Burgers and beer

Some of my favorite foods are in fact simple foods. (Like the roast chicken in my previous entry). But the key to simple foods is that they have to be made correctly. Like Norton used to say to Ralph in the Honeymooners, “It’s the little things, Ralph.” Burgers are another one of these foods.

I love a good burger. As a kid, it was one of the few things I could always be counted on to eat. Nowadays, I don’t eat as many of them except at home, because it seems that a lot of places don’t know how to make a decent one. The tendency in too many American restaurants to “supersize” every entrée hasn’t helped the state of the hamburger. Nor has the trend towards lower fat, leaner cuts of meat. A burger that’s too big, takes too lng to cook and requires longer cooking over low heat. I like to cook burgers over searingly high heat to get a good caramelized crust, but want the meat medium rare (actually n the rare side of medium rare). I tend to keep my burgers to about 5-6 ounces (pre-cooked weight) which means you can shape it to about 3/8 to ½ an inch thick. I normally try to cook them on a super hot charcoal grill if possible, or if the weather doesn’t cooperate, I use a cast iron skill on high heat. I think you should be able to cook a burger this size in about 3-4 minutes total. Start with about 2 minutes on one side and then flip it and let it go another 1-2 minutes. Pull it off and you’re done (you can add cheese if you want, but don’t get too foofy with it.) And for God’s sake, don’t flatten the burger with the spatual while it’s cooking. All that stuff that comes out and makes it sizzle is also what keeps your burger moist.

The cut of meat is important. A good burger should be juicy and what makes a burger juicy is fat. Don’t kid yourself. Fat tastes good and gives food a terrific richness. My favorite cut of beef for a burger is chuck, but very few stores sell it anymore because it can gum up a meat grinder pretty quickly. If you have to, buy a chuck roast, partially freeze it to firm it up and grind it yourself. (You do have a meat grinder, don’t you?) It’s worth it. Don’t buy that super low fat ground beef (l10% or less fat). Get the meat with 20%+ fat. Worried about your cholesterol and health? Then don’t eat a burger every day and keep the serving size down. Low fat meat makes a low fat, dry burger. Better to have a 5 oz ground chuck burger than an 8 oz low fat burger. Go for quality over quantity. Garnish it how you want, but don’t go over board. A burger is still about the burger. You don’t want to top it with so many things that you don’t remember what you’re eating (unless you didn’t heed my advice and made the supersized low fat burger, in which case you should garnish it with as many things as you can to cover up the fact that you’re eating a horribly dry burger).

But what to drink with a good burger? In the wine business we used to talk about foods that are good with burgers, which essentially meant easy drinking not-overly-complex wines. I will admit I like those but why have an ordinary wine when for the same money you could have a great beer. I tend to like pale ales, IPA’s, and brown ales with burgers. You need a beer with some malt flavors to match the char and caramelized flavors of the meat. I also like at least a little hop bite to cut the fat in the meat. Most brown ales don’t have that many hops, but they still work well (and they’re terrific with a proper roast beef sandwich). It’s pretty easy to pull off a good match. Look for a beer with good malt flavors to marry with the charred beef, and enough hops to help cut the fat.

Tonight, we grilled because it was too hot (about 100, which is incendiary for Portland). I went the homebrew route and chose the IPA that I rejected with the roast chicken. It was brewed from about 92% two row pale malt and about 8% English Carastan malt, which is a crystal/caramel malt that gives the beer a subtle toffee-like malt flavor. It’s hopped with Centennial, Amarillo and Summit hops. Centennials have a distinct citrus grapefruit aroma, while the Amarillos lend more of a tangerine flavor. Summits are pretty remarkable and are amongst my favorite new hops. Their aroma is an incredible an incredible mix of fresh hops, spice and citrus. The beer’s toffee malt flavor is balanced by a medium hop bite, and finishes a little drier than the mouthfeel would suggest. This IPA isn’t as bitter as most NW IPA’s, which have a tendency to be aggressively hopped. It’s also dry-hopped with more Summits to give the aroma a little more punch. It was a great match with the burger and proved that a completely satisfying meal doesn’t have to be hard, complex, or expensive. Simple food and simple beer, but done right. “It’s the little things, Ralph.”