I was wrong.
Having bought groceries for the week with a couple of meal plans in mind I had a fairly well stocked fridge and veggie selection waiting for the opportune moment to be shoveled into duty as experimental fodder, and that moment struck after I woke up this morning, of course.
One of the more well-advertised images from Modernist Cuisine is the burger. They’ve basically used the Heston Blumenthal recipe, tweaked to their liking. They even have a couple of different grind ratios for the meat types they like. The main difference of the M.C. version seems to be in the use of Beef Suet to brown the buns with, mushrooms on the burger, and how they make their cheese singles.
Wait. Back up. Let me start earlier.
When I first read up on Blumenthal’s “Perfect” burger, I had little doubt in my mind I’d try and make it. Minus the buns. Maybe.
After getting M.C. and reading their recipe, I knew I’d make one working with both recipes and using what I liked.
Combined with the food we had on hand, that plan went down.
Let me start by saying, I didn’t do the whole shebang: I didn’t make the mushrooms, the mushroom ketchup, or the buns. I didn’t have suet to brown things and stuff. I didn’t make the lettuce infusion exactly as per the M.C. instructions. I didn’t use three cuts of beef to make my burger patties.
I did make the cheese “singles”. I did grind my own meat (60% beef chuck, 40% pork loin chop). I did vac-u-seal the tomatoes. I did blanch the onions. I did align the burger strands together. I did the loose patty forming. I did chill the grind for a couple hours after grinding. I did infuse the lettuce. I did flip the patties every 30 seconds or so while they cooked.
I did enjoy a very good burger. Best ever? Not quite. Perfect? I didn’t add bacon, and I think there’s a few tweaks I could do next time to make it better, so no.
Of all the things I did do, I can’t say they all were steps I’d redo the next time I make burgers. The lettuce? Hard to discern any flavor from it, particularly smoke flavor, once on the burger. I tasted a few pieces of it to make sure that there was some flavoring, which there was, but once on the burger it was overwhelmed.
The onions, though, I am a fan of. If you like onions on your burger, i would encourage a quick blanching of them before you add them on next time. Not the easiest step for some but if you have other prep work for other recipes that may involve blanching, then go for it. That or if you’re just a picky onion eater.

The patty making and grinding were interesting ideas, and I will definitely re-use them in the future. Blumenthal used three cuts to make his patty, and M.C. recommends doing so. I have had good luck with a combo of pork and beef before, and was conveniently in possession of a good chunk of chops to use with my beef chuck. These both were pre-cubed and seasoned, then refrigerated for a couple of hours (Blumenthal calls for 6 on his chuck). I tossed them together before grinding and used the coarse filter to run them through. Since my Kitchen Aid’s up about a foot from the counter, I ended up flipping a stock pot over, and placing a plate on it.
This allowed me to do a single-person run through on the grind. I was able to get the cubes pre-positioned, and as they’d grind, used one hand to catch and orient the strands, occasionally laying a handful down on the plate, and the other hand kept stuffing cubes into the grinder. A pound and a half took me maybe ten minutes to run through this way. I kept shifting the plate as I went to keep making room. Ground meat acquired, you then form a log of it with the strands kept in what will be the ‘vertical’ alignment–that is, they are parallel with the motion of your teeth biting through. You also do NOT re-press or knead the grind, and leave it in a fairly loose state. Wrap in plastic wrap, then refrigerate for a couple more hours.

Considering my love of cheese the next steps were…odd. I wasn’t certain that I’d want to boil a beer, shred some quality cheese, then chill the result so I could make a knock-off ‘American’ style cheese single. Safe to say I’m glad I made it happen. I used a Freestyle wheat ale, along with a selection of quality cheeses (M.C. calls for a wheat ale, Blumenthal calls for Sherry). These are emulsified with citric acid and water, then cooled in a mold (for M.C.) or on a sil-pat (for Blumenthal) before you end up slicing them and topping your burger with them. I used my cookie molds on my silpat, worked out nicely.


I’m skipping the infused lettuce, but with all those steps I was easily 4 hours of prep time in for these things, and the end was finally nearing. After slicing patties from the meat ‘log’, they were cooked in a pan, flipping frequently. Buns were toasted, ketchup added, onions/lettuce/tomato added to the other half, and cheese sliced. Patties were cheesed up, then built up, and suddenly…voila, a burger was born.

A good burger, with a really good patty and some tasty cheese.

But maybe not the perfect one.
Yet.














