With summer just around the corner, the smell of barbecuing meats will soon be in the air. The one thing you can do to ensure burgers stay juicy and cook perfectly has been revealed.
Problem Solved urged home cooks to make their burgers ahead of time and put them in the fridge for 30 minutes before grilling. Chilling helps them firm up and maintain their shape during cooking, preventing them from falling apart or becoming too dense. It also allows them to cook evenly and keep the fat in the meat, which helps with juiciness and flavour.
When cooking, the YouTube channel recommends brushing them with a high-heat oil such as sunflower, sesame, avocado, or peanut. This is also when you can add seasonings.
Be sure to preheat your grill, and just before cooking, turn one side of the grill off. This will help prevent meat from overcooking and prevent flare-ups caused by dripping fat hitting the flame. You should only need to turn the burger once during cooking.
Award-winning chef and restaurateur Richard H Turner has also shared his top tip for improving your meat grilling skills on the barbecue: leaving it alone.
Once the meat is on the grill, leave it alone for one minute, then turn every minute or so until cooked perfectly. Moving regularly also helps prevent meat from catching fire.
Cheaper cuts of meat tend to be tougher due to having more connective tissue and collagen. These need to be cooked low and slow to break them down and are more suited to indirect cooking or smoking.
He also recommended two-zone cooking, creating an area with charcoal underneath and one without so that meat roasts rather than grills. This means meat can be moved back and forth for higher or lower temperatures.
Turner ended with what he called “one of the most important stages in any barbecue” – resting the meat. He said to remove meat from the grill before you think it’s ready and allow it to rest for 20 minutes at 60C, cooking in its own residual heat and allowing the tissues to relax.