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Your burger blend can be as simple as the ground beef they’ve got pre-packaged at the grocery store and still turn out a top-notch product. In general, as long as the fat content clocks in somewhere around the 20% mark, you avoid overmixing to stave off chewiness, and you determine patty doneness with a meat thermometer for an ideal finish, you’ll be in business. But, to advance to the next level of grill mastery, you can also toy around with different cuts of beef to perfect your own signature burger blend.
Celebrity chef and curse word slinger Gordon Ramsay uses a combination of brisket, chuck, and short rib for “the most amazing burger,” which he demonstrates in a YouTube clip. The chuck is the majority protein, accounting for about half of the mix, followed by 25% each of the brisket and the short rib. Chuck is the meat most commonly found in burgers and, if you used chuck alone, you’d end up with a very familiar flavor, indeed. Both it and the brisket are butchered from worked parts of the cow — the shoulder and the chest, respectively — so they’re more vulnerable to toughness than some other cuts, but packed with beefy notes nonetheless. Short ribs are a little more forgiving, texture-wise, and together the trio creates a savory, substantial, moist burger that’s worth performing a little arithmetic for.
More Gordon Ramasy tips for those amazing burgers
Although Gordon Ramsay attributes this particular burger’s success to its blend, he goes a bit further than mashing it all up and calling it a day. Ramsay uses raw egg to hold everything together and even advises forming the patties and chilling them in the refrigerator to firm up the night before your big burger reveal. He’s also careful to season not only the burger’s top and bottom but also its edges, which takes all of 10 seconds and can add a lot more flavor.
Ramsay’s burgers are ultimately oiled and sizzled on a hot grill. All that prep helps to meld the brisket, chuck, and short rib into one perfect whole. Patience is the key to keeping your patties intact, so trust the cooking process and minimize moving and flipping the patties for best results. Ramsay even lowers the grill lid for an eyes-off approach. After a few minutes on either side (only flipping once if at all possible), a meat thermometer, like the ThermoWorks ThermoPop 2, will let you know when your burgers have reached a perfect medium rare — or whatever your guests’ preferences may be.
