Burger Making 101

There is a secret to making a mouth-watering burger that gets looked over in back-yard grills everywhere you live. You can make a MUCH better burger in a frying pan than you can a grill.

Don't believe me? Let me explain something. Do you see all of those juices dripping from your burger that land on the charcoal at the bottom of your grill? Each and every one of those drips is flavor. The more of those juices that you can keep in your burger, the better your burger will taste.

So how should you cook a burger? Get yourself a cast-iron skillet and follow these simple steps:

1. Pre-heat your skillet for at least five minutes on high heat. Once the skillet is hot, add 1 tbs of canola oil (or your oil of choice).

2. Form a 1/4 pound of ground beef into a ball. Drop the meat in the pan and set your timer for 1 minute. While the meat is cooking season the top of the burger with your choice of seasonings (my favorite is paprika and pepper).

3. When that minute is up, flip the burger and then using your spatula press down firmly on the patty until it is around 1/2" thick, set the timer for another minute, and season the burger again.

4. After that minute, flip the burger for the last time. If you want cheese on your burger, this is when you want to add it. Then depending on how you want your burger cooked, use the following times: For a Rare burger, cook it for one minute after that final flip for a total cook time of 3 minutes. For a Medium Rare burger, add a fourth minute. For Medium, add 45 more seconds. And then add 45 seconds for each Medium Well, Well and Hockey Puck. But going back to the keeping the juice in the burger theory, the more you cook a burger, the dryer it becomes.

That's all there is too it. Using a skillet will keep the juices in the pan, thus keeping the flavor with the burger. And during each of the first two minutes of cooking the burger, those juices will caramelize on the burger, creating a seal that will help keep the juices inside of the burger.

I'm very much aware that cooking a burger on the grill just feels good. You can still do that and get the same results by placing a small cookie sheet on your grill and cooking the burgers on there.

There are many ways to cook your hamburger. If you try doing it this way it may just become your favorite.