Where’s the Beef? The Quest for the Perfect Burger

I can smell sizzling flesh from three blocks away.

 

I’m at the Roscoe Village neighborhood “BurgerFest” with another member of my culinary adventure club on a hot July afternoon.  We’re on a quest for The Perfect Burger, and we figure our odds of finding it here are pretty good.

 

And there are plenty of tempting options  — booth after booth of Chicago’s premier patty purveyors line the street.  Smoking grills manned by sweaty cooks from Hamburger Mary’s, John’s Place and Mario & Gino’s beckon us to sample their charms, but we stroll on.  We’ll know the right place when we smell it.

 

Soon, we’re stopped dead in our tracks by the smell of smoke wafting from storefront steakhouse Select Cut’s brazier.  The smoke is, well, juicy.  My companion and I look at each other and grin.  We may have just found the Holy Grail of burger joints. 

 

I fork over $9 for their top-of-the-line model, a half-pound of ground beef topped with grilled onions and “peppercorn sauce.”   Sounds good.  The counter guy tongs a burger patty onto a grilled bun, adds a slice of American Cheese, a nest of grilled onions and then — what’s this?  He dips a ladel into a warmer filled with what looks like au jus, and pours the liquid over my burger.  Interesting.  This must be the peppercorn sauce.  I grab two big handfuls of napkins, and we find a table.

 

Now, like you, I’ve been making and eating this most classic American fare all my life, and I’ve become something of an expert on what makes a bitchin burger.   There can be infinite topping variations — I’ve tried everything from  pork rinds to peanut butter — but a truly good burger can be deconstructed into just two basic components: meat and bread.  Preferably cheap meat and good bread.  I like a high fat content in my ground beef, and when I’m shopping for burger fixin’s I’ll pass up the grass-fed organic ground Kobe for a hunk of $1.99-a-pound mystery meat any day.   But I’ll splurge on the bun:  sourdough, baguette, tangy rye — it doesn’t matter as long as it’s grilled.  Taking the time to lightly butter and grill the bun can elevate an ordinary burger into the realm of the sublime.

 

A good burger should be hot and juicy.   I’m always sorely disappointed when some well-meaning but hapless grill guy at a picnic takes things too far and serves up overdone, lifeless, chewy patties.  A good burger should drip grease down your arm and onto your good shirt.  An excellent buger should make you feel dirty, inside and out.  The Perfect Burger — well, the mind simply cannot fathom how good that will be.

 

This Select Cut Burger is certainly juicy.  The bun is soaked, and a small puddle of “peppercorn sauce” is pooled in the bottom of the container.   And it is really good.  The meat is flavorful, the bun is nicely grilled, the onions are plentiful.  My companion and I are impressed, although we both agree that American cheese would not have been our first choice — we’d have preferred something sharper or smokier.

 

But, sadly, this is not The Perfect Burger.  As good as this is, I have to admit I’ve had better.  Hell, I’ve made better.  I recently pan-fried a misshapen patty of cheap supermarket ground beef in hot bacon fat in a cast iron skillet, topped it with crispy bacon slices, melted cheese, sliced tomatoes, red onion, mayonnaise, and piled it all on a grilled challah roll.  It was homely, obscenely rare and almost impossible to eat.  And it was heavenly. 

So have I found, in all my culinary wanderings, the Perfect Burger?  Have I unearthed, at this little neighborhood BurgerFest, that culinary mecca meal I share with every other confirmed carnivore in America?  That one burger that will make me weep in joyous discovery as I wipe grease from my chin?

 

 Not yet, Dear Readers.  But there are plenty of good burger joints in the world, and I’m willing to sacrifice my own coronary health to selflessly toil on in relentless pursuit.   Could you pass me some more napkins?