A Hamburger Today- aht.seriouseats.com

Grilled: Jason Perlow

Posted by Adam Kuban, October 16, 2006 at 9:00 AM

Photograph by Jonathan Lurie, courtesy of Off the Broiler.

Name: Jason Perlow
Location: Tenafly, New Jersey
Occupation: technologist, foodblogger, and Internet food-discussion pioneer

How often do you eat burgers?
Several times a month, although my wife tries to keep it down to once a week—she doesn't like it when I eat too much meat.

Where did you eat your most recent one?
I had a really good, old-school twin burger platter at Holsten's in Bloomfield, New Jersey, recently. Its an old-time ice cream parlor, soda shop, and luncheonette-type place that dates back to the late 1930s, and not a damn thing has ever changed about it. Toasted, soft burger bun, with American cheese melted on each side, cooked on a grill, just the right meat-to-bun ratio, with slices of crisp bacon, and cooked perfectly medium-rare. Very simple and straightforward, but that's exactly what you want sometimes.

Cheese: American, cheddar, other?
I order burgers with American cheese for the most part, only because I believe it's the ideal melting cheese on a burger. It's used more than anything else for a very good reason. However, I have in no way an exclusive relationship with processed cheese slices—I love a good cheddar burger or Monterey Jack or a good Swiss or even a blue-cheese burger from time to time. I've even had burgers with melted port-wine cheesefood on the top, and it works phenomenally well. And pizza burgers with mozzarella kick ass.

Ketchup or mustard?
Both, if I'm making them at home. And sometimes mayo, too, depending on my mood. Mayo and Dijon mustard mixed together with a bit of horseradish is great, applied liberally to a toasted bun with a totally plain broiled burger, medium-rare, with nothing else on it—the mustard and mayo and horseradish combined with the juices make an incredible natural sauce. Try it sometime.

Sesame-seed or plain?
I like sesame seeds. But I love a good kaiser roll with poppy seeds or onion roll, if we're talking about a platform for a large burger. You can't beat a nice rye for a patty melt, either, which I think is a perfectly valid type of burger. The toasted English muffin is totally underrated as a burger platform, too.

Grilled, griddled, or broiled?
I think all preparations are equally valid because there are different genres of burgers. At a summer cookout, a backyard burger formed by hand has to be grilled. The classic fast-food or diner burger has to be griddled, and the steakhouse or pub burger needs to be broiled. But each of these burgers has to have a different meat composition, fat makeup, and quantity of meat for each to work under the right circumstances.

And how would you like that done, sir?
Medium-rare, if I have the choice.

Would you do us the favor of describing your perfect burger? (Price and ingredients are no object.)
Just like I love women of all types, I love burgers of all types. But, as a general rule, I prefer to start with meat with a higher fat content—80 percent lean chuck with 20 percent fat is a good start, although sometimes I even mix in a bit of bacon grease to add that extra oomph if we're making them at home, especially if we're using a hot outdoor grill, which tends to dry out the meat. Beef trimmings are probably best if you have a good butcher who can grind up hamburger for you fresh—sirloin isn't a bad burger base either, but I wouldn't use it exclusively as a burger mix, as it needs more fat thrown. So I would only use it as about 50 or 60 percent of a hamburger mix, mixed with other stuff like chuck and even a little bit of brisket. Wagyu-style beef makes phenomenal burger meat because of the perfect marbling, but it's insanely expensive. I also prefer a coarser hamburger grind.

Once you have the mix tweaked, you want to really season it well. Kosher salt and black pepper are key, and I also like to put in a little bit of onion powder and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce. Don't overwork the meat, just get the stuff incorporated. Don't try to make the patties perfectly round and smooth, because the jagged irregularities actually improve the texture and overall taste experience. I love the little crispy pieces that sort of stick out.

If we're talking larger burgers, one-quarter pound is the ideal size and is about as big as you should get if you're going to put on toppings and condiments. I used to like really huge burgers, eight ounces and larger, but as I have refined my tastes in recent years, I'd actually prefer to eat two smaller burgers instead of one huge one, only because the bigger burgers take so much longer to cook and frequently yield uneven results.

Cooking medium—I tend to agree with the purists that a cast-iron pan, one that is heavily seasoned and has been used almost exclusively for burger cooking, is the ideal way to cook a burger. No juices are wasted, and thus it never produces dried-out results. However, I love the taste of charcoal from a Weber grill, and steakhouse salamanders (like the one used at Peter Luger) make an incredible crust. If somehow you could combine all three? That would be a nice trick. Perhaps cold-smoke the meat for a few hours, grind it, then griddle in-pan to par-cooked, and then run it under the salamander or broiler for a minute to get a nice crust. I'd only try that with an eight-ounce burger, though. And then after the burger is done, put it on the plate and let it rest for a few minutes! Just as you would with a nice steak or a pork chop—the juices need to be sucked back into the meat before eating it.

The hamburger is a food item with which most Americans have strong childhood associations. Do you remember your earliest encounter with this most delicious of sandwiches?
It has to be from when I was really little and my grandfather used to take me to McDonald's after school. In the early '70s, Mcdonalds burgers kicked ass, as did their fries and apple pies, because they fried everything in beef tallow then. I get misty eyed just thinking about it. Oh, what a loss.

What's your favorite fast-food burger?
Nowadays, White Castle. Without question.

The title of your blog, Off the Broiler, is a reference to a little-known ordering trick for getting a just-cooked burger from Burger King. Do you have any other tricks or advice on ordering burgers so you get them done just so?
I wish I had some sage advice for ordering burgers, but I'm just as clueless as everyone else. Ask for the burger rarer than you think you want it, because most places tend to overcook and there also is the issue of carryover time and waiting at the pass. So I always order burgers medium-rare or rare, unless the place has a really good reputation and always cooks its burgers consistently.

What topping or condiment, in your opinion, should never grace a burger?
I don't have a particularly good position on what should "never" grace a burger. Other world cultures put some things on burgers that most Americans would consider downright bizarre but which works in the context of that culture. The Japanese and Brazilians have perfectly valid condiments and toppings, for example.

I do think that putting foie gras in a burger is a waste, however. It disrespects both dishes simultaneously.

What's the most unusual burger you've ever eaten? (Or most unusual burger experience you've had?)
Well, there's unusual because of toppings and there's unusual because of preparation. Getting back to weird toppings—I really love the burgers at Compania Do Sanduiche, a Brazilian burger and sandwich shop here in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. The one that comes to mind and the one I order there time and time again is the sandubao ("huge sandwich" in Portuguese), which is a burger topped with a shredded chicken–cream cheese mixture, a fried egg, bacon, ham, mozzarella, corn kernels, potato sticks, lettuce, tomato, and their burger sauce, which is kind of like the Schnäck sauce that Harry Hawk makes but has hot chiles in it.

In terms of unusual because of preparation—and atmosphere, I have to hand it to Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut, which is one of the places that claims to have invented the hamburger. In many ways, it's the perfect burger because the meat mix is ideal, and it's flame broiled—but they grill it vertically in crazy gas-fire contraptions that date back to the 1880s, with the burgers held in a spatchcock basket. They cant even get parts for them anymore, and they have to hold them shut with butter knives. It's served on white toast, with just tomato, cheese, and grilled onion. Ketchup is verboten—if you ask for it, they throw you the hell out of there.

Another burger which was bizarre but also equally tasty was also in Connecticut, at O'Rourke's Diner in Middletown. O'Rourke's was the originator of the steamed cheeseburger (also served at Ted's in Meriden). Unfortunately it burned down just a few weeks ago, although they're talking about rebuilding it. I really hope they do—their burgers and other food were awesome.

What's the most overrated burger you've tried? Most underrated?
Overrated: In-N-Out.

Underrated: the Blue Smoke Burger. People line up for an hour to get the burger at Shake Shack, but its sister Danny Meyer burger at Blue Smoke just a few blocks away (although different because it is charcoal grilled) is just as good, and you won't likely have to stand in line for it, either.

For some crazy reason, you're going vegetarian. Where do you go for your final burger?
As a condemned man, I'd have to make it at home, to be around my friends and family. Sixteen ounces of freshly ground Wagyu steak from Lobel's to make two eight-ounce death row burgers, seasoned with only salt and pepper. Cast-iron grill pan, cooked to medium-rare, finished off with the infrared broiler on my Garland.

No fries. Just caramelized onions as a topping. Very simple burger buns, perhaps the larger Martin's potato rolls. Something that would catch the juices well and wouldn't interfere with the taste and texture of the meat.

BURGER JOINTS REFERENCED
Holsten's: 1063 Broad Street, Bloomfield NJ 07003; holstens.com
McDonald's: Various locations worldwide; mcdonalds.com
White Castle: Various locations, mostly in the Northeast; whitecastle.com
Burger King: Various locations worldwide; burgerking.com
Compania do Sanduiche: 455 Palisade Ave., Cliffside Park, NJ 07010
Louis' Lunch: 261-263 Crown Street, New Haven CT 06510; louislunch.com
O'Rourke's Diner:728 Main Street, Middletown CT 06457; orourkesdiner.com
Ted's Restaurant: 1044 Broad Street, Meriden CT 06450; steamedcheeseburger.com
In-N-Out Burger: Various locations in California, New Mexico, and Arizona; in-n-out.com
Blue Smoke: 116 E. 27th Street, New York NY 10016; bluesmoke.com
Shake Shack: Madison Ave. and 23rd Street, New York NY 10010; shakeshacknyc.com

FURTHER READING
Off the Broiler [Mr. Perlow's foodblog]
eGullet [food-discussion site cofounded by Mr. Perlow]
Jason Perlow's Top Burger List [AHT Archives]
Other Grilled interviews [AHT Archives]

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