Meat Grinder

Anyone who has read the recent Saveur, or last month's Texas Monthly, has been intensely craving all things hamburger.  One thing that was detailed in Saveur's 'Burger Bible' was a guide to hamburger meat.  It described what different cuts of meat can contribute to a custom blend of ground beef.  After having all these juicy tidbits dance around in our heads for a few weeks, we did what I am sure everyone else that read the article did, bought a grinder and started making our own hamburger meat.  Actually my wife gave me one for my birthday because I talked about it so much.

 

We decided to make our first custom 'river blend' with equal parts deboned short-rib ("Short ribs are meaty and tender and make for a particularly sumptuous burger.."-Saveur) and chuck ("The well-marbled and full-flavored shoulder, or chuck of the steer has a near-perfect ratio of meat to fat when ground. 80-20 is considered ideal for burgers."-Saveur) We could not help but want to create the best burger ever made.  

 

I have to say that it was actually very easy to do.  After cleaning the meat I put it in the freezer for two hours to partially freeze it since the grinder generates some heat as it grinds.  This can render the fat and you can loose some of it--the horror!  I cut the frozen meat into strips (yes bullet, now my knives are even duller) and salted it.  I first ground some fat through to lubricate the system, discarding it later--I fully regretted this mistake. It took 10 times as long to clean as it did to grind, but the results were great. Because we were starving, we cooked them in the broiler which isn't ideal.  Since I had ground the meat myself, I wasn't afraid to leave the center bloody-rare.  It was fresh tasting, flavorful and moist.  My wife wasn't sold on the rare burger yet, so hers was more along the medium to medium well side, slightly dry for me. I don't think that it would have been an issue if I had reincorporated the chuck fat.  I am ready for some sausage-making now, more reports to follow!

 

 

– Logan

S

dd

 

 

excellent winter meal.

-- Robert