Why is it burgers at burger joints taste better than burgers I cook at home?

[Lonestar]

It's a little bit like it, yeah.

(The Britishers put it on their fries)

[Nostromo]

Depends which burger joints you're talking about. Anybody can beat McDonalds. But if you're talking about the good burger places, its a question of better recipes, better ingredients...

BTW, I recently discovered that goat cheese is great in burgers... Much better than Kraft singles

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Elok
??? A properly grilled burger can't be matched by fast food. Don't fry it in oil, it just makes it taste like vegetable fats when you should be tasting the beef. Pretty much every meat is better grilled; smoke does marvelous things to the flavor. And FF joints usually have that nasty American cheese instead of good cheddar or swiss. Plus anemic vegetables, inferior rolls, and generally not the best-quality beef. Not that I don't eat FF, it's just nothing special.

Fuddrucker's is pretty good, though.

I take it you haven't been to Hardee's recently.

[Grandpa Troll]

I am not suppossed to eat, but thos angus mushroom n swiss r da mac-daddy

[SpencerH]

Re: Why is it burgers at burger joints taste better than burgers I cook at home?

Originally posted by Dis
What do they put in or on those things to make them so good? Though I'm not sure I want to know.

I think the obvious answer is that you cant cook. The less obvious answer is that the fast food burgers are loaded with salt and sugar, both of which send your taste buds into orgies of neural stimulation.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Lonestar
It's a little bit like it, yeah.

(The Britishers put it on their CHIPS)

fixed

I'm just back from a conference in Boston where I got some decent fish and chips. The irish guy beside me at the bar was surprised when I drowned it in vinegar (Heinz malt vinegar is pretty weak-assed stuff), he assumed I was american I guess.

[Elok]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
I take it you haven't been to Hardee's recently.

Eh, not in a couple of years. It didn't particularly impress me last time. What, do they use cheddar instead of American? I'll bet it's not good cheddar, if so. Certainly not as good as the aged extra-sharp stuff I've got in the fridge.

Maybe it's apples and oranges to compare fast food and homemade burgers. Homemade burgers to "upscale" burger joints (e.g. Fuddruckers, Red Robin) is probably a more fair comparison.

Snoopy: American cheese is an abomination. Sure, fat is good for flavor, but as an enhancer, not a flavor itself. American cheese has a phony, industrially-processed flavor to it. The fat just makes it phony and greasy. I suspect one of the reasons this country is overweight is that we accustom ourselves to inferior foods like American cheese and Wonderbread and then gorge ourselves with their calories to compensate for the lost quality with sheer quantity.

As for vegetables--tomato, pickles, lettuce, onion? Maybe you don't care for one of them or another, but good pickles, at least, do something for a burger.

[snoopy369]

Pickles are not vegetables... they have no nutritive value whatsoever. Cucumber already has little, and the pickling process removes the rest of it. They are a condiment, essentially a method of adding taste through salt and vinegar, remarkably similar to ketchup

American cheese is the same. It is a condiment, and quite effective at improving taste. It doesn't taste that great on its own - though many people who are salt-deficient that i've known will eat it by itself and enjoy it - but it is an effective condiment.

I'm not saying it's the pinnacle of great taste - i'm quite a cheddar snob myself, if it hasn't been aged 5 years it's not worth eating - but, as with most things, it is good for mass consumption because it is something everybody likes a little bit.

There is no such thing as "industrial processed flavor", by the way. The word you're looking for is a cross between "salty" and "fatty". That's what it is, and that's why people like it... people en masse, not individual people.

[Odin]

You must suck at making good burgers.

What I like to do when I'm making burgers in the stove:

1. Use butter, not veggie oil-based cooking sprays.

2. mix chopped onions, finely chopped green peppers, a little bit of garlic powder, some black pepper, and some BBQ sauce into the meat.

3. use good swiss or sharp cheddar cheese, not the crap American "cheese" squares.

[Bkeela]

If I ever felt suicidal, I would eat nothing but these things.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The key to really good burgers is good meat, period. Ideally, you should buy fresh ground -- I mean stand-there-and-watch-them-grind-it fresh -- 80% lean. With a high quality meat ground fresh, you won't want to mix in anything like onions (or onion soup -- my mom uses that trick, too); just season with salt and pepper and let 'm rip. And don't cook them beyond medium well (I like mine medium); dried-out burgers are unhappy burgers.

At 80% lean, you shouldn't need any fat to cook them in, even if you're frying; but if you must add fat, definitely use butter, not oil, as Odin suggests. He's right about using quality cheese, too; American is just a debased form of cheddar, so you're better off with high-quality cheddar -- or high-quality anything else (I like Monterey Jack, Provolone, or blue cheese as well).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Homemade burger... mmmmm

I usually get ground sirloin and chop in some cilantro, garlic, and onions. Season with salt and pepper. Then add some Worchestershire sauce and perhaps some BBQ sauce.

Great burgers

[Tim_Augustus]

Steak Burgers ftw

1 rump steak
onion (fried until caramelised)
cheddar cheese
beetroot
lettuce
barbeque sauce
bacon
fried egg
pineapple
tomato
fresh toasted bakery hamburger roll (not the cheap factory rubbish)

Served with thick-cut chips & cold beer

[PLATO]

Re: Why is it burgers at burger joints taste better than burgers I cook at home?

Originally posted by Dis
What do they put in or on those things to make them so good? Though I'm not sure I want to know.

Beef Hearts.

No kidding....

[Arrian]

The recipe I use:

~2 lbs 90% lean ground beef
1 egg
worchestershire sauce (dunno how much... lots)
a small onion, diced
a small green pepper, diced
a couple of dashes of breadcrumbs.

You can adjust the proportions. You could add spicy things (or, like I do, put pepperjack chese on 'em).

I find that 2 lbs makes 10-12 burgers.

I grill them... to frying burgers.

-Arrian