How to Smash, Grind, Grill and Build a Better Burger

The burger is the most copied and most badly copied item in chain food, because it looks like the simplest. Mince, heat, bun. In practice almost every home version fails at one of four points, and they are the same four points every time.

The grind and the fat. Eighty-twenty is not a suggestion. A leaner mince gives a patty that is dry at the centre and pale at the surface, because fat is both the moisture and the browning. Chuck at 20 per cent fat is the chain standard for a reason, and a butcher will grind it coarse if you ask.

The surface. A flat-top runs at 230 °C and does not drop when a cold patty lands on it because it has enormous thermal mass. A domestic non-stick pan drops forty degrees instantly and then steams the meat. Cast iron or carbon steel, preheated far longer than feels sensible, is the only real answer.

The smash window. You have about ten seconds. Press the ball hard and flat within that window and the surface fuses to the pan and forms a lacy, brittle crust. Press at forty seconds and you are just squeezing juice out of a patty that has already set.

The build. Sauce sticks lettuce to bun. Cheese glues the patty down. Tomato goes above the patty, never below, or the bottom bun dissolves. There is a correct order and it is structural, not aesthetic.