vegetarian shit-stirrer

For argument's sake, many of these are basic America's Test Kitchen / Betty Crocker / Irma Rombauer / Gourmet basics. There's nothing new under the sun, other than the tedious urgency with which Serious Eats approaches everything.

And for argument's sake, I endorse/support the following:

1) Yes, use freshly-ground beef. Texture and taste are radically improved. Plus I doctor the bejeesus out of my burgers and comixing is easier with a meat grinder.

2) Cold meat definitely forms easier patties but fucking give it a rest. If you aren't making truffles or pie crust you can probably get by without refrigerating utensils.

3) Yes don't play with it like play doh but if you're grinding your own meat you have to get medieval on it anyway because it comes out of the grinder like breadcrumbs. I would go as far as to say that if you grind your own meat you have to overwork the shit out of hamburger to hurt it.

4) Yes salt the exterior because osmosis causes the surface to dry out and crust over better that's the whole point and if you salt the whole thing it'll be too salty. This isn't rocket science.

5) yes you should make your patties look like red blood cells. Recognize that between grinding your own meat, not working it too much, keeping it cold, salting just the surface and making it look like a red blood cell you're already overthinking it so fucking calm down while you're at it. Have a beer it's a barbecue FFS.

6) I mean yeah salt the outside but don't go crazy the whole point is to taste the goddamn burger. I use garlic salt. I can taste the difference between iodized and non-iodized salt but only when I put them directly on my tongue and if you're using that much salt you've already lost.

7) kk so if you ground your own meat and formed your own patties and manipulated the beef as little as possible them cookies are gonna crumble. Sorry. They just are. And flipping them all the goddamn time is going to launch beefcrumbs into the grill. Also it's tough to get grill marks if you're cointossing your burgers like a nervous gangster and yes you can taste those, you want to taste those. So if you've followed all the instructions up to this point? This instruction is going to give you taco meat.

8) I own two thermapens because my wife doesn't like how the first one conks out in the middle when you open it so she bought us another for Father's Day. I would say it is the number one most useful tool in the kitchen behind pans and knives.

9) jesus christ my wife and kid eat their burgers on rice. Let it the fuck go.

10) Fuckin' burgers are omelets for the fantasy football crowd.

My burgers are goddamn sacrilege. They're about 30% onions by weight and about 5% fresh basil. There's like a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce per pound and ground pepper in them. They're best when topped with provolone. They are requested at barbecues a lot, I guess because most people just buy Costco frisbees? Or maybe it's because nothing is new under the sun and perhaps purists suck all the fun out of everything.