Cooking Tips & Tricks: Cheeseburgers

Before I start blowing your mind with my tips & tricks for the day, I feel like we should have a serious talk. I was gone last week. Did you notice? I did. I wanted to talk to you everyday, but I was out of town. I've never seen WiFi with that quality before. (Luckily!) I didn't get email, couldn't play words with friends, didn't have access to food blogs, and I couldn't read updates on Twitter. What was I supposed to do when I woke up? Who was I supposed to give recipes to? It was rough. I am happy to be back though. 

Okay, that's all. We're all happy I'm here and full of information to share. Here we go!

I love a good cheeseburger. I love when it is summertime and we can grill out. There is something about the smoky flavor of a burger that makes it oh, so good. Utah weather has been crazy lately. For instance, it was almost 70 degrees yesterday. Tomorrow is calling for snow. (The temperature won't be below 40 degrees, so it will be rain, but still...) Anyway, today was one of those days that Joe mentioned grilling out, and once he mentioned it, I couldn't stop my mouth from watering. Since the temperature was on its way down for the day, we settled with grilling in instead. 

There are a couple of things you can do to make this almost as good as grilling out. 

First, FLAVOR your beef. I am going to list a bunch of things you can add to the meat. Choose a couple that go together and make sure you mix it together before adding the meat. (You only want to add enough to add flavor, you don't want to go crazy.) That way you don't over mix the beef. You should always add salt and at least a little pepper. I think you already knew that.

Worcestershire sauce

Dijon mustard

Garlic

Ginger

BBQ sauce

Hot sauce

Chili powder

Onion powder

Cayenne pepper

Red pepper flakes

Soy sauce

Italian dressing

Ranch dressing mix

Use your imagination -- and what you have in your cupboard/fridge

This is dijon mustard, worcestershire sauce, and some hot sauce. Someday I will stop using the same color bowl for whatever it is I am mixing. I am so terrible at that. 

Next, mix the ground beef just enough to flavor it. Portion it into patties that are just bigger than the hamburger buns you bought. (If you made them, you are my new hero. I never know enough in advance to even think about being that ambitious.)

Now is when you need to heat the grill pan. You want it medium-high. You are also going to want to turn your oven on to 350 degrees. (You'll thank me later.) Put the patties onto the grill pan and leave them. You want them to develop grill marks. 

Flip them once and put the pan in the oven. It won't take them long to finish cooking, so this is when I start getting the toppings out. Let the burgers cook for about 5 minutes and turn off the heat in the oven. If you need more time to get things ready (tomatoes or onions or lettuce cut, onions caramelized, fry sauce made, etc.) you can leave the burgers in the now-off oven while you keep working. Feel free to melt cheese on the top of it now. 

The oven will be hot enough to melt the cheese perfectly. (Just remember not to take a picture of it.) Pull out the burgers and toss the buns under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Don't forget about them. No one likes scraping burnt crumbs from the buns. We all do it, but it's never the same. There is no coming back from that. Set a timer if you need to. 

Your burgers will be well-done, but not dry. The cheese will be melted. Now you can make your perfect cheeseburger. Add mayo, mustard, or ketchup. Add lettuce, tomatoes, and caramelized onions. Add crispy bacon or an onion ring or pickles. Make sure your burger requires a BIG bite. It should make a mess of your face. It should drip on your plate because it is so moist. It should make you want to keep eating. Serve them with fries or potato salad or coleslaw. You won't regret it.

I think if we all start grilling in, it will convince summer to come faster so we can all move our cooking to the great outdoors. Let's try, shall we?