I've already mentioned my disagreement with "experts" who think you should delay the addition of salt to your burger until right before the burger goes on the grill (i.e., don't mix salt, pepper, herbs, and other seasonings into your patties as you're forming them). To me, this defies common sense, but I've found some videos in which this advice is given. Let's start with the following clip (a chance to practice using YouTube "clip" mode):
Here's Babish (Andrew Rea) being doctrinaire about never mixing salt & pepper into your ground beef (the old "don't ever let me catch you" line @ 5:19):
And here's Adam Ragusea also saying not to mix salt into the meat (1:14):
In trying to remember who gave the advice never to season the interior of the burger, I had thought that Gordon Ramsay might be among the guilty parties, but it looks as though I was wrong. Here's Ramsay adding seasoning before he forms patties:
If Gordon Ramsay is on my side, I feel vindicated.
ADDENDUM: the more discerning among you might contend that there is a distinction between "delay the addition of salt until right before the burger hits the grill" and "don't mix salt into your burger patty." For my purposes, I see these as effectively the same thing. If you don't salt your burger until right before it hits the grill then, logically, you haven't added salt to the burger at all up to that point, so no salt got mixed into the patty—it's being added to the patty's exterior at the last moment. I also made no reference to adding extra salt, either, so this is not a question of salting the ground beef, making the patty, then salting again right before grilling. Alles klar?
Also, there is huge difference between seasoning something just on the outside and seasoning it all the way through. You might get the basic saltiness from surface-level seasoning, but you're not going to get the deep development of flavors from early, worked-through seasoning. This is why you season a soup or stew as you are making it, not just at the very end. Yeah, soup/stew and meat are different, but many of the same principles apply.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, this whole thing seemed kind of ridiculous to me from the start. It feels like having a friend come to me and exclaim, "You know what? I think maybe we shouldn't be bashing our heads against brick walls after all!"
(Incidentally, this is why I hate food/cooking YT videos. I don't need someone scolding me about what I am and am not supposed to be doing.)
Good points.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure Babish was at least half-joking with his "don't let me catch you" line (as I'm sure you know), but now that I think about it, cooking vids on YouTube do tend to be a bit more scold-y and preachy than, say, Food Network cooking shows. I do miss watching the Food Network. Some shows were absolutely useless (looking at you, "Chopped"), but a lot of the shows made me feel as if I were sitting with a good prof. Even more, because the various Food Network chefs gave advice that overlapped, the lessons often reinforced each other. Watching cooking vids on YouTube, by contrast, is a bit more of a disjointed experience.
That's the one channel that HJ misses from the US. We used to watch a lot of the Food Network when we visited my parents in NY. Now they don't have cable anymore, alas.
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