FIRED-UP FOURTH
Beef up grill game with triple steak burgers
If you’re going to fire up the grill in the swelter of a South Florida summer afternoon, make it count. Don’t just grill a burger – grill a mighty burger.
And for advice on how to achieve one, we turn to America’s foremost grilling expert, Steven Raichlen. He also happens to know a thing or two about our summer swe lter, as he’s a par t-time resident of Miami.
He believes a stellar burger is one that’s built of carefully selected components.
“The most important factor may be the one over which few of us take any control: the composition of the meat,” he writes in his most recent book, “Project Fire” (Workman Publishing, $22.95). “What’s actually in the ground beef you buy in your supermarket cold case? Well, here’s an occasion to take charge and determine the meat blend.”
A nd by “take charge” Raichlen means there’s more to a great burger than achiev- ing the proper fat-to-lean-meat ratio in ground beef.
His dream burger? “Equal parts brisket, sirloin, and short ribs.”
The brisket lends “beefi- ness” to the burger, he says. The sirloin offers, of course, the “steakiness.” The blend’s “richness and fat” comes from the short rib meat.
The result is Raichlen’s Triple Steak Burgers, flavorful patties that don’t require too many added touches.
But, hey, if you’ve gone through the trouble of procuring the proper meats and braving the swelter, what’s a little extra fuss? Griddle some bacon. Slice a juicy tomato and a ripe avocado, and maybe an onion and some pickles. And pick up some proper bread – a buttery brioche would make a nice bun.
Raichlen’s suggestion for the burger’s crowning touch: “I like to put the potato chips on the burger, not next to it, for extra crunch.”
The following recipe has been reprinted from Steven Raichlen’s new cookbook, “Project Fire: Cutting-Edge Techniques and Sizzling Recipes from the Caveman Porterhouse to Salt Slab Brownie S’Mores” with permission of Workman Publishing.