One other thing if you are cooking burgers, sausages or anything else with a high fat content, DON'T press them while cooking. I don't know why people do this but you will end up with a dried up piece of carpet.
Easy way of cooking burger,
- Oil grill, I wouldn't use olive oil as the burning point it quite low.
- make sure the grill is no to hot, simple test is that you can hold your hand over the grill for around 10 seconds.
- place on patty on the grill and leave the dam thing alone.
- Close lid if you have one
- Wait until fat is just about beginning to melt on the top. Sound be around 3 to 4 minutes at most depending on the thickness of the patty.
- Turn patty over, you will quite literally only need a minute or two.
- If you are inexperienced at BBQ and don't want to poison anyone, then get a cooking thermometer. Patty will be done once its gets to 165F. An instant read digital one costs around a fiver off e-bay. Also great for checking any type of cooking meat.
If you are making your own burgers at home (which will taste 100x better), couple of tips.
- You want some fat in the patty, around 10% to 15% is good.
- Adding breadcrumbs (or garlic curtons like I do) plus an egg will help bind it
- Add herbs, spices, etc for extra flavour. You can also try cheese in the middle, ketchup, chilli, etc
- Don't overwork the meat, don't use a food processer.
- split into 1/4lb balls and put in the fridge for an hour. If you want bigger burger then cook two 1/4lb rather then one 1/2lb
- Aiming for patty around 1/4" think. Personally I put in a oiled freezer bag and roll it. Lay out on grease proof paper.
- Freeze for an hour before cooking, it will help keeping it all together.
OK, enough cooking tips for one day.