The humble Hamburger. What a great meal, and so

simple to make; if you do it the right way and

use a proven method.

The most common scenario I see is someone who

ventures to the local all-in-one store and buys a

packet of mince meat to take home and make some

Burgers. Sometimes they’re terrific, but other

times they’re..well..so, so. Why is that? Well,

with a bit of insider knowledge let’s see if we

can make those Burgers something to howl about.

Standard mince meat can have a lot of variations

depending on what meats your supplier (butcher,

super market, whatever) has available for mincing,

and so the flavour can vary from one batch to

the next.

Usually you can obtain three levels of mince.

Standard, Premium, and Lean.

Standard mince most times has a lot of fat mixed

in (which makes it the cheapest choice)

Premium generally has less fat content than

Standard and so is the mid priced mince.

Lean has a very low fat content and is most times

the most expensive.

OK. So which one is the best for Hamburgers?

Personally I prefer using Premium grade mince

meat in my Burgers. Standard has too much fat and

if you’re anything like me and can’t tolerate

fatty foods very well, it makes you feel like you’

re digesting the food hours after you’ve had it.

Lean is terrific quality because of the lowest

fat content, but the lack of fat tends to make

the meat very dry after cooking. Premium (or

whatever it’s called in your part of the world)

has the right balance to retain a succulent

texture to the meat and not cause the Burger to

be too sloppy or too dry as the other two

variations would.

Now, listen up very carefully here as I’m about

to give you a proven and tested hamburger

industry secret!

When buying your mince, tell whoever is serving

you that you want an 80/20 blend.

By this I mean 80 of something like Rump Steak (minced).

It’s OK to mince the Rump with the fatty bits

included. This shouldn’t make the fat content

over the top but help flavour the meat while it’s

cooking.

I like using an 80/20 blend but you can

experiment with different ratios and different

meat cuts. You could try 70/30, 60/40, Eye Fillet

Steak, Porterhouse Steak, whatever. I guarantee

this tip will add va-va-voom to your Hamburgers!

It will also help keep a consistent result from

one cooking session to the next.

Pretty simple huh?

The best local Hamburger shops use this method (

and if you’re a local Burger shop that doesn’t,

you should) and it’s probably one of the reasons

you keep going back there for your favourite

Burger.

Of course there are quite a few other tips and

secrets to making the Ultimate Hamburger, but I’

ll get into those in later articles.

In the meantime, have a great day around the BBQ!