The Great Burger Taste Test: Is BBQ Really Better?
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| Paying homage to the King of the Grill. |
This week, Cooking Virgin decided to jump on the meaty bandwagon by testing out three at-home methods of cooking up burgers: pan frying, cooking with the trusty George Foreman tabletop grill, and grilled via charcoal BBQ. Unfortunately, the original plan to include propane in this taste-off as a tribute to TV's most famous animated redneck dad Hank Hill fizzled out, since the local hardware store declined to let us "borrow" one of their propane grills.
Whatever. We would've cleaned it afterwards. Probably.
Will charcoal-broiled burgers win out over the quicker, more healthful George Foreman version? Find out after the jump.
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| Don't forget to dent your patties. |
To even things out in case The Virgin's homemade patties were inconsistent, I used both premade beef patties and hand-formed ones made with 90/10 lean ground beef and a touch of seasoned bread crumbs. A pinch of salt and pepper added flavor; no other spices or condiments were used so that the natural taste of the meat could really shine on its own.
Tip: If you're planning to cook burgers using more than one method, better get your timing right or one set of patties will blacken and turn to shoe leather before the other set stops mooing. Meat with a higher fat content will also help to keep the burgers moist.
Call those lessons learned.
The George Foreman method was the quickest, searing the molded and shaped patties in about four minutes -- long before the charcoal even started to heat up. For the pan-fried burgers, I used a simple non-stick pan with a touch of olive oil spray and cooked them about 5-7 minutes until charred on the outside and cooked through.
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| The George Foreman grill is quicker than a TKO. |
Of course, that could be because I was cooking all three types of burgers simultaneously (bad idea unless you have a kitchen staff).
Here's how the test went: Pan-fried was labeled "Burger A", charcoal was "Burger B" and George Foreman grill was "Burger C." Here's what our three volunteer tasters had to say when they blind tested the 3 cooked burgers:
Chris: They're all not that bad. Burger A is a little juicier than Burger C. Burger C is... meh. Burger B is clearly the best.
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