings about barbecue sauce. On the one hand, it is awfully sweet. On the other hand, it’s delicious, and a good one can add some interesting notes of smoke and spice. Don’t use too much.
Butter: A feature of the aptly-named Midwestern “butterburgers.” You can use butter to add a rich sweetness to the burger by either spreading it thinly onto the toasted bun, or by basting the patty in it as it cooks.
Chilli con carne: Don’t use a chilli recipe you’d eat on its own; use something closer to what you’d get out of a can. It should be almost entirely meat, and sauce-like rather than soupy. I would start with a Sloppy Joe recipe (like this one) but add chilli powder, cumin, paprika, etc. and cook it until nice and jammy. This Mos Burger copycat recipe is also a good starting point.
Cheese: I have made my thoughts on cheese clear in Point A above, but (there’s always a but) some un-American cheeses are fine provided that they are not too hard, melt well, and are not heated to the point of coagulation. Provolone, medium Cheddar, Emmental, Edam, Monterrey Jack, Colby, mild Red Leicester: varieties like these are all basically okay. But if you want a good, strong, cheesy flavor that also melts as well as American, you need to make it yourself. This is where sodium citrate comes in.
Sodium citrate is the emulsifier used in American cheese to bind the fat and protein so they don’t separate upon heating. It’s clever stuff, and you can buy it online and use it to make your own burger cheese from whatever cheese you like, simply by melting it into a little bit of liquid. Back in the day I used to make my own burger cheese out of white port, white soy sauce, aged Gouda, Cheddar, and Gruyere. It was pretty amazing, but it was also difficult to make in large quantities. But the process is much easier when you’re making small batches. Just use this handy calculator (a copycat from one originally published by the authors of Modernist Cuisine) to work out your ratios.
Point D, Item 2: Vegetable Garnishes
Onions: If you’re using raw onions, don’t use whole rings – they can be surprisingly tough to bite through, and you can end up pulling out the whole ring. Whole rings are also, generally too much onion – too hot and harsh. Dice the onion and distribute it evenly around the surface of the patty. Griddled onions should also be diced, not left in big chunks or rings. Fully caramelized onions are not worth the time and effort they take; if you want a sweet, cooked onion flavor, I’d opt for simply griddled onions, or a shop-bought caramelized onion jam (but don’t use too much). Crispy fried onions can be a nice touch, but they take us into hot dog territory, and the shop-bought kind often taste a bit stale. I’d recommend making thin, small-ish breadcrumbed onion rings, similar to those used at Burger King.
Pickles: It is surprisingly hard to find decent burger pickles here in the UK. Most of them are too sweet and too soft. Personally I’d avoid any British or German brands and just buy some from your local Polski sklep instead. I’d also advise buying crinkle-cut pickles, if you can. It’s a small thing, but the tread helps keep the pickles from slipping out of the burger.
Jalapeños: Pickled or fresh are both fine. Either way, I prefer them diced as opposed to sliced, so you get more even coverage on the patty. Like onions, they can be griddled to soften both their texture and flavor, and to warm them through. They are especially nice when embedded into molten cheese.
Lettuce: Iceberg is essentially the only sensible choice, not only for texture and flavor but also for its mostly uniform shape. It can be added to a burger as whole leaves, neatly torn and folded to fit the shape of the bun, or shredded. I generally prefer whole leaves to shredded, because shredded lettuce tends to be messier and lose its crunch more rapidly. However, shredded lettuce has the advantage of catching burger juice runoff; the drippings act like a salad dressing, while the lettuce acts as an absorbent woven mat that helps protect the bottom bun from getting soggy. Another advantage of shredded lettuce is that it reduces the risk of patty slippage, which can be a problem when beefy grease meets smooth leaves. But you can also prevent this by placing your lettuce leaves concave side up, so it forms a kind of cradle to hold the patty in place. Proper compression will also help keep everything together.
The burger we used to serve at my restaurant. Note the up-turned lettuce. Tomato: Tomatoes are super iffy in burgers, mainly because they are usually the wrong shape and texture, and don’t taste very good to begin with. Use large tomatoes that approach the same diameter as the patty, and make sure they’re, you know, at least reasonably tasty, and not watery, tough, or mealy. Tomato quality can be vastly improved by pre-seasoning the slices with salt and MSG, leaving them to sit for about half an hour to draw out moisture, then patting them dry with paper towel before adding them to the burger.
I have plotted all of these twelve ingredients on the following flowchart, which will help you decide on toppings and overall composition based on your own preferences.6
I am sure you will find this chart easy to follow and self-explanatory. But there are a few things to note in particular:
If you want to use any combination of ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, and onions, consider a special sauce. Special sauces are versatile and customizable, and provide a means for introducing subtle flavors from ingredients that may be too strong or distracting when used on their own: think cayenne pepper, horseradish or wasabi, smoked paprika, celery salt, capers, gochujang, and fresh herbs amenable to beef, such as parsley, tarragon, and dill.
Crispers in the ‘realm of salad’ are also moisteners, because vegetables have a high water content. This makes them very useful in terms of providing textural contrast, since they are both crunchy and juicy. But they are by no means required.
The bun-to-beef ratio is most easily altered by changing the number of patties, but it can also be done by inserting a third, middle bun, as seen in the Big Mac. However, I do not advise this, for reasons I enumerate below.
Point E: Avoiding the Danger Zone
The amount of toppings is just as important as which ones you choose – don’t overdo it. Most of the world’s best burgers choose just a few, and deploy them with surprising restraint. The primary reason why you don’t want too many toppings is a practical one: it will fall apart when you eat it, or otherwise be difficult to bite through. Burgers ought to be a little bit of a hot mess but they shouldn’t be a total shambles. A few drips of juice on the plate, or the odd piece of onion or lettuce falling out is okay; spoonfuls of sauce or whole chunks of beef is not. Besides, over-embellished burgers usually just don’t taste that good; they lose their burger-ness and become something more like a meat sandwich.
A few iconic burgers, and some of my personal favorites, are plotted on the following graph, with explanatory notes underneath.
Mos Burger, Japan: Despite the use of both chilli con carne (more like a lightly spiced meat sauce in this case) and a large, juicy tomato, this burger is delightfully compact and relatively manageable in terms of mess – though only if eaten, as advised, without taking it out of the wrapper.
Bleecker Single Cheeseburger, London: This perfectly-judged, small-ish single cheeseburger is a masterwork in balance; there is just the right amount of everything. While it isn’t a very saucy burger, it still releases a reassuring amount of drippy juice, thanks to its very fatty and expertly-cooked beef.
Kewpee Double Cheeseburger, Racine: This 1920s classic is everything a burger should be: cheap, meaty, and garnished with just enough sharp and sweet toppings to keep things interesting – coarsely chopped onions, pickles, ketchup, and mustard. Every bite is different; every bite is perfection. World class. My favorite burger.
The Apple Pan Hickoryburger, Los Angeles: This burger commits the cardinal sin of using un-American cheese – Tillamook cheddar – but gets away with it because the cheese is not too mature and therefore melts relatively well. It is also a lesson in contrasts: cold, crisp lettuce against hot beef, sharp pickles to offset cheesy richness, and a sauce which is at once sweet, smoky, and a little bit spicy, but somehow not just barbecue sauce.
In-N-Out Double-Double, Animal Style, California: The “basic” Double Double is a thing of beauty – very well-dressed, but not to the point that you ever lose the flavor of coarse beef and gooey cheese at its core. It’s already fairly messy affair, but you can also order it ‘animal style’ to indulge in even more cheesy, oniony, mustardy flavor while just avoiding the Danger Zone.
Burger King Whopper, worldwide: The funny thing about the Whopper is that it isn’t a whopper at all. The patty is only a quarter-pound. The bulk of the burger is made up mostly from a girthsome bun, and lots of salad-y toppings. The Whopper is a failure, but an instructive one: if you increased the beef-to-veg ratio, added cheese, and replaced the mayo with mustard, you’d have yourself a pretty fun burger, with the unique point of being big but not tall, and a distinctive smokiness from the char-grilling.
McDonald’s Big Mac, worldwide: The Big Mac is so close to being a great burger – and yet so far. The middle bun, while interesting conceptually, doesn’t really contribute anything, and makes the whole burger less structurally sound. And I’ll never understand why only one patty gets a slice of cheese, and not the other. The Big Mac is less than the sum of its parts. The triple cheeseburger or double quarter pounder are superior McDonald’s offerings.
SECTION 4: YOUR BEST BURGER SELF
I have now written over five thousand words on the finer points of burger-making, so it’s time to wrap this up. If you’ve stayed with me all the way to the end, I thank you sincerely. You may disagree with some of my opinions, or you may simply be annoyed with this entire endeavor. You might say I’m overthinking it – a burger is just a damn burger, and it is not something that needs to be analyzed or intellectualized. In some ways, I agree. But I think it’s worse when we underthink burgers, when we treat them with indifference, or even disdain. I feel a little silly saying so, but this is my culture – and chances are, it’s yours, too.
And this is, perhaps, the most important point of all: burgers are yours. Make them just the way you like them. Make them with love, to honor the memory of burgers past, and to manifest the burger future you’d like to see.
As much as I love Ottolenghi – and I really do – it is painfully obvious that he is not the right person to be giving advice on burgers.
If somebody serves you a burger with a knife, you should stab them with it.
Heston Blumenthal’s episode of In Search of Perfection on burgers is, on the whole, full of questionable burger advice. (Featured guest Thomas Keller’s opinions on burgers are particularly annoying.) However, it’s worth a watch because it gets at some of the finer points of good burger construction, and how burgers compress when you eat them is one of them. Heston recommends a maximum height of “three fingers,” compressed into “two fingers” when you take a bite.
For reference, a Whopper is 12.7cm in diameter. Its width and abundance of toppings makes it seem like a much larger burger than it is – to its detriment, in my opinion (see Point E).
Sausage meat makes a delicious burger, but it also makes something that doesn’t taste like a burger anymore. Personally, I’d save it for breakfast sandwiches.
This chart was directly inspired by materials engineer (and friend of mine) Dr. Zoe Laughlin’s “viscosity-function sauce continuum.”
Erudite, even doctrinal - a necessary reminder in today’s noise that there is a proper way to do things and we shouldn’t be fobbed off by fad-ism.
This is perfection