Best Burger

At this moment it's kind of hard to type -- my arms (and back and legs) are so very very stiff and sore from the weekend's dirt biking adventure. It was super, all mud and puddles and wet rocks and I leaped over a large log and caught about 3 inches of air in a jump. But the after effects on my poor little body are staggering. If this is age 34, I'm not interested in age 60. Yikes.

As fuel to heal our bruises and aches, we feasted on burgers when we got home.

Now, "hamburger" is one of the top-Googled recipes on this planet. But why? Good beef + salt & pepper + hot grill = good burger. There is simply no need to complicate matters with bread crumbs, relish, onion soup mix, eggs etc.

Really, the only "secret" ingredient is fat. Extra lean beef makes tough, dense burgers that taste like nothing. Fat delivers flavour and keeps the texture loose. But since it's hard to find anything richer than lean ground these days, here's my solution: buy a bag of shredded suet.

A few weeks ago I hooked up with the daughter of a farmer who sold me 5 lbs of very lean grass-fed ground. So I mixed a few tablespoons of frozen suet into the meat before shaping the patties. There were some flare-ups on the grill, but the burgers were so moist and yummy that we both ate 2 (!!). And so quickly there wasn't time to take a photo.