NJ burger
I’m a bit a traditionalist when it comes to burgers.
I like a medium rare juicy patty with onions, tomato, lettuce, cheese, ketchup, mayo on a toasted bun. I don’t gravitate to gourmet burgers with fancy toppings on them.
It has a lot to do with being an immigrant. I too grew up eating McDonald’s Happy Meals, mostly for the plastic miniatures that came in the box. I remember fighting with my brother when I was six over the paper crown in the shiny plastic interiors of a Morristown Burger King.
I loved going to eat burgers with my family. It was the one place that was affordable as a young immigrant family.
Seoul burger
After we moved back to Seoul for my father’s work, I didn’t have access to American fast food. My mom shopped at a store that smuggled goods from the US Army PX. She brought home Apple Jacks, Chips Ahoy, Pringles, and on special occasions Betty Crocker Cake Mix. These were the taste of home (New Jersey) for me. Sometimes my father would bring us a special treat of Smucker’s marmalade packets from the Plaza hotel breakfast buffet.
I missed my life in New Jersey. I always longed to go back.
Once in a while our family would go to the basement foodcourt of Lotte Hotel (the fanciest hotel in Seoul back then) to get burgers at Lotteria, a Japanese burger franchise that opened in Korea in 1979. It wasn’t the Golden Arches, but it was something. After waiting in the long lines for a few unsatisfying hamburgers, my family opted instead for the Shabu Shabu place on the 10th floor. Why settle for a non American knockoff?
April 17th, 1988, my freshman year of college, the first McDonald’s opened in Seoul just two blocks away from my parent’s place in Gangnam.
The giant inflatable Ronald McDonald sat on top of the 2-story, pink granite building. The Korean flag waved between red and yellow McDonald’s flags above the entry.
I waited in line for hours for my Big Mac with fries and coke. I carried the precious booty on a brown plastic tray (the same ones in NJ!) to a booth looking out to the street where I longed to leave. I ripped open the fries and a couple of ketchups on the tray. Grabbed my Big Mac with both hands and bit into it for the first time in six years. Home.
Paris burger
Senior year of college (1991) I got a Eurail-pass and got to see Paris, Siena, Venice, and Rome. I wish I could say I had amazing food. But I was young, ignorant, closed minded, and homesick.
The best meal I had on the trip was the Royal Cheese at McDonald’s in Montmartre Paris, twice. Home.
My burger criteria
Based on my early life’s memories I came up with the following criteria for the quintessential burger.
Delicious.
Affordable.
Sharable.
Patty both juicy and crispy.
Buns that hold up (not soggy).
Cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions.
Ketchup, mustard, mayo, or secret sauce.
My burger research
Patty
I looked at patties made of dried aged meats, very expensive Wagyu patties, multiple beef parts mixes, beef & pork mixes, plant based, etc.
As long as you have good ground beef with over 20% of fat, using the supermarket pre made patty made the most sense to me. It wasn’t the beef patty so much as the preparation method that made the patty delicious.
I looked at different methods to prepare the patty including, Louisiana deep frying, New York smashing, Connecticut steaming, Georgia grilling, and Seattle sous vide + blowtorching.
The easiest tried and true method was the super hot grill in the yard.
Bun
I looked at different buns from en vogue buttery brioche buns, King’s Hawaiian sweet rolls, structurally sound kaiser rolls, perfectly round English Muffins, resilient to liquids chiabatta rolls, Salty Pretzel rolls, Big Mac-esque sesame seed buns, and traditional potato rolls among others.
How you separate all the fat from the bun was paramount. How the bun hold up once it meets the fat was secondary but important none the less.
Sauce
I deducted the ingredients of “secret sauces” from the giant fast foods chains McDonald’s, Five Guys, In and Out, Shake Shack, Burger King, and White Castle. I deducted the ingredients of “secret sauces” from the best non-fastfood non-chain restaurants including Au Cheval in Chicago, Minetta Tavern in Greenwich Village, Peter Luger Steak House in Williamsburg, Gramercy Tavern in Flatiron, 4505 Burgers & BBQ in San Francisco, Better Luck Tomorrow in Houston.
The taste of the secret sauce and method applied to the burger determined the overall flavor of the burger more than any other element.
In my search for the perfect burger I discovered that the best American burger “secret sauces” were predominately a mixture of the following 5 condiments.
Ketchup
Mayonnaise
Mustard
Chili
Worcestershire
Deeper burger research
I had concurring research on microbial activated foods at the time of the burger research. Here again are the top 5 condiments used in making “secret sauces” across America with the country of origin.
Ketchup ….. from coastal China/Korea/Vietnam (via Malaysia and Singapore).
Mayonnaise ….. from France.
Mustard ….. from India (Indus region now Pakistan).
Chili ….. from Mexico.
Worcestershire ….. from Bengal (now Bangladesh).
Unsurprisingly they are from all over the world because flavors don’t have borders or nationalities. Immigrants, we get the job done!
Brooklyn surprise!
To my surprise the “secret sauce” of the number one burger in America 2019 contains Vietnamese fish sauce, Japanese mayo, and Korean gochujang! It is called the Emmy burger and is served at a pizza restaurant in Brooklyn. This was the lightning moment for me because I knew intuitively that these three ingredients would work, but my cultural bias restricted me of using these ingredients. I just couldn’t accept that the quintessential American burger was made with the mother of Korean sauces, gochujang.
All my life I moved away from Seoul to New York, from Korea to America, from old world to new world, from the past to the future.
I discovered the most Korean ingredient in the most American burger in Brooklyn.
But it all made so much sense once I got past my own prejudice.
Conclusion of the burger research
The American burger’s special sauce is a layering of condiments created by microbial flavor creation.
Ketchup, Mayo, Mustard, Chili, and Worcestershire are all microbial flavor creations. All are “basic” forms of microbial flavor creation.
I knew I could create a deeper flavor profile that would keep the original taste intact while elevating it to a whole new level. I would use “complex” and “deep” forms of microbial cooking to create the quintessential American burger sauce.
I broke the code. I knew how to create the most delicious, affordable, quintessential American burger ever.
Quintessential American Burger Sauce
Here is what I used.
Instead of Ketchup: use Red Boat Vietnamese fish sauce and tomato paste.
Why? To add an even deeper flavor profile without the chemicals of the industrial taste of Heinz.
Instead of Mayonnaise: use Japanese Kewpie or Korean Otuggi mayonnaise.
Why? Using egg yolks only (most American mayos uses the whole egg), rice vinegar rather than distilled vinegar, and eliminating water gives Japanese and Korean mayonnaise a thicker texture than American mayonnaise. Two particular brands Kewpie and Otuggi have free glutamate which makes everything taste better.
Instead of Mustard: to be investigated.
Use regular mustard for now.
Instead of Chili: use Gochujang from Korea.
Why? To add the deep hot spice of sun dried chilies. The fermentation process of gochujang brings chili spice to a new level only achieved at the microbial level with natural ingredients, time and care.
Instead of Worcestershire: use Korean Gochujang & Vietnamese fish sauce.
Why? Worcestershire sauce is a variation of an old fish fermentation called garam. the Gochujang and fish sauce will have the same effect but deeper.
Ingredients
Patty ….. two patties per burger. 1/4 pound patties.
Pretzel bun ….. I buy them at Whole Foods.
Cheddar Cheese ….. because it is the closest color and flavor to Kraft American cheese.
Lettuce ….. Romaine lettuce, because it is crispier than regular lettuce.
Onions ….. 1/2
Garlic ….. 1 clove
Avocado ….. 1/2
Tomato ….. 1/2
Salt
Mayonnaise
Fish sauce
Gochujang
Tomato paste (optional)
Instructions
Salt the patty
Before anything, salt the patty. Salt will bring out the flavor.
Double patty
A burger patty is not a steak. I like a thick piece of steak with a juicy medium rare inside and a crispy charred outside. But for a burger, which is ground beef, the structure and density of the meat is already changed, so a thick patty doesn’t make sense in terms of flavor profile.
The advantage of having two patties is that you can get double the surface area. The charred outside surface of the patty undergoes the Maillard reaction that gives meat its savory taste. This is why you see a lot of double patty burgers at Shack Shack or Five Guys. The Big Mac is the obvious example. The Big Mac goes further by adding an extra bun between the patties to ensure you get all 4 crispy delicious charred patty surfaces in every bite. It is American ingenuity at its finest.
Use a super high heat to grill the patties. Use an outside grill if possible. You want to see a lot of smoke coming from the patty and grill marks. Not only do the grill marks look delicious, they taste delicious. This is how Burger King differentiates from McDonald’s.
Fat is flavor
Use high fat beef, at least 20% fat. The gourmet burger chefs will have their own version of patty with mostly higher fat content which can only be achieved if you know your meat very well.
Since the highest fat content ground beef you can get that is pre packaged at the super market is 80% meat to 20% fat, I like to use some ripe avocado smooshed with extra virgin olive oil to add more fat to the burger. Be sure to use very ripe avocados so you get the fat effect. You are not necessarily looking for the fresh green avocado flavor.
Cheese is another source of fat. Make sure you melt the cheese onto one of the patties while you are cooking.
For those who can’t have cheese, I like to add a bit more avocado to compensate for the lack of cheese fat in the burger.
Caramelized onions
Fresh onions are crunchy, spicy, and slightly sweet. Cooked onions lose their sharp spicy taste and turn sweet. We want both.
Slice the very thin onions with a mandolin.
Heat vegetable oil in high heat. Infuse a smashed clove of garlic to the oil. Then add the thin onion slices to the hot oil. The thin slices will caramelize rather quickly. Cook till some are fully caramelized and some are not.
Veggies
I hate soggy lettuce in a burger. So I like to use romaine. I chop 1/8 inch slices of the bottom part of the romaine leaves. They are crunchier and will not go soggy for a longer time.
I put in a slice of tomato mainly for sentimental reasons.
I don’t think the tomato adds much to the burger. The tomato paste and ketchup brings much more flavor.
I don’t have pickles in my burger because of two reasons. First, I always used to take out the pickles at McDonald’s and Burger King when I was a kid. I just didn’t like them, and I still think a pickle in the burger is too acidic for my taste.
Second, my brother Jay is allergic to cucumbers. Burgers to me are a family get together food. Why have something you can’t enjoy together?
Pretzel bun
I like the pretzel bun because it is does not get soggy with all the fat from the burger. Also, it is not sweet. And I like the little bit of saltiness. I like the color and shine of the skin and flavor acquired through the Maillard reaction.
Mostly I like it because it does everything the perfect burger bun should do but is an unexpected type of bun.
I have only been able to find it at WholeFoods. Toast the buns.
Eliot’s Secret Sauce
This is the sauce that brings everything together. Elevates the flavor to a new level while still triggering the “American Home” image I have had since a child.
Mayonnaise….. 5 tablespoons
Gochujang ….. 1 tablespoon
Fish sauce ….. 1 tablespoon
Tomato paste ….. 1/2 tablespoon
Mustard ….. 1/2 tablespoon
Putting it together
Spread special sauce on bottom bun. Make sure to spread plenty. At least 1 tablespoon on each half of the bun. Do not be timid with this sauce.
Add a layer of lettuce on top of the sauce. The lettuce layer will prevent the buns from getting soggy from the tomato and patty.
Add tomato on top of lettuce. The tomato acts as another barrier to protect the bottom bun from getting soggy.
Add fist patty with cheese on top.
Add second patty on top of cheese. The cheese acts as a barrier between the two patties. This will preserve the Maillard effect on both the patties.
Add caramelized onions on top of the patty.
Add smashed avocado on top of onions.
Spread special sauce on the top bun. 1 tablespoon.
Cut the burger in half before serving.
The Name
I didn’t know what to call this burger because often people are still wary of gochuchang and fish sauce, and I was afraid people wouldn’t want to eat it if they knew what was in it. I considered calling it the “Chelsea burger” with a “secret sauce.” But that felt like a betrayal of my culture. Further, I found it frustrating that it took a white guy in Brooklyn for me to embrace gochuchang and fish sauce in my burger, and that I still felt unwelcome sharing these foods.
After researching the perfect American burger, I realized that my burger was just as American as any other food created on this soil. I’ve created the quintessential American burger.
What I learned along this journey is that ingredients and tastes have no borders. Only humans have borders.