8 common mistakes that can ruin your burger

Burgers are comfort food for most of the people residing on this planet. A juicy patty of meat placed between soft buns and served along with some fresh and crisp vegetables is the perfect meal on a lazy day, particularly when freshly prepared at home. Read on to know how not to ruin the burger that you grill at home!

Summertime is the season to bring out the grilling equipment and burn the charcoals until you see smoke filling your lawn. Though it is a simple enough trick to grill meat at home, making a truly great burger involves hell lot of precision. Here are 8 very common mistakes that you should be wary off while preparing an absolutely memorable burger.

Buying cheap and inferior quality beef. Always go for the good stuff and get freshly ground beef containing at least 20% fat to prepare the best beef patty ever.

Over seasoning the patty. If you buy good quality meat then you do not require the assistance of too many herbs and spices to lift the flavor of the burger. Also, adding too many ingredients such as onion, sauce, and herbs lead to over working of the meat that can warm the beef and emulsify it turning the otherwise perfect patty to a rubbery piece of meat.

Do not forget to push a hole in the center. The beef patty tends to shrink and expand upon cooking or grilling. To get the perfect looking beef patty shape the raw meat in to a thick slab and then push it a little at the center to form a dimple.

Cooking at low temperature. Cook the meat patty on high heat to sear it perfectly but just do not burn it down. Keep it really hot to get a nice piece of the juicy beef patty.

Smashing the patty too hard. While cooking the burger a nice sizzling sound does make the process interesting but pressing the patty too much will push out all the juices from it and make it drier.

Cooking burgers with plastic wrappings. It may seem strange, but a mistake that many people make is to cook the hamburger with the plastic wrapping: nothing could be more wrong. In fact, the plastic cannot withstand the temperatures that develop during cooking: it is used for preserving and freezing, but certainly not for cooking. The material it is made of melts around 150°C, resulting in the release of substances that can be dangerous. Furthermore, if the meat is not in contact with the plate, the crust resulting from the Maillard reaction will not form.

Cutting the patty to check its cooking status. Do not cut in to the patty as it will make all the juices to ooze out and turn the patty drier. For the medium rare stage, cook the patty until you feel light springy touch and for well done just let it cook longer than that. You may also place a blob of butter over the patty while cooking it to get an even juicier beef patty.

Not resting the patty. Though it is quite hard to resist placing the hot patty immediately inside the bun but letting the patty rest for some time will result in a juicier burger.

Sticking to the boring toppings. The best burgers are the ones that are customized to personal taste and preferences. So, get creative and choose burger toppings of your choice.