Why You Should Pre-Smash Burgers
It’s no secret why hamburger chains like Shake Shack, In-N-Out and Smashburger are having such a moment. Their thin, medium-sized burger patties showcase a deep and unwavering understanding of what makes a good cheeseburger: reasonable portion size, seamless integration with bun and toppings, and of course lots and lots of salty, crispy burgers. I’m not saying that thick pub-style burgers with a minimal crust and as much off-season cow grue as possible are out of place; it’s just some lonely (but charming) watering hole in the UK with a pint of overly warm beer.
To achieve this kind of nirvana at home, we are advised to take advantage of expert tips and crush the ground beef washers directly into the hot pan with a spatula, before scraping, turning and slicing the cheese like the pros at your favorite Fast Casual Hamburger restaurant. Concept. You get great crust and maximum flavor, and smashing things is fun! Oh, you gotta smash your burgers, okay. In fact, you should break them down as subtly as possible. But you must do it before they touch the pan. Not after. I will explain.
Before you give up, have you actually tried smashing a burger on the stove? Because I’ve done it countless times, and it’s pretty frustrating. This is a problem of both logistics and ergonomics. In fact, most people don’t have an industrial spatula wide enough to completely cover a broken burger. In practice, when you press down in the middle, the edges end up escaping the wrath of the shoulder blade, getting thicker than the beef in the center. This is not a crime, but if we want to get the maximum crust possible , thicker beef patches means the surface area left on the table. Using leverage correctly is not a picnic either. Crushing defenseless ground beef is by no means a titanic effort, but I am five feet 10 inches, strong in body and spirit, and I still find it difficult to feel like I am truly “on top” of the beef to flatten. On top of all this, once you’ve smashed it, the beef patty is most often more interested in sticking to the shoulder blade than to the pan itself. And this, friends, is a real problem.
While he didn’t invent the technique, Serious Eats’ J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the one who brought it to my attention. After failing to reproduce his Ultra-Smashed Cheeseburgers , I figured I would take a look at Twitter to see where I went wrong.
The important part is not that pre-chopping is not a good idea – which I probably should have thought twice before including it in a lengthy blog post on pre-chopping! – the important part is this: “Broken burgers keep their size just because they stick. to the surface while cooking, and this keeps them stretched. “
They stick to the hob. They stick. To the hob. And it makes them stretch! This explains why whatever I tried, they didn’t stay very thin – everything I cook with isn’t that sticky. Neither my lovingly seasoned cast iron pans nor my big grown son carbon steel grill. Break early, break late, or don’t break at all – the metal is too well aged for the burger to stick. If so, we could split early to maximize surface area while we can. (Yes, I also have stainless steel cookware. If you want to move around the sides of the pan with a spatula to scrape off the burger without losing the crust or irrevocably burning the burger fat in your beautiful 3-layer pans, then be my guest. But also: cold The pre-flattened tortilla will stick perfectly to a hot, unoiled steel skillet, I promise.)
On the other hand, pre-grinding offers several advantages. First, you can prepare all of your burgers ahead of time, simplifying the cooking process itself. I like to ball each burger, place it between two pieces of plastic wrap or wax paper, and press very hard with a heavy 10-inch skillet. If you make four ounces of beef, the result is very wide (much wider than the palm of your hand) and about a quarter of an inch thick. Leave them glued to the bottom piece (swapping for each) and you have an easy way to toss a bunch of hamburgers in a skillet or skillet in a short amount of time.
Another advantage is size. It is a fact of life that no hamburger will get as big as it was in the beginning, especially without smashing it in a dry, sticky wonder pan. Fat and fluid loss and protein binding are inevitable, so I want to get as much crust as possible before it shrinks. Moreover, I want my burgers to have a pleasant final size, at least as wide as the bun they sit on. I know that if I pre-crush four ounces of beef to the maximum (reasonable) thickness, I will end up with a finished product the size of a standard American cheese. Can you say the same about your hand-crafted, eye-catching tortillas, or the ones you hastily smashed in the pan? If you are making burgers larger than, say, five ounces, I would definitely not recommend breaking them up to maximum thinness, because you will end up with a dinner plate-sized patty. But I would still push them quite wide, much wider than you want the final product to be. And if you want to eat a whole bunch of cows, why not make a few smaller patties? More crust, more cheese, more joy.
As a reminder, for breaking a frying pan to have any benefits, you need a frying pan that the meat will stick to – and if you’re using cast iron, carbon steel, or (God forbid) nonstick cookware, this won’t happen. And if you choose a sticky surface (stainless steel or untrained cast iron), you will almost certainly lose some of the bark without the proper tools (Shake Shack dashingly uses a large spatula). Why not chop it up ahead of time, get the same good crust, plan for the inevitable shrinkage, and really enjoy making and eating hamburgers?
Look: burger culture, evident in the fact that it exists at all, is second only to pizza culture in its annoying botanical pedantry. This is strange – but maybe not surprising? – that people form such strong opinions about the simple foods that are central to American cooking. So don’t take this as gospel, but rather another sentence in the conversation: pre-smash your burgers and pre-smash them really well.
Pre-shredded crispy cheeseburgers (four servings)
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground beef, divided into four 4-ounce servings
- 4 slices of American cheese
- 4 regular hamburger buns
- Salt
- Pepper
- Optional fillings
instructions
Preheat skillet, skillet, or grill until medium-high heat. Gently roll the burger meat into four equal 4-ounce balls and place one ball between two sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper. Place a heavy frying pan over the ball and push it down with very strong and even pressure. The resulting patty should be 6 to 7 inches in diameter and about a quarter of an inch thick. Set aside, leaving the bottom sheet of paper or plastic stuck to the patty. Repeat with the remaining beef. Toast the buns (optional) and prepare the filling and seasonings.
Cover the exposed surfaces of the burgers liberally with salt and pepper just before cooking. With your free hand, while holding excess plastic or paper, place as many hamburgers as will be comfortable in your jar (the hamburgers should stick to any surface so you can easily pull out your hand and paper or plastic). Let the burgers cook for one minute, so that they are crusty before seasoning with salt and seasoning on the raw side.
Turn over and cook for 30-45 seconds. Flip again, adding cheese immediately. Once it’s soft, transfer the burgers to either a resting plate or their waiting buns. Enjoy with friends, beer and a little hypocrisy.