when I was a teenager I worked at this restaurant Max & Erma's: Menu serving and at times cooking. I learned a lot about cooking hamburgers there and what they were doing wrong. Originally they'd put the patties on the flat top grill and then squirt water onto them while covering the hamburger to help them cook faster yet retain the moisture.
I guess their logic was
"The dome used is called a basting cover or cheese melting cover. It does serve 2 purposes though. The obvious one from the name is to help speed up the melting cheese process by providing heat retention. The second and as important reason is to provide more even cooking for the burger. By covering, you are essentially radiating more heat around the whole patty, thus cooking it more evenly and faster, so to not overcook it. The steam generated provides heated moist air which also helps the burger to remain more moist and to retain its juices to cook in."
Personally I think if you have the time you shouldn't cover the hamburger because it cooks it too evenly from the outside to the center. I like the outside to be a little crisp and the inside a little juicy. This requires a little more expertise and is easy to screw it up if you're distracted in the restaurant but I enjoy the difference in texture and not the uniformity. If it's a flat grill it's also important to gently slide the patty around so no part sticks and overcooks, this helps make the outside perfect for sealing in the juices. I also think pressing on the patty at any time during the cooking process is sacrilegious and will squeeze the juices out destroying them from cooking into the meat.
DON'T squish the hamburger!
R.I.P. Joseph Bach (Itchymoku), 1987-2018.
Please visit this thread for more information.
The following 2 users say Thank You to Itchymoku for this post:
Hi appreciate posts of this nature but do have to question is everyone trying to live to be an old wrinkly 150 or what?
Why not just live your life and enjoy it! (your gonna die sometime)
Me personally I don't want to see me at 150 yrs old..
regardless of your intake the body wears out
i.e. bones, arteries,age. etc.
we are not robots well at least not me i chose to enjoy depending on circumstance a nicely charbroiled steak medium rare.... Dang it's good
live life to the fullest TODAY! Might be your last one!!
The following 3 users say Thank You to learning0101 for this post:
Howdy @Itchymoku for a fast food burger it is dang good, especially the just good ol texas toast and beef as @tturner86 posted pic of
Dang, it is as mouth watering as it looks.... Meat and Cheese baby hard to go wrong, add some Jalos all set!!
The following user says Thank You to learning0101 for this post:
