The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

Question the first: One of my favorite burgers in New York—the one that folks’ll stand in line ...

There’s really only one reason to smash a burger and it’s the reason that all three of the burgers I ment ...

browning. While it’s true that given enough time you can brown even a nonsmashed burger, there ...

all meats, as a burger cooks, this protein network tightens, squeezing out liquids. Simultaneously, the ...

Once you start smashing after the 1-minute mark, that’s when juices really start to flow and you ...

burger can easily lose half of its weight to the evil griddle gods. I’ve seen more than one sho ...

...

If you know the basic rules for burgers (see here), making a smashed burger is simple. Rule 1: Use a Stiff, ...

should spend very little time on its second side—just enough to finish cooking through and to allow the c ...

CLASSIC DINER-STYLE SMASHED CHEESEBURGERS NOTE: My toppings of choice are thinly sliced raw onions, pickles, a ...

SERVES 2 TO 4 1 pound freshly ground beef (store-bought or home- ground) 4 soft hamburger buns, preferab ...

Toppings as desired Divide the meat into 4 even portions and form into pucks about 2 inches hig ...

FRY SAUCE Go to any burger joint in the Midwest and ask for fry sauce, and you’ll get a littl ...

BIG, FAT, JUICY GRILLED BURGERS Crusty on the outside, medium-rare and juicy in the middle, a good grilled pu ...

a good crust on these burgers before the interior dries out, but there are a few important steps that ...

A burger with incorrect bun-to-meat ratio. Thickness Approaching Width. The burger bulges in the center, leav ...

A bulging burger that overwhelms its bun. Dry Matter. This symptom is too gruesome to show in ...

smaller and smaller, the center bulges farther and farther out. Why? It’s all got to do with th ...

To form a burger patty that cooks up flat . . . . . . make a shallow indentation in the center ...

After the dreaded bulge, the second most gruesome fate of a pub burger is poor cooking, which in the wo ...