Secrets To A Great Burger & The Best Fries/Chips

 

The day was kind of laid back, daughter leaving for school, son's
girlfriend off the same school. But a nice day, sunny and clear. But
cold, like in the 20 F range cold. Well what better Sunday meal on a
clear sunny day the the Great American Hamburger? And while we are at it
lets do some fries, or chips as most of the world calls them!



On the beef, if you don't or have not started purchasing your beef by
the 1/4 animal or smaller quantity from a custom meat shop, now is the
time to start. You will not believe the difference it makes in the taste
and quality of the product. Look it up in the phonebook under custom
meat or custom butchering, they will get you pointed in the correct
direction. (No the Schwan's man's products do not count as custom meat!)
Although I will say they have some products that are good.



We are completely backward integrated on the

whole beef thing. So prepare to look your food in the eye and
realize that is its job on earth!







And when they are done eating the "ground corn" they produce a beautiful
product. From burger to steaks they are fantastic. I also have taken to
having the chuck ground into the rest of the burger. Moving my ground
burger to about 15 percent fat or 85 percent lean. Anything less in fat
content and you need more binders to hold the stuff together.



This is what it looks like out of the butcher paper!







Enough on the beef for now, we have to make Fries / chips for the meal.
And that takes a little time to do it correctly. Homemakers or home
cooks make a few mistakes that cause them grief when trying to make a
French fry that does not: A. turn pasty or B. go limp, or C. get hard on
the outside and gooey in the inside. We are here today to lead you to
the promise land of decent homemade chips!



First, lets talk about the potato. I like russets. They are a great
balance of sugar and starch. Please get used to keep the potatoes in an
area that is cool, but not in the reefer. The starch turns to sugar
below 45 degrees and that is not good to make a tasty tater!



Second, lets talk about tater treatment prior to frying! We need to soak
our fries in water (70 F) with three water changes in 15 minutes. This
gets rid of the surface starch that creates the pasty problem on the
tater.



Third, lets talk about the temp of the tater prior to frying. I like
them somewhere about 50 degrees and below 70 degrees. Yes, this does
mean you have to watch you time as you are working with a product in the
danger zone.



Fourth, the oil, you will see all manner of oils in the super market. In
the commercial kitchen we receive oil designed to fry, high smoke point
temp, stable as all get out! You have your choice of two, Canola oil or
Crisco vegetable oil. There are a lot of others out there, I walk past
them all when using oil for my home, I use the Crisco solid vegetable
oil. You know the white stuff in the blue can!



Fifth, and most important is the equipment you are using. I have seen
the home "fry daddy", the home "circular fryer" thing, IMACO they are
all junk. They don't have enough power behind them to get the job done.
Lucky you have an appliance already in your house that will have the
power. It is your range top. You see one of the things that cause crappy
results when frying taters is the oil getting to cool and soaking into
the potato pores instead of the oil heating the water in the tater to
boiling and forcing the oil out of the pores.



Sixth, to produce pro results on fries at the home, we need a damn good
pan. Most people have some nice pans, but when it comes to frying they
grab some old pot with a thin thin bottom. Bad idea, you need a pot that
is heavy and can store up energy. Cause when the fries hit the grease
they start to dissipate energy, the more energy you can have stored up,
the better the chances of not getting your oil into the low temp that
results in crap results. We like nothing less that 375 F and I
personally like 400 F.



A pot recommendation? Get yourself a Lodge cast iron Dutch oven, with a
lid. Referred to as black iron, there is no more useful tool to the home
cook that a Dutch oven. They can roast, broast, braise, fry, sear, you
name it this pot can do it and do it well. They are cheap and they are
very very forgiving. So get a nice flat bottom 11 incher and you will
never go back! Once you go iron black you will never go back!





And last, fries need to be cooked twice. For pro results you must fry
them, then fry them again to finish.





Now onto our dinner:











These are my fries, I did them in my Cuisinart Food Processor with the 6
X 6 fry slicer disk. Actually a julienne disk but it makes nice string
fries. These have been soaked and rinsed three times. Then set to stand
at room temp and dry in a strainer.



Now I don't like the mess frying makes in the kitchen so I do things
outdoors. You can too. This is the turkey fryer sold at Sam's Club. On
it I have a lodge 14 inch fry pan with a lid. The lid is used to bring
the oil to temperature. When frying it is left off so the water vapor
can escape from the oil and the product that is frying.

You will also notice a charcoal kettle. Nothing does a hamburger like
these little kettles. I like my

Grills both gas and the big char-broil smoker cooker. But when it
comes to the Great American Hamburger, you kettle or you kid yourself!
To the fries again:








The thing I like about outdoor stuff is I can hammer the heat to stuff
without worry the smoke alarms and such are going to go off. Or worse
the spouse go off on the mess I am making.



This is my fries starting there first cook. I will cook them about 11
minutes, just until when I taste them I can tell they are cooked, but
not all the way.







Now while the 11 minutes is passing, I need to get the kettle fired up.
It takes an hour for a charcoal fire to come to the cooking point. Yes
you can cook on it earlier, but for even cooking, searing, and finishing
power, give this thing an hour after you start it. Have a beer and start
finishing the fries.








Now when the fries have cooked the first time, you drain them, then
paper towel them on a cookie sheet, let them rest 30 minutes, then bring
the oil back up to temp and go in for the finish. DO NOT salt these
taters yet. Salt ruins fry oil. And they will take salt nicely after the
second fry.







During the second fry above, you can see we are now going for that
golden brown that makes fries well fries! And in the end after a little
stirring, a little beer (for the cook) and a little more stirring this
is what we end up with for a product.








I will remove these with the spider, the second fry I take them straight
to the cookie sheet with the paper towel. They won't have a ton of oil
on them this time. A word about finish, a fry is not finished when it is
brown. It is finished when it is browned, seasoned and taste great.
Taste great is the key here. Taste these chips and season accordingly.
Don't worry about how much, season until it taste good. That is when
there is enough. So many people think "oh god look how much I am putting
on" as long as you are tossing them and tasting them keep seasoning
until they taste correct.



Now we have the burgers to talk about. Basically you want to do fries
and burgers so they come off at the same time. The burgers need a 25
minute head start on the second cooking of the fires to time out so
everything comes off together and goes to the table. First the patties:







I like my patties to be 1/3 of a pound. Hey this is the Great American
Burger! Let make it great! Notice the seasoning here! I am using fresh
ground sea salt, and fresh ground black pepper. That is it, nothing
else, if the beef is worth a damn this is all you will need. When Zane
and I started cooking together, some 10 years ago, we knew we would get
along as both of us were ready to kill the other if they tried to put
anything but salt and pepper on the burger. Yes, you have to use good
beef, but man is it worth it when you taste, well, beef for what it
really is when custom ground! So buy good beef and salt and pepper only.



Now putting them on the kettle, you want to hear sizzle, if it doesn't
sizzle you did not let it heat up enough prior to starting the burgers.
It should sizzle a lot.








You will know you did it correctly when you do the flip. Now here is
another secret. 99 percent of all home cooks flip a burger to early.
They do it to steaks and everything else as well. A good rule is if you
think it is time to flip, wait 6 more minutes.








See those grill marks? That tells you the grill heated up enough prior
to meat landing on it. Notice the nice color of that burger, that my
friend is the searing taking place on a kettle grill, that should excite
the he11 out of you. When you get this type of finish on your burger's
first side, the juice is not going to leak out and spill off into the
fire. Dry burgers, well they suck, so lets make sure we see searing
prior to flipping. You may have to peek the first few times to make sure
it is correct, but you will get the hang of it. This means a juicier
burger!



Last we take a look at the final plate. This is America's meal and the
rest of the world likes them too!







A word on the Malt Vinegar, this is probably the finest thing the UK
ever did for the culinary world. This stuff is fantastic on Fries /
chips. For you yanks it mixes with ketchup well, and for you rebs it
does well with hot sauce too. So pick this up and next time you do fries
and burgers get this out for those chips, you won't go back to dull
fries again. This adds that zip!



Anyway, hoped you liked our little lesson today, may you find yourself
with excellent beef and moreover, may you have cooked it so you can
taste the beef! Not covered up with 90000 roasted vegetables and 1200
mustards and 14 ketchups and 3 types of pickles and a burger on a
toasted bun!



Til we talk again, find some custom burger or get the guy at the market
to grind a chuck steak for you, you will be amazed at the difference.
And your spouse will ask you what you did when the beef comes shining
through!



Salt...... Pepper........... Ground Beef...... Ain't that nice!



Chef Bob Ballantyne

The Cowboy and The Rose Catering, LLC

Grand Junction, Colorado, USA