The Great Burger Experiment

The Boyfriend and I were inspired by folks over at the Paupered Chef after reading a blog post describing their mission to create the perfect at home grill burger. We set out to find which burger might be tastier- the smashed burger or the oozing cheese burger we saw on an episode of Man vs Food. Armed with American cheese, fresh ground meat from Sunflower grocery store, and a few spices, we set to work:

I'm a little too excited here about playing with raw meat. I've got the top half of my burger in hand and its going to go over the first skinny burger patty with the cheese safely hidden in the middle.
Both of our burgers are in the frying pans.

This was the smashing technique. You try not to handle the meat too much, and carefully roll it into a not-too-tight ball. Set it in the hot pan and let that small bottom get all cooked. Then you flip it and SMASH it! I recommend using a strong spatula b/c The Boyfriend bent the hell out of ours. The first side you cook holds the meat together once you've smashed it. After the second side cooks, you'll flip it one more time. On high heat with a pinch of salt the outside of the burger gets nice and crispy without losing any moisture on the inside of the burger. Tips: don't go too hog wild on the salt and have a fan on in the kitchen b/c we smoked the whole house up. I'm surprised no one called the fire dept.

My finished cheesy delicious product. I had to cut the burger in half b/c it was so damned big.

The Boyfriend's smashed burgers in finished form with added cheese.

Verdict: Both burgers were actually rocking tasty and we couldn't decide between the two which was better- SUCCESS! My melty burger was great but you probably need to like a medium rare burger for this one to work for you. The meat could have been cooked more without burning the outside, but I had to take it off the skillet when the cheese started to ooze out to much. Must save the cheese!! And this type of burger required a bit of flipping to make sure everything was getting cooked evenly. The smashed burgers tasted like they'd come off of the grill with the bit of crisp outside they had going on. We added a little too much salt and didn't quite anticipate getting such tasty and flavorful ground beef at the grocery store. But the smashed burgers were super tasty and a much more reasonable size for eating than the melty burgers were. Notes for future food experiments: try not to smoke up the whole damned house and take better food porn pictures. Sorry for the shite pic quality this round ;) Also, fantastic blog post about all different types of burgers!